#47 - Michael Smith | Hostile Telepaths: Why Your Brain Deceives Itself to Survive Social Reality

About this episode

Michael Smith discusses how the brain deceives itself in social situations and offers insights on personal clarity and procrastination.

Michael “Valentine” Smith is a co-founder of CFAR (the Center for Applied Rationality) and the author of influential LessWrong essays including The Hostile Telepaths Problem , Kenshō , and The Intelligent Social Web . He’s also been described as “one of the most powerful wizards in the Bay Area.” In this conversation, he explains why your brain creates fog and self-deception to survive social situations, what it actually takes to find clarity, and why "working on yourself" might be the wrong frame entirely. We also do a live coaching demo debugging my own procrastination. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themetagame.substack.com

People in this episode

Host: Daniel Kazandjian

Guest: Michael Smith

Topics covered

• self-deception
• social situations
• clarity
• procrastination
• personal development

Keywords

• self-deception
• social reality
• clarity
• procrastination
• personal development
• CFAR
• interview

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CFAR

Books & works: The Hostile Telepaths Problem, Kenshō, The Intelligent Social Web

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