Dan Riley

Inverting my life

Rather than asking what will make me happy, ask what is certain to make me miserable? I have some ideas. Sleeping less than 8.5 hours / nightFilling my day with meaningless appointmentsBeing dishonest with myselfHaving fewer than four or five face-to-face social engagements / week

Freedom quotes

"The paradox seems to be, as Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern over them.""The spirit of

Episode 13: Avi Loeb - 'Oumuamua, UFOs, and Extraterrestrial Life

DanRiley.org Episode 13, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels “The one distinction between science and philosophy is that philosophy really addresses the most important questions, but it doesn't have

Episode 12: Bruce Poulter - MDMA for PTSD

DanRiley.org Episode 12, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels “You know what's best for you, you have innate wisdom in you, that knows what you need when you need

Episode 11: Stephen Fried - Benjamin Rush & A Life In Journalism

DanRiley.org Episode 11, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels “I started looking at Benjamin Rush, and as I looked into his story, I was utterly amazed at what an

Episode 10: Dan Barker - A Preacher's Journey From Religion

DanRiley.org Episode 10, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels “For many of us non-believers, our lack of belief, our stance, as non-believers, is just as important and just as

Episode 09: Nancy Segal - Identical Twins and Human Nature

DanRiley.org Episode 09, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels “Every pair of twins, whether identical or fraternal, is a unique twist on human nature, and can really get you

Episode 08: Daryl Davis - Befriending the Ku Klux Klan

DanRiley.org Episode 08, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “I feel that destruction, hatred and fear are all byproducts, all symptoms of ignorance. Ignorance is the nucleus,

Episode 07: H.W. Brands - A History of the American West

DanRiley.org Episode 07, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “It was the first time Americans in substantial groups bonded together and went on these long journeys and

Episode 06: Jonathan Zimmerman - The Importance of Free Speech

DanRiley.org Episode 06, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: "The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." In this

Episode 05: Jeremi Suri - History, and reducing American tribalism

DanRiley.org Episode 05, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “Certainty is in some ways, a protection of ignorance. Not a curiosity. The curious person knows what they

Episode 04: Anthony Charles Graves - Innocence Found

DanRiley.org Episode 04, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “I didn't know that they were just trying to win a case - that they were seeking a

Episode 01: Mike Ware - The Innocence Project of Texas

DanRiley.org Episode 01, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “I thought that the innocence cases, the exoneration cases, those stories, although those are not the only injustices

Episode 03: David Buss - Evolutionary Psychology

DanRiley.org Episode 03, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “We have at any moment in time, many desires; many of which get subjugated to other desires that

Episode 02: Alex Dominguez - Psilocybin for PTSD

DanRiley.org Episode 02, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Support the show on Patreon All episodes on all platforms and social channels Show notes: “Any person who has suffered severe trauma, in particular PTSD, when they try to face the trauma, to

Book Quotes from "The School of Life: An Emotional Education"

Much anxiety surrounds the question of how good the next generation will be at math; very little around their abilities at marriage or kindness. That we think so well of untrained intuition is because (perhaps without realizing it) we are the troubled inheritors of

Quotes from "Atomic Habits"

We all face challenges in life. This injury was one of mine, and the experience taught me a critical lesson: changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years. Habits

All aphorisms

DanRiley.org Aging: The first thing to go when aging is imagination.Most people say “this is who I am now” around 30, and stop growing.Most meet most of their friends before 25.Conversation: Life is a dinner conversation.For many, people are

All quotes

DanRiley.org Decision-making: "The sailor cannot see the north / but knows the needle can.""If you cannot decide, the answer is no.""The hardest 'no' to identify is the one closest to a 'yes'.""The golden rule of decision making is that the person

The enduring Rand

Ayn Rand is a polarizing figure. Still, I have to give it to her. I first read her book Anthem as a teenager. For anyone who felt out of place, stifled in their upbringing, ambitious, industrious, pining for autonomy, she spoke to you in

Quotes from "Awareness: Conversations with the Masters"

Do you think you help people because you are in love with them? Well, I’ve got news for you. You are never in love with anyone. You’re only in love with your prejudiced and hopeful idea of that person. Take a minute

Marijuana tail risks - or, my bout with madness

I began smoking a lot of weed in college. Daily, multiple times a day, high-in-class kind of regularity. I experienced periodic paranoia; I also mostly enjoyed it. Around the second semester of my junior year, something started to change. A door in my deep-thinking

Quotes from "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder"

And we can almost always detect antifragility (and fragility) using a simple test of asymmetry: anything that has more upside than downside from random events (or certain shocks) is antifragile; the reverse is fragile. Crucially, if antifragility is the property of all those natural

Our Digital Hallucination

There's a mass addiction hiding in plain sight, and your mother has been coopted, too. Our parents, who foreswore cigarettes, are blind to the new juice, blind to what their lives - our lives - have become: a digital hallucination. Mute the audio-visual stimuli

Wealth aphorisms

Time is the most valuable thing you can buy.Have a “Mr. Market” view of stocks.What you want is leverage - time and nature working on your side.In investing, the only price that matters is the price on the day that you

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