The Armen Show

Welcome actress and producer Kat Fairaway to episode 279 of the show. Depth is something that Kat represents, and depth is something that I find to be valuable. We can see moments as fleeting elements, or explore them further, such that time allows us to understand more.

Kat is known for her work in productions such as Psycho Escort, Kidnapped by a Classmate and Letters from the Heart. Representing characters in filmography is the heart of Los Angeles, and Kat occupies this great county (as I do). We covered quite a bit about her background, thoughts, and had a bit of fun as well.

Show notes:

• Kat’s background, and representing parts of Europe
• some of her work in movie/content roles she has been in, whether on Lifetime, Amazon, or elsewhere
• being at peace through mindset or meditation
• fun with accents, and some swell singing (I also rapped)
• a Gary Vaynerchuk message about blocking out unsupportive voices
• how one can choose their attitude in response to circumstances
• how those who have suffered and not ran away are appealing
• picking apart life through doubt, or a different way
• and a message for all

Social Links:

IMDb | Instagram

To look at something holistically is to look at it with a broad view, as compared with narrowing our perspective and leaving out the bigger picture when making decisions. Dr. Joseph Sarkissian handles the world of dentistry in such a way, treating patients with detail that takes their total health into account, and he joins on this episode of the show.

Dr. Sarkissian runs his dental practice in Glendale, California. He studied microbiology at the University of Alabama, and received his dental degree at the University of Goettingen in West Germany. His practice of dentistry was originally on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, and he later relocated to Los Angeles, where his own practice is now located. He is of the Armenian people, similar to myself, and represents well for the nation and its continuity of tradition and exploration of its roots.

Show notes:

• a bit about Dr. Sarkissian’s national and educational background, linking to how he got where he currently is
• holistic or biological dentistry, and the tenets that are followed under that description of practice
• impacting the youth, in terms of health and their aesthetic smiles
• how dentistry has changed or improved in the past decade
• whether mouth breathing or nasal breathing can be noticed by a dentist, and the impacts each type can have
• how much tooth health is connected with overall health
• the building of one’s own practice, and what it takes to maintain that
• the importance of early dental care and adjustment, in prevention of problems decades down the line
• how much regular dental care impacts the need for dental work
• complex procedures that are performed, and how skill is built up for those

It was good to have Dr. Sarkissian on the show. You can check out his dental practice website, YouTube page, or Instagram @sarkissiandds.

When it comes to interviewers, few are as currently prolific as Ricardo Lopes, host of “The Dissenter”. He is known for his social commentary, provoking thought, having strong opinions, and still being open-minded to new concepts. He hails from Portugal, and has been doing interviews for a few years now.

On his show, Ricardo has spoken with some of the same scientists and researchers I have spoken with, along with many others, including Steven Pinker, Robert Sapolsky, and Noam Chomsky. A big focus of his is social science, and he has spoken with people based on their insights and research, sometimes solely from their research papers.

Show notes:

• how Ricardo starting doing interviews, and where he comes from
• what The Dissenter podcast is about, and how it is important to keep open-minded about new information coming in
• why Ricardo prefers social science and related fields
• and more

I was glad to have Ricardo on the show. You can check out The Dissenter on YouTube.

Welcome to another edition of The Armen Show. On #276, it is a stream of consciousness, as I take you through thoughts.

Show notes:

• how feeling is to be let through
• why feeling is a representation of truth that thoughts are not able to be, in the same way
• how a post about leaked e-mails made me think about truth
• what leaked e-mails can showcase beyond the straightforward wheeling and dealing
• how truth is found in edge cases and battles
• why it is important to keep pushing your mind
• novelty in its relation to mind growth

Glad to have you all along on this journey.

What does a little risk taken or effort made today do for you a week from now? How about 10 years from now? We look at life in an extended framework if we want to see it more clearly. Episode 275 is about this concept, how something can build only once it is started, and when the valuable representation of what you did will show up.

Show notes:

• how a spark has to be in place for the item to light up years later
• why compound gains start off disturbingly slow and pick up speed
• looking at past musical artists or content creators, and how their early efforts on the internet set the stage for thousands of people who followed them

Hope you enjoyed this one~.

What is the damage we’re not attending to, with regards to the pandemic? How does biological and social contagion spread based on population and contact networks? How do scaling laws inform us about efficiency and person/city/network growth and change over time? Last month, researcher and professor Dr. Geoffrey West, author of Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies, co-wrote an article on the topic of scale in relation to the pandemic with fellow Santa Fe Institute President and researcher Dr. David Krakauer.

Dr. West is a theoretical physicist, who is distinguished and former President of the Santa Fe Institute, a scientific think-tank in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is able to combine multiple fields of research in ways that were not previously looked at. He is a leading researcher on a scientific model for cities, and is known for the metabolic theory of ecology. His B.A. in Physics is from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. is from Stanford University.

I originally came across Dr. West’s work through his book Scale, which I summarized chapters of in some of the earliest episodes of this show, specifically 2, 9, and 11. It was informative to me to get a sense of how a population or network develops from early large paths to the smaller nodes at the end, and where there is efficiency in growth that is connected to non-linear scaling ratios. We spoke about the book, as well as a variety of topics.

Show notes:

• how Dr. West progressed from his background in the UK to where he is at the current moment
• his experience as a researcher and past President at the Santa Fe Institute
• progressive from theoretical physics and particles to looking at cities, companies, networks, and global sustainability
• fostering collaborations between scientists of different fields, and non-linear thinking as connected with risk-taking
• scaling rate as it relates with food requirement for different sizes of organisms
• how all organisms are network systems that follow scaling laws
• the way that one’s blood vessels share these laws with roads and freeways, trees and branches, and neuron paths in the brain
• whether the scaling laws relate with determinism as related to biology, and how biology differs with physics in that regard
• our similarities as viewed from a long-distance perspective
• the way that one city is similar to other cities, at their respective stages of development, taking into account the specific environmental and cultural variables of the region
• Dr. West’s relationship with Dr. Krakauer, and the article they co-wrote
• looking at the pandemic as something to focus on, while not forgetting that it is one element of a bigger picture situation humanity is part of
• how one item on the planet affects something else on the planet, especially in a heavily interconnected planet
• exponential gains, and the lack of understanding that has been associated with the concept
• counter-intuitive responses to problems, which require looking at problems with more depth than only repairing directly what is broken at first glance
• the reception of science in the public domain, and how that is affecting responses to problems or new scenarios
• how higher-level education has been very prolific in its ability to serve as a backbone for society to work from
• the way that feel of age can alter based on our current moment
• a message for people

It was wonderful to have Dr. West on the show. You can check out Scale on Amazon, his recent co-written article, his Santa Fe Institute page, or his Wikipedia.

Our time is our own to get things done, for our own form. On episode 273, it is about building your own thing, and not letting your important time slip, though the time not connected to your main projects is not as important.

Show notes:

• your self-oriented time
• noting the value of moments versus the value of other moments
• recognizing that there are some periods of time you can’t afford to let go to any type of waste
• having, being, and doing
• the concept of flow

We continue on our way~.

Writing in a journal can be the way to some forms of understanding or expression. My recent writings in one contribute to the thoughts in this episode, which is #272 of the show.

Show notes:

• How to propel work forward
• The way that collaboration can bring out elements that were dormant
• Using the “why” behind what you do versus the “how” or “what”
• Having a variety of mediums to post on
• Moving things around and building kindling for your fire
• Imagining how you want your story to go
• Little things each day turning into a larger entity

We keep it simple on this fast-paced episode, with insights coming forward in stream of consciousness form. Credit to Toby Emerson for the intro and outro music, and for supporting usage of his music from many years ago for such creative purposes.

Welcome moral and political psychologist Dr. Cory J. Clark to episode 271 of the show~. She has done research in the categories of moral judgment, punishment, free will, political bias, and motivated cognition. Looking at how bias applies in daily discourse or decision-making helps to clear out poor decisions that would have to be corrected at some future instance.

Dr. Clark got her Ph. D. from the University of California, Irvine, in Social and Personality Pyschology and Quantitative Methods, following a B.A. in psychology and philosophy. Some research papers she has contributed to include material on tribalism in different moments of societal condition, political differences in free will belief, and how bias pervades both sides of political landscapes.

Show notes:

• how Dr. Clark got into the category of social and personality psychology and quantitative methods at UCI
• the way that serendipity and the flow of life can lead us to the next step
• connection between punishment and belief of free will, and how that connection affects how people are viewed
• how to study individuals seeking out information that supports their beliefs
• the better-than-average effect of self-thought in the category of self-serving biases
• people bringing out certain sides of personality on social networks, and the mob effect that can apply
• the short-term internet response to long-term careers
• free will as it applies to the fixed nature of a specific moment in time and the moment that follows it
• humans evolving to a point of looking back upon their own thinking in hefty detail
• punishment and the moral judgment associated with it as related to a recent death penalty action
• the collective nature of people’s actions, as with the internet
• a message about perspective to take into account when seeing two-sided issues, which are very common in public discourse

I was glad to have Dr. Clark on the show. Feel free to check out her website, which has all her material well organized, including her research that is easily readable, and her content across other shows.

Welcome guest Dr. Darya Pino Rose to episode 270 of the show~. She has a neuroscience Ph. D. from UC San Francisco, wrote the book Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting, and has posted much content in relation to food and health on her website Summer Tomato.

In 2019, Dr. Rose gave a TEDx Talk in Salem, Oregon about the concept of becoming healthy without focusing on the dieting aspect. Changing the focus of how you respond to something is a more nuanced detail than the steps along the way, and I would always agree to look more at the root of an item than the after-effects. Dr. Rose has seen the issue with the mindset involved with short-term dieting, and the focus on countering the negative, versus reaching towards the great benefits of local produce of greens and vibrant colors. We spoke about this topic, habits, aging, broad perspective, her children, and more.

Show notes:

• bringing a logical viewpoint to any decision-making in life, whether for health maintenance or weight loss
• how the content we put out there can be messages to our past self
• some of the simpler things people can do in relation to eating food and keeping health in good order
• the way that food can taste delicious and still work in your favor
• the farm-to-table movement that had picked up in the Bay Area, and exposition to a different way of taking food in
• how habits are very different based on whether they are internally or externally motivated
• the connection between habits, willpower, and motivation
• how what is presented to us early on in life has such a large impact, and is internalized until we later look back at the time with questioning
• anti-aging research on par with Dr. David Sinclair’s work
• varying one’s focus, from macronutrients to micronutrients, and thinking bigger picture instead of seeking out one specific nutrient
• looking at the origination of your foods, such that they are not heavily adulterated or removed of nutrient density
• Darya’s two toddlers (cute~), the early times, and how personality and traits develop or show themselves early on
• some thoughts on potential future content, and a message for all people about finding and going towards your own values

It was great to have Dr. Rose on the show. She and her husband Kevin Rose are raising their two young children in Oregon. You can check out her website Summer Tomato, pick up her book Foodist on Amazon, or watch her TEDx Talk on becoming healthy without dieting. Long live intellectual discussion~.