How to Convince the World of Bulls**t & Evil - Malcolm Gladwell - #1029

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist, podcast host and an author. Do contagious diseases, memetic epidemics, and drug epidemics spread through the same underlying pathways? The answer may explain why society keeps falling into the same contagious patterns, and how we might prevent future memetic epidemics before they happen. Expect to learn what the history of the death penalty is in the United States, what the “Tipping Point” means and what happened when we reached it, how epidemics of ideas differ from epidemics of drugs, what makes someone a “super-spreader” of social change, the “tipping point” dynamic of trans athletes in sports, if we are responsible for the epidemics we start and much more… Timestamps: (0:00) Does the Death Penalty Reflect America’s True Values? (6:36) Why the US Still Clings to Capital Punishment (13:37) How Social Influence Has Shifted Since Malcolm’s First Book (26:37) What Spreads Faster: Drug Epidemics or Dangerous Ideas? (35:29) How Parental Behaviours Shape Who We Become (43:28) Why We’re So Quick to Blame Our Parents (48:00) Why are Stories More Infectious Than Fact? (55:51) Is the Trans Athlete Debate Worthy of Headlines? (01:02:34) Should College Athletes Get More Academic Flexibility? (01:11:32) Keep Up to Date With Malcom Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get 10% discount on all Gymshark products at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Get a 15% discount & free shipping on Manscaped’s shavers at https://manscaped.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM15) Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period from Shopify at https://shopify.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠ #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠ #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠ - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Talk to me about the history of the death penalty, fettered past that I didn't realize existed.
0:05.8	Oh, my goodness.
0:07.1	In what country?
0:08.2	In America?
0:10.0	Yes.
0:12.0	Well, this is a subject we dig into in this new series we've done on Revision's History,
0:19.4	The Alabama Murders.
0:21.0	And, you know, the history of the death penalty in the United States is not a, in other
0:26.3	countries, the battle is essentially about whether you should have it or not.
0:30.6	And in America, the battle is really, we'd like the states to have the right to do it, but
0:37.4	they have to do it humanely.
0:39.2	It's this absurd position where the, an issue is not the morality of the state taking
0:45.8	someone's life.
0:47.0	The issue is that the state should take someone's life in a manner that seems consistent
0:51.0	with the values of America.
0:53.0	So there is this, you know, there used to be the case, you know, it was the way back when it was,
1:00.5	we hung you publicly.
1:03.2	Then we moved on from that, and then was the firing squad, which was considered to be more
1:08.1	humane.
1:09.3	Then they moved on from the firing squad, and they went to the electric chair.
1:14.1	And then from the electric chair, they went to lethal injection.
1:21.0	And then from lethal injection, they have now gone on to nitrogen gas, to asphyxiating you in nitrogen gas.
	...

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