92. Tim Samuels — Future Man: How to Evolve and Thrive in the Age of Trump, Mansplaining, and #MeToo

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Dialogue, Science, Reason, Michaelshermer, Natural Sciences, Skeptic

4.4 • 921 Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2019

⏱️ 107 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If ever there was an urgent need for a frank understanding of what’s going on with men, it is now. Male rage and frustration have driven resurgent populism, mass shootings, and epidemics of addiction and violence. Powerful men who have abused their positions for decades have been and are being #MeToo-outed and dismissed. The patriarchy, that solid bedrock of male power for thousands of years, seems to be crumbling.

In Future Man, with his characteristic intelligence and humor, Tim Samuels assesses the state of contemporary manhood, its conflicts, confusions, and challenges. Trapped in bodies barely changed since cavemen days, men are contending with the stresses of corporate culture, lifelong commitment, rampant depression, and crazy expectations to be successful at work and at home. But how can you hunt and gather in an open-plan office? Why do men make up to 95 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs yet 93 percent of the prison population? Why do men commit suicide at more than three times the rate of women?

Shermer and Samuels discuss:

why it’s time for men to listen to women
why it is also time for women to listen to (non-toxic) men
why the treatment of women and men is not zero-sum
fatherhood
violence and how to curb it
war and what it does to men
porn and the problems it causes
why men need sports
mental health
toxic masculinity
gender roles
divorce, child custody, alimony, and spousal support.

Tim Samuels is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, broadcaster, and journalist. He won three Royal Television Society awards and best documentary at the World Television Festival as well as the “Making a Difference” award at the Mind Media Awards for his work on mental health. He created the BBC Radio 5 call-in show Men’s Hour and has been a host for eight years. He recently became a correspondent for National Geographic Channel’s Explorer, based out of New York, and he contributes to such US publications as GQ, New York Times Magazine, and Huffington Post. He lives in London.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's author with a new book is Tim Samuels. His book is Future Man,
0:06.1	How to Evolve and Thrive in the Age of Trump, Mansplaining, and Me Too.
0:12.3	As you can tell by the title, it's a fairly controversial book in terms of the timing of talking about
0:18.5	men's issues when maybe we should just shut up and listen.
0:22.9	So that's how we began.
0:24.0	We talk about that and why he came to write this book
0:26.8	and the reasons for it.
0:28.2	And I think it's fair.
0:30.4	I think it's very fair in terms of how he deals
0:32.4	with a lot of these issues.
0:33.4	So we go through all pretty much all the major topics of current events regarding and surrounding
0:41.3	the Me Too Movement and Trump and then we cover a lot of other related topics.
0:47.0	And so my guest here, Tim Samuels, just to read his bio,
0:52.0	he's an award-winning documentary filmmaker, broadcaster, and
0:55.9	journalist. Tim has been a leading name on the BBC for many years. He now also
1:01.0	appears as a global correspondent on the National Geographic Channel.
1:05.0	Tim's Films have won the top UK and international honors including Best Documentary
1:11.0	at the World Television Festival and three Royal Television Society awards.
1:17.0	He's written for the New York Times Guardian and GQ. Tim's acclaimed new podcast, All Hail, Cale, was the number one new BBC podcast according to the London
1:26.8	Evening Standard. We talk about that, by the way, it's about nutrition and diet and what we should be eating, and so we get into the whole realm of how much
1:36.1	protein you should eat, eggs okay, alcohol, things like that. Let's see, Future Man when it was originally published in England was titled,
1:45.9	Who Stole My Spear? It was an Amazon bestseller there. Born in Manchester, England,
	...

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