btrmt. lectures

By Dorian Minors

A brain scientist talking about (better) patterns of thought, of feeling, and of action. One pattern, one podcast—you see if it works for you. The btrmt. lectures, with Dr Dorian Minors. (btrmt.—said ... more

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How many episodes does btrmt. lectures have?

The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.

btrmt. lectures episodes:

May 30, 2026Meditation isn't for everyone
Meditation is the one practice everyone agrees on. It’s on the NHS,
in schools, in every influencer’s guide to life, and the pitch is always
the same: good for you, good for everyone, can’t hurt. Two of those
three are false. It can hurt, it isn’t for everyone—and once you see
what it actually is underneath the cushion, you realise you’re probably
already doing it.
Further reading
Meditating for fun and
for profit — the article that inspired this lecture.
The
Scientific Ritual — the first lecture in this arc, on science as a
belief system.
In Praise
of the Sage — the second, on why we trust doctors the way we trust
gurus.
Positive
Intelligence — one of the wellbeing-program takedowns mentioned up
top.
It’s not ‘just’ a
placebo — on why “all in the head” is the point, not the
problem.
Not
brain regions, brain networks — where the harms of mindfulness for
some populations come up again.
Overengineering
calming down — the companion takedown of the calm-down-advice
genre.
Spirituality of
Mind — more on the contemplative tradition meditation was lifted
from.
References
Farias, M. & Wikholm, C. (2015). The Buddha Pill: Can
Meditation Change You? Publisher
page.
Van Dam, N. T., Targett, J., Davies, J. N., Burger, A. &
Galante, J. (2025). Incidence and predictors of meditation-related
unusual experiences and adverse effects in a representative sample of
meditators in the United States. Clinical Psychological
Science. Article.
Schlosser, M., Sparby, T., Vörös, S., Jones, R. & Marchant, N.
L. (2019). Unpleasant meditation-related experiences in regular
meditators: Prevalence, predictors, and conceptual considerations.
PLOS ONE. Article.
Lindahl, J. R., Fisher, N. E., Cooper, D. J., Rosen, R. K. &
Britton, W. B. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A
mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western
Buddhists. PLOS ONE. Article.
Farias, M., Maraldi, E., Wallenkampf, K. C. & Lucchetti, G.
(2020). Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation-based
therapies: A systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica.
Article.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1982). An outpatient program in behavioral medicine
for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness
meditation. General Hospital Psychiatry. Article.
...more
27min
May 16, 2026In Praise of the Sage
The modern Western story is that real knowledge comes from science or
careful reasoning, and anything else—the elder, the guru, the village
wise woman—is suspect. But science and reflection themselves rest on a
third, intuitive, embodied mode of knowing that we use constantly and
pretend we don’t. The doctor and the guru are running on the same
authority structure; the only difference is who’s allowed to wear the
coat. Which means we’re picking our sages by taste instead of
principle—and that’s how charlatans win.
Not sure what I’ve got against linen trousers in this episode. Quite
like them if I’m honest.
Further reading
In praise of the
sage
The
scientific ritual (lecture)
Mundane
cults (lecture)
It’s not ‘just’ a
placebo
Useful
pharmacology
How some psychics use
psychology to screw you (Forer)
AI
hallucination is just man-guessing
Moral
blindspots
Successful
prophets
Everything
is ideology
The
charismatic leader (Weber)
References
Aristotle, Metaphysics
John Dewey, Experience
and Nature
Richard Dawkins, TED:
Militant atheism
Bertram Forer, The
fallacy of personal validation
Phenotypic
drug discovery
Yann Martel, Life of
Pi
...more
34min
May 02, 2026The Scientific Ritual
Science feels like the most reliable thing we have. The opposite of
belief. But it’s a belief system itself—a ritual, with all the failure
modes that rituals have. And the receipts are right there in the
replication crisis.
Further reading
The
Scientific Ritual — the article this lecture is based on
Problems with
p-values — the technical companion: Fisher, Neyman-Pearson, the
hybrid mess
The trap
of scientific evidence — on the “no evidence” tension and the
homeopathy/parachute paradox
Everything
is ideology — science as one belief system among several
In praise of the
sage — other ways of knowing; the MD/PhD distinction
Scientific
fact — on what science actually does
The value of
ritual — ritual as a knowledge-production strategy
Meditation — on the
dinner-table meditation example
Beyond
System 1 and System 2 — on Kahneman’s dual-process framework
The placebo
effect — on why “works for some, not for others” is a feature, not a
bug
Grit —
positive-psychology critique
Overengineering
calming down (lecture) — the broader positive-psychology audit
Bias is good
(lecture) — the cognitive-bias series
Life is
worse (lecture) — the previous episode; a worked example of reading
a literature
References
The replication crisis
itself
Open Science Collaboration (2015), Estimating
the reproducibility of psychological science, Science 349
(6251)
Wikipedia: replication
crisis
American Statistical Association: Wasserstein,
Schirm & Lazar (2019), Moving to a World Beyond “p <
0.05”
Statistical ritualism
Gerd Gigerenzer (2018), Statistical
Rituals: The Replication Delusion and How We Got There, Advances
in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science
Philip B. Stark & Andrea Saltelli (2018), Cargo-cult
statistics and scientific crisis, Significance 15 (4)
Andrew Gelman & Eric Loken (2014), The
Statistical Crisis in Science — the “garden of forking paths”
paper
Andrew Gelman, Why
I don’t like so-called Bayesian hypothesis testing
p-values, Bayes factors,
and software
Wikipedia: p-value, Bayes factor
Ronald A. Fisher (1925), Statistical Methods for Research
Workers — where the 5% threshold appears as an illustrative
example
Harold Jeffreys (1939), Theory of Probability — where the
Bayes-factor thresholds (BF > 3 substantial, BF > 10 strong) come
from
JASP — the open-source
Bayesian statistics software with default priors
Specific
replication-crisis casualties
Cuddy, Wilmuth & Carney (2010) original power posing
paper; Carney’s later statement
withdrawing support
Hagger et al. (2016), A
Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect
Bargh, Chen & Burrows (1996) original elderly
priming paper; failed Doyen
et al. (2012) replication
Brown, Sokal & Friedman (2013), The Complex
Dynamics of Wishful Thinking — demolishing the 3:1
positivity ratio
Carol Dweck, growth
mindset — replication concerns documented in Sisk et al. (2018) and
Bahník & Vranka (2017)
Angela Duckworth, grit —
meta-analytic critique in Credé, Tynan &
Harms (2017)
Books cited in the lecture
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Stephen J. Gould, Adam’s
Navel and Other Essays
Yann Martel, Life of
Pi
Bill Mollison, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual
Other
Richard
Dawkins on militant atheism (TED) — the “evidence vs. faith”
framing
Reform efforts: preregistration, open data, multi-lab replication consortia
(e.g. ManyLabs)
...more
38min
April 17, 2026It’s Not Social Media, Life Is Just Worse
Everyone’s worried about social media and mental health. Jonathan
Haidt sold two million copies telling us smartphones rewired our
children’s brains. Thirty-five US states passed phone restriction
legislation off the back of it. But when you look at the research—really
look—the evidence for social media causing mental health problems is
shockingly thin. What isn’t thin is the evidence that life,
structurally, is getting worse in a dozen measurable ways. Maybe we’re
blaming the screen because the alternative is harder to fix.
Further reading
It’s Not Social
Media, Life Is Just Worse—the article that inspired this
lecture
Amusing
Ourselves to Death—on Neil Postman and the information overload
problem
Why
Do People Kill Themselves—on what structural decline does to the
most vulnerable
Atavism
Isn’t the Answer—the lecture on why “go back to the old ways” rarely
works
The Trap
of Scientific Evidence—on the two forms of “no evidence”
Why
Being Sad Isn’t Always a Bad Thing—on situation–symptom
congruence
The Loneliness
Epidemic
Models
of Psychopathology—on diagnostic quality and what counts as mental
illness
The
Scientific Ritual—on the replication crisis and lazy application of
the scientific method
The True Meaning
of Family Ties—on changing family structures and social
fragmentation
Creating a Digital
Home—on digital selfhood and why we don’t treat our digital lives
with care
References
Amy Orben’s research group,
University of Cambridge
Ferguson, C. J. et al. (2024). Social media use and youth mental
health: A meta-analysis. Professional Psychology: Research and
Practice. doi:10.1037/pro0000589
Fassi, L., Orben, A. et al. (2024). Social media and adolescent
mental health: A meta-analysis of 143 studies. JAMA Pediatrics.
doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.2078
Tolboll, K. B. (2026). Social media use and mental health in
children and adolescents: An umbrella review. Child and Adolescent
Mental Health. doi:10.1111/camh.70071
Fassi, L., Orben, A. et al. (2025). Digital technology use and
adolescent mental health: A registered report. Nature Human
Behaviour. doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02134-4
Broadbent, P. et al. (2023). The public health implications of the
cost-of-living crisis. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe. doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2023.100585
Arundel, R. et al. (2022). Housing unaffordability and mental
health. International Journal of Housing Policy. doi:10.1080/19491247.2022.2106541
McGorry, P. D. et al. (2025). The youth mental health crisis: A
paradigm shift. Frontiers in Psychiatry. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1517533
Kirkbride, J. B. et al. (2024). The social determinants of mental
health and disorder. World Psychiatry. doi:10.1002/wps.21160
Plackett, R. et al. (2022). Digital technology and mental health of
young people: A scoping review. JMIR Mental Health. doi:10.2196/43213
Garcia-Manglano, J. et al. (2024). Escapism, social media, and
internalising symptoms in adolescents. Journal of Social and
Personal Relationships. doi:10.1177/02654075241230248
Maheux, A. J. et al. (2024). Social media use and adolescent mental
health: An annual research review. Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry. doi:10.1111/jcpp.14085
Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985). Wikipedia
Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation (2024). Wikipedia
Stuart Ritchie, Science Fictions (2020). Publisher
...more
30min
April 04, 2026Pop Neuroscience is Just a Fancy Way of Saying ‘Calm Down’
Amygdala hijack, polyvagal theory, the lizard brain, vagus nerve
hacks, brain wave states—these look like different theories explaining
different things about human behaviour. They’re not. They’re all the
same theory: a wildly overengineered version of “just cool the fuck out,
and you’ll be better at stuff.” Why do we keep building these things?
And what do we miss when we do?
Further reading
The
Betterment article that inspired this one
More
on why the amygdala isn’t what pop-psych says
How stress actually
works
Why
we dress up simple ideas in neuroscience jargon
The
sociology of the “interesting”
Abstractions
as gods
On naming
things and losing them in the process
The value of brain
waves
Honey-bees
are smarter than they should be
The false
promise of a return to nature
Giving in
to fight or flight
The problem
of easy measurement
On emotion
No
action without emotion
Emotion and
the mind
Why your
unconscious isn’t the bad guy
Nervous
energy
Positive
Intelligence pt. I
Positive
Intelligence pt. II
Positive
Intelligence pt. III
How does
the brain ‘think’? Pt. I
References
Polyvagal
theory (Wikipedia)
Triune
brain model (Wikipedia)
Positive
Intelligence white paper
Default
mode network (Wikipedia)
Schema
therapy (Wikipedia)
Gestalt
therapy (Wikipedia)
Journal
of Animal Sentience: do fish feel pain?
...more
31min
March 21, 2026Bias is Good
Everyone’s been told that bias is the enemy of good thinking. Over
200 cognitive biases catalogued on Wikipedia, and the message is clear:
your brain is broken, and if you could just think more rationally, you’d
make better decisions. But when researchers actually tested whether
knowledge of biases helped predict behaviour, the experts did worse than
random laypeople. Maybe the problem isn’t bias. Maybe the problem is
what we think bias is.
Further reading
The Betterment
article that inspired this
Confirmation
bias is all there is — fundamental beliefs and belief-consistent
processing
Bias vs Bias —
heuristics vs biases, and why the distinction matters
Stress
and the Yerkes-Dodson Law — bias vs noise in the stress
response
Stress is
Good (Lecture 1) — the stress lecture
The
Amygdala is Not the Fear Centre (Lecture 2) — the amygdala
lecture
Everything
is Ideology — why biases are adaptive
Pop
Neuroscience is Just a Fancy Way of Saying “Calm Down”
References
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking,
Fast and Slow (2011)
List of
cognitive biases (Wikipedia) — the 200+ biases
Rational-actor
model (Wikipedia)
Milkman et
al. (2021): Megastudy on behavioural nudges for vaccination
Oeberst
& Imhoff (2023): Toward Parsimony in Bias Research — the
fundamental beliefs paper
Robert
Axelrod’s iterated prisoner’s dilemma tournaments
Bias–variance
tradeoff (Wikipedia)
...more
27min
March 07, 2026The Amygdala is Not the Fear Centre
Everyone’s been told the amygdala is the fear centre of the brain.
That it hijacks your rational mind and throws you into fight-or-flight
at the sound of an email notification. This is nonsense—the kind of
nonsense that makes every McKinsey consultant sound like a
neuroscientist and every neuroscientist cringe. The amygdala is an
emotional intensity detector, not an emotional dictator. And focusing on
it is distracting you from what actually matters: how you respond to the
world.
Further reading
The
Betterment article that inspired this
Stress is
Good (Lecture 1) — the stress lecture that set this up
More on stress and
the Yerkes-Dodson Law
Why
fight-or-flight isn’t what you think
Pop
Neuroscience is Just a Fancy Way of Saying “Calm Down” — the next
lecture in this thread
How we
make meaning in the brain
References
The
Atlantic article — the management professor’s piece on stress and
the amygdala
Daniel Goleman, Emotional
Intelligence (1995)
Amygdala
hijack (Wikipedia) — note the lack of academic citations
Amygdala
(Wikipedia) — particularly the section on emotional learning
Pessoa
(2010): Emotion and cognition (PDF) — reappraisal evidence, pg
44
Janak &
Tye (2015): From circuits to behaviour in the amygdala — the
complexity of amygdala function
Adolphs
(2015): “The unsolved problems of neuroscience” — on the amygdala
and emotional significance
...more
18min
February 21, 2026 Hydraulic Despotism
Karl Wittfogel’s theory of hydraulic despotism was savaged by his
peers and rightly so. But the pattern he was reaching for—that whoever
controls the essential flowing resource controls the people—is the story
of modern infrastructure. Energy, social media, payment systems, AI
compute. We handed over the water. We don’t have to hand over everything
else.
Further reading: - The Betterment
article that inspired this - From Zero: on recreating
systems from scratch - Digital Selves: taking
control of your digital presence - True Family Ties: on the
erosion of our communities - Education is
Entertainment: on why some ideas stick
References: - Karl
Wittfogel and Hydraulic
civilisations on Wikipedia - Wittfogel, Oriental
Despotism (1957) - Thames Water’s
debt crisis (BBC) - Russia-Ukraine
food insecurity (European Council) - Nvidia
valuation (BBC) - Mann’s Infrastructural
Power on Wikipedia - Platform
Capitalism and its
dynamics - Callon’s Obligatory
Passage Points and Latour’s Actor-Network
Theory on Wikipedia - Essential
Facilities Doctrine on Wikipedia - EU Digital
Markets Act on Wikipedia - Cory Doctorow, “The
Post-American Internet” (39C3 talk) — on the new coalition,
anticircumvention law, and Eurostack - Cory Doctorow on enshittification
and adversarial
interoperability - Elinor Ostrom, Governing
the Commons (1990) - Selye’s Eustress — the
distinction between good stress and bad stress
...more
18min
February 07, 2026 Atavism Isn’t the Answer
Seed oils, raw milk, carnivore diets, tradwives, phone bans,
anti-sunscreen, cold plunges—these look like separate cultural phenomena
across health, diet, gender, and technology. They’re all the same
pattern: the same two faulty assumptions, the same Just So Story
template, the same political movement. The yearnings are real. The
reasoning isn’t.
Further reading: - The Betterment
article that inspired this - Evolution is
Overrated - All
Food is Toxic - Hydraulic
Despotism - Nature
vs Nurture Just Isn’t That Interesting - Tinbergen’s
Four Questions - Education is
Entertainment: on why some ideas stick - Mundane Cults
References: - MAHA
(Make America Healthy Again) on Wikipedia - Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. on Wikipedia - Butter
and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality, JAMA Internal Medicine
(2025) - The
Evidence Behind Seed Oils’ Health Effects, Johns Hopkins (2025) -
Paul Saladino, The
Carnivore Code - Jonathan Haidt, The
Anxious Generation - Candice Odgers, Nature
review on smartphones and mental health - Ferguson (2025): Do
Social Media Experiments Prove a Link With Mental Health: A
Methodological and Meta-Analytic Review - Liver King on
Wikipedia - Andrew Huberman
on Wikipedia - Ballerina Farm /
Hannah Neeleman on Wikipedia - Tradwife on Wikipedia
- Tradwife:
Between Myths and Realities, King’s College London Global Institute
for Women’s Leadership - MAHA, Means,
Money, Public Citizen report on MAHA and wellness industry
revenue
...more
28min
January 24, 2026 Values Don’t Matter
Everyone loves organisational values. Corporates, militaries, sports
clubs, schools—any place where people collect in a serious way has a
list of qualities they want everyone to embody. But values are just
virtue ethics by another name. And virtue ethics suffer two rather
troubling problems: virtues are hugely context-dependent, and the
situation overwhelmingly drives behaviour anyway. So if you want people
to act virtuously, design the context.
Further reading: - The Betterment article
that inspired this - Overview of the ethical
landscape - On
catastrophic leadership failure - Everything is choice
architecture - Making
strong group dynamics - On motivation - Belief-consistent
information processing
References: - MacIntyre’s After
Virtue - Situationist
critique of virtue ethics - Person-situation
debate - Milgram’s
obedience experiments - Stanford
Prison Experiment - John Doris on the ecological
approach to ethics - Maria Merritt on “humility
ethics” - Moore
and Beadle on organisations as MacIntyrean practices
...more
31min

FAQs about btrmt. lectures:

How many episodes does btrmt. lectures have?

The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.