Mixed Mental Arts

Katherine Ludwig is a former corporate finance and securities lawyer-turned writer and editor. Now, she has authored Humility is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age. The ideas that Katherine and her co-author, Ed Hess, lay out in their book are slightly uncomfortable for Bryan. You can follow Katherine on Twitter at @LudwigKatherine.

After fighting in the first gulf war, John Nagl returned to the United States and took part in a simulated military exercise. As a tank commander, he had all the overwhelming firepower any soldier could hope for…and yet he lost to a group of Alaskan National Guard infantrymen, known as the Nanooks. Nagl's unit was unassailable by any conventional military force but a group of lightly armed troops, defying all the rules of how wars "should" be fought had defeated a much, much stronger force. That failure bothered him so much that he decided to devote the rest of his life to understanding it and making sure it never happened again. During the 90's, the American military trained for the war it wanted to fight: a war just like the first Gulf War. Nagl's experience with the Nanooks had convinced him that no conventional military would ever make the same mistake that Saddam Hussein had made in taking the US Army on head on. Instead, he suspected that the US' major threats would come from small, irregular groups of troops employing hit and run engagements rather than full frontal assaults. Even though it would reduce his chances of rising through the ranks, Nagl convinced the Army to send him to Oxford to study counter-insurgency and figure out how the US could defeat an enemy as irregular as the Nanooks. As he read through the histories and primary sources, he came to realize that what the Nanooks had done was a very old form of warfare. In fact, it was the exact form of warfare used by the Viet Cong in Vietnam. The exact form of warfare that America (focused on the conventional military tactics of World War II) had been unable to defeat. While in traditional war, the goal is to annihilate the enemy this strategy is counter-productive in fighting a counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is much more complicated, subtle and time-consuming. It is what T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) described in his book as being like learning to eat soup with a knife. This phrase so inspired Nagl that he made it the title of his own book on the topic, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Throughout the 90's and early 2000's, little attention was paid to this book. By the time Nagl deployed to Iraq for the War on Terror, the book was still virtually unknown. However, as America found itself mired in another insurgency, the American military began to realize the vital importance of Nagl's insights. And so, General Petraeus asked Nagl to write the official Army and Marine Field Manual on Counter-Insurgency. In his most recent book, Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice, Lt. Col John A. Nagl (Ret.) tells the story of the incredible revolution in military thinking that he has helped pioneer. If you don't want the terrorists to win, you should read all of John Nagl's books.

Growing up in Soviet-controlled Romania, Adrian Bejan found himself living in system that tried to prevent of ideas, money, goods and people. It's only fitting then that his career would not only see him bridging the divide between disciplines but studying flow itself. In 1995 while designing more efficient cooling systems for electronics, he was struck by the similarity between the systems that he was designing and those that occur naturally in riverbeds, capillary systems, leaves and much, much more. And so, the constructal law was born. It's a real pleasure to have Professor Bejan on the show. He's an OG Mixed Mental Artist from way back in the day. To learn more about Professor Bejan's work check out his books Design in Nature and The Physics of Life. You can keep up with all the latest on Constructal Theory on Twitter at @constructal.

In the wake of the US Civil War, the Republican Party had won itself a lot of political goodwill. The Party of Lincoln, as it was called, could, in the eyes of many, do no wrong. Not only had it brought the country together but it had ended the great national shame of slavery. It was in this environment where the party could do no wrong that corruption flourished. This same pattern has played out in post-Apartheid South Africa.

Roman Cabanac and Jonathan Witt are the co-hosts of The Renegade Report, one of the most popular podcasts based in South Africa. They join us on the show to tell us all about how Jacob Zuma in conjunction with a family known as The Guptas hired international PR firm Bell Pottinger to deliberately incite racial tensions as a way to distract from widescale corruption.

In an Attention Economy, people will do anything to either bring attention to themselves or move it away from things they don't want the public to pay attention to. This is the world we live in. The ability to bring humanity's collective attention to bear on a problem is the challenge of our age. If we can just focus, we can solve our problems. There are people for whom that is the last thing that they want.

You can find The Renegade Report on all major podcast feeds and find them on Twitter at @Renegade_Report.

In 1759, while working as a tutor, Adam Smith wrote a book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments that begins as follows: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrows of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous or the humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it." In 1776, that same Adam Smith would write The Wealth of Nations, the book that would establish capitalism. To a modern audience, for whom the idea of selfishness is synonymous with capitalism, this seems incredibly strange. However, it wasn't strange at all. Smith was primarily interested in improving the well-being of humanity. To him, it was clear that market forces were one of the great tools for doing this. However, this does not mean that Smith believed that humanity was entirely selfish. Wilson Sensei will be on the podcast again in the near future. Tweet him @David_S_Wilson

We don't know just where we're headed. But we know Saturdays can feel weird. Technically, it's one of your chill days. At the same time, you promised Mom you'd cut her grass - and you have that thing with your girlfriend on the other side of town. Saturday Sessions are for you, my friend. It's this thing we're trying out - Classic MMA Episodes and Chill Tunes, on Some Saturdays - for your hyper-paced world, fried neurons, and Big Boy chores (Big Girl stuff, too).

Thomas A. Edison said "Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." So go ahead: hustle while you wait. We have a feeling Jared Diamond will be back very soon. Saturday chill music courtesy of Honeystone. If you want to know wtf is at the end of this episode tweet @imgooley01 , I'm not really sure and he didn't answer. Follow us and stuff - come along for the ride! #TheresATribeInNewGuinea

Hunter has been doing a lot of thinking lately - Gathering his thoughts. Taoism strikes him not as a discovery, but as a rediscovery of an earlier way of being: the way of the Hunter-Gatherer. The Hunter-Gatherer can't afford rigid categories. He must flexibly take in what is before him to figure out the situation. The Hunter must have a mind like water. The gatherer, too.

In this episode, Daniele Bolelli, Chris Ryan, Bryan, and Hunter talk about how to make a better society. How do we use rules, technology, accumulated wisdom, and insights into our biology to evolve a society - and world - that better provides for our needs? We have no effing clue! But we believe in you ;)

If you have friends that still subscribe to the old podcast feed, wake them up. Steal your girlfriends phone and subscribe to Mixed Mental Arts (Official), like Daddy would. Follow us on whatever SM platform you waste time on most. We promise to be useful. Comedy not guaranteed. Love and Peace. mixedmentalarts.online

Both Daron Acemoglu (MIT economist and co-author of Why Nations Fail) and Dacher Keltner (Berkeley psychologist and author of many books including Born to Be Good) have appeared on Mixed Mental Arts before. They both were amazing and Bryan Couldn't pronounce either of their names. That is reason enough to bring them back and put them on together to see what happens. But, wait. There's more. Because these two together have the power to do something unprecedented in human history. At least since Plato's Republic, humans have debated the best form of government. (Plato thought it was a "Philosopher King" aka give someone like Plato or Bryan absolute power but recognized that democracy was the least bad system.) However, this has long been an endless debate in which people make the case for the system of government they're biased towards and then dismiss every other opinion as biased. In fact, this highly predictable criticism was leveled at Daron Acemoglu and his co-author James Robinson in the wake of Why Nations Fail. Also, we're starting a campaign to have them write a book together. James Robinson should come along too. Tweet them with #RealHolyTrinity if you want them to do it. Guest Links Website: greatergood.berkeley.edu/ Twitter: twitter.com/drdaronacemoglu

This is a repost. Think of what could have been. We added the music to avoid the Haters Hatin'. If you don't like it. Well, sorry :( Music Courtesy of Honeystone. A Kick Ass band you should know about. Download their album "Scouts Honor" on iTunes. They literally sell their songs for $1. I would pay three. We voted Larry Lessig For President. If you want Larry to try again, tweet him @lessig Follow us and stuff.