Today, we continue our run of legendary authors and podcasters with Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of New York Times bestsellers, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships and Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. He has a chart-topping dialog podcast is called, Tangentially Speaking,

We have a fun, some times provocative discussion about everything from Muhammad Ali, what’s wrong with modernity, how the world is fundamentally changing, why living in a van is awesome, to what it’s like making a living as roving, smart person.

The Legendary Muhammad Ali

Christopher Ryan and Christopher Lochhead went into an insightful exchange of stories about Muhammad Ali. Chris shares during this lockdown, he discovered a YouTube channel that featured several classic fights and he enjoyed binge-watching on these. 

Chris mentions Pete McCormick, the guy behind a documentary called “Facing Ali” and he interviewed guys who fought Ali. The interesting backstory was, during these tune-up fights, Ali would handpick his opponent. 

“He would tell his agent, he heard one guy, his wife had been killed in an accident, so he will get a quarter-million dollars. He's beating people up in a charitable, generous way.” - Christopher Ryan

Podcasting Has Been Instrumental

Lochhead describes Ryan as “an insanely smart Ph.D. dude who seems to make a living being a smart guy, writing smart shit, podcasting smart shit, generally being the smart guy in the world.” He says podcasting has been instrumental in getting his message across.

“It used to be, if you want to sit down and share your opinions to a hundred young smart people who are interested in hearing an old guy like me, you had a gig in the university. Universities are designed to filter out people like me or Joe Rogan or you, people who are liable to say something outlandish, to challenge this status quo.” - Christopher Ryan

He further shares that he is generally pessimistic about the modern world, but one of the wonderful things that happened recently is that podcasting exploded. 

“It is almost like a printing press, it just exploded, the opportunity to have direct contact between someone in the audience and the audience chooses whether or not it’s worth listening to. It is not the administrators of the university or publishing house, you know the gatekeepers.” - Christopher Ryan

What It Is Like Living In A Van

Christopher says he owned an apartment for a while until last fall when he spent 5 months in the van. He ditched his apartment, rented a storage space, and continued living life on the road since then. He traveled across the United States during the summer and flew to tropical countries during the wintertime. 

“When this stuff got weird, end of January, I flew back. I didn't want to get stranded in Asia. I rented a house in a tiny little town in Colorado. I've been here, it is fantastic, there's no problem with social distancing. I like solitude. I like a good solid chunk of quiet and distance.” - Christopher Ryan

To hear more about Christopher and what’s wrong with modernity and how the world is fundamentally changing, download and listen to this episode.

Bio:

Christopher and his work have been featured just about everywhere, including Netflix, HBO, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Times of London, Playboy, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and The Atlantic.

Chris has been a featured speaker at TED, SXSW, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House,