Cognitive Anthropologist/Social Psychologist. Norn Irish in Japan. Host of @GurusPod. Interested in conspiracism, radicalization, & religion/ritual psychology.
Balaji is an epic bloviator and the epitome of a podcast guru clocking up 7hrs+ with Lex and 4hrs+ with Sam Harris. His post above conveniently ignores that Huberman trades on his Stanford credentials and is a millionaire, just like Rogan & Johnson. There’s a sales pitch about…
In ‘guru’ presentation terms rather obviously they are both excellent speakers. They talk authoritatively & confidently. They also readily slip into using complex technical language, yet always remember to summarise points with simplified metaphors or descriptions afterwards.
...seemingly little appreciation that researchers are not capable of replicating what conspiracy theorists & anti-vaxxers generate because their success relies on misrepresentation & zealotry. Alexandros got into this topic because of being an obsessive fan of Bret Weinstein... 
It is an epidemic of credulity. 
The Introductory Chapter is not a perfunctory one. It provides a nice overview of the overall thesis of the book and a lot of relevant details about Evan’s substantial personal & professional background with Buddhism / efforts to combine Buddhist practices & cognitive science.
There is such a cloying desperation here that it’s almost tragic. But the depressing thing is that it seems to work with so many people. Eric might be recognized as a delusional narcissist in private DMs by people like Sam Harris, but they won’t ever say that publicly.
... that Bret interviews are mostly fringe conspiracy theorists. See for example his fawning interview with Geert Vanden Bossche, who claims the vaccines are likely destroying natural immunity, or the recent horror show with 'serial entrepreneur' Steve Kirsch who talked about...
The heavily anthropomorphised ‘Theory’ is also up to no good. Bored with its adolescent stage of deconstructing everything, it has now entered its moody teens & wants to mess things up properly.
The introduction starts with a rousing paean of ‘liberalism’ defined as a political philosophy that advocates political democracy, limitations on the powers of government, universal human rights, legal equality, freedom of expression, respect for viewpoint diversity & debate...
I also think Stuart deserves a hat tip for the public service he did writing this book. Immersing yourself in frauds, publication bias, and crappy studies for a few years is depressing. It would be hard not to become jaded. And I think it did take some toll. 
The chapter opens with a brief discussion of the 19th Century American scientist Samuel Merton and his efforts to demonstrate that the moral and mental faculties of different races could be traced to their skull size. Morton’s measurements were later harshly critiqued by Gould.