#610: Who Lives in Survival Situations, Who Dies, and Why

The Art of Manliness

Society & Culture, Education, Philosophy

4.7 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In disasters or accidents, why do some people survive and others perish? In exploring this question, my guest has uncovered psychological and philosophical insights into not only dealing with life-threatening crises, but strategically navigating any situation that involves risk and decision-making. His name is Laurence Gonzales and he's a pilot, a journalist, and the author of several books, including the focus of today's conversation: Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. Today on the show, we discuss how the story of his father being shot out of the sky during WWII set Laurence on a journey to explore the mysterious underpinnings of survival. Laurence then explains what happens to us mentally and emotionally in a disaster situation that causes us to make poor decisions, how our mental models can get us in trouble, and why rule breakers are more likely to survive than rule followers. Laurence then walks us through complexity theory and how trying to make things safer can counterintuitively make them more dangerous. We then talk about why the frequency with which you yell at your kids correlates to your chances of surviving a life-threatening emergency, before ending our conversation with a discussion of the paradoxes would-be survivors must grapple with, including being both realistic and hopeful at the same time. Get the show notes at aom.is/deepsurvival.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's go.
0:07.6	Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.
0:11.1	In disasters or accidents, why do some people survive in others' perish?
0:15.3	In exploring this question, my guest has uncovered psychological and philosophical insights
0:19.4	into not only dealing with life-threatening crises but strategically navigating any
0:23.1	situation that involves risk and decision-making.
0:25.8	His name is Lawrence Gonzalez, he's a pilot, a journalist, and the author of several
0:29.1	books including the focus of today's conversation, Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.
0:34.2	Today on the show, we discuss how the story of his father being shot out of the sky during
0:37.6	World War II set Lawrence on a journey to explore the mysterious underpinnings of survival.
0:41.9	Lawrence then explains what happens to us mentally and emotionally in a disaster situation
0:45.8	that causes us to make more decisions.
0:47.7	How our mental models can get us in trouble and why rule breakers are more likely to survive
0:52.2	than rule followers.
0:53.7	Lawrence then walks us through complexity theory and how trying to make things safer can counterintuitively
0:57.9	make them more dangerous and then talk about why the frequency with which you yell your
1:01.3	kids correlates to your chances of surviving a life-threatening emergency before ending
1:05.0	our conversation with the discussion of the paradoxes would be survivors must grapple
1:08.8	with, including being both realistic and hopeful at the same time.
1:12.3	After the show is over, check out our show notes at a-wim.is slash Deep Survival.
1:16.3	Lawrence joins you now via clearcast.io
1:28.9	Lawrence Gonzales, welcome to the show.
	...

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