Luck is the key factor that ordains extreme success. However there are key factors which can raise you out above mediocrity which include creativity and conscientious hard work as well as some frontal lobe ability aka emotional intelligence/ likeability. However creativity and hard work are rarely found in the same individual. The key principle however in any competitively creative society is the Pareto principle further studied by Price which show that resources will naturally skew severely to one side explaining the rich poor divide and absolving capitalism of the blame. Those at the top are by no means a stable population and many will rotate in and out of the upper echelons of success adding further weight to the key role of luck. We discuss how passion for what you do has only a limited effect on success and only then in certain situations and how important it is to be seen to fit in. Finally success is not the same for everyone as we are all different and therefore the politically correct doctrine of seeking the same outcome for everyone is seriously flawed and harmful.

We discuss a study that the media focused on this week proving that antidepressants work and are safe and therefore should be prescribed in larger quantities to help the increasing numbers of depressed people. However we show that while the first may be true in certain but by no means all cases it does not follow at all that societal woes could be solved by turning us into a nation of pill poppers. Rather we need to address what is unhealthy in society and causing us to get depressed as well as physically unhealthy in the first place. Simply patching us up will only lead our fate as a society down an ever darker path.

Child Mental Health Part 2, What makes a serial killer and a CEO, why gun law and extra focus on mental health is response to mass shootings is missing the main point of what is actually causing not only this but our worsening mental and physical health throughout the Western World: Social disintegration.   Self harm is increasing especially among females. There are many causes but manipulation of the environment and gaining an illusion of control is one of the main ones and is just another pathological coping mechanism similar to anorexia. If the behavior is positively reinforced it can then become a dangerous habit and almost an addiction and indeed addictions  in themselves are often another maladaptive trait. Psychopaths are a well known personality trait but they can be adapted negatively or positively through childhood experience and socialization. Serial killers are much more likely to have a particular psychopathic gene combined with severe childhood trauma and CEOs are more likely to be well socialized psychopaths. The current focus on mentally ill people being a risk to others including  atrocities such as mass shootings are an artifact of media reporting.  Mentally ill people are almost guaranteed not to be a risk to the public and in the rare cases they are they are more likely to be a risk to those they know well. In fact focus on gun law in the US and mental health services is missing the deep rot in society of social disintegration. Ironically these measures are just another illusion of control and misinformed knee jerk reaction. Norway has been trying to address this with respect to illicit drugs by decriminalsing  illicit drugs, putting addicts into therapy and paying employers their first years wages thus re integrating them back into society and  this alone has proved very successful in reducing drug addiction and associated crime. What is causing our social disintegration? We will discuss this in our next podcast along with the origins of mankind and the most effective ways of organizing human society.

This has been children's mental health week. Parents are from the very start handicapped by their love for their children. In evolutionary terms parental love leads to instant self sacrifice to save the children from danger. Now our urban jungle has none of the traditional predators we find it much harder to apply logical boundaries and teaching as emotion hijacks logic. Family therapy can be very helpful in many cases. A significant minority of children have Attention Deficit Disorder. This is a poorly diagnosed condition which is also controversial given that it's treatment often involves a stimulant similar to amphetamine. However ADHD is a genetic condition which responds very well to treatment. Without it children will often have to hear the burden of constant criticism and restraint as well as troubled relationships which will often have deep effects on self esteem and psychological development. We mention school refusal and self harm and will go into the latter in more detail in another podcast. In that same podcast we will discuss personality development including psychopathy. We conclude that being a parent is immensely difficult but disagree with Socrates' assertion that parents are not fit to bring up children. The children and families services are excellent and easily accessible source of help through the GP.

Are women too objectified in society? And if so why? Is it wrong?

We discuss how identity politics as a result of the disintegrative acid of political correctness and the incorrectly applied notion of free speech are leading to a very dangerous far left  where an extreme few think they have the moral high ground in representing everyone of their type.

This emotion driven ideal will always lead to disaster as it did in the time of Stalin and Mao because there is no logic to it. Being emotion driven it also seeks rapid change but the glue of our society is there for a reason and attempts to unstick it rapidly will have worrying consequences.

We discuss the scientific facts and figures that show that men and women are physically, hormonally, emotionally different and that therefore seeking the same outcome for them regardless of their individual strengths and weaknesses will be suboptimal and not the nirvana that the identitists seek.

A simple example is that more males are psychopaths and that there is a higher proportion of men versus women in prison and as CEOs. All being equal the identitists should be asking why men are over represented in prison. The fact is that it is the nature of the sexes especially at the extremes that determine some of the observed differences we see in society.

Furthermore by attempting to unstick the glue of society which is based on religious ideals we run the risk not of further equality but of chaos and unhappiness.

One of the reasons that the channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman was so aggressively feminist with Professor Jordan Petersen was that a lot of what he said refered directly to her. She even agreed with him when he suggested her male style higher level of disagreeableness was responsible for her success. We suspect what really upset her was the quite inference that she was also unhappy in her personal relationship as a power woman with an overgrown infant of a man. Relationships are not about competition and dominance that is increasingly the case but about equality and teamwork which need to be worked at by both sides.

Simple solid management principles apply. Identify some ones strengths and weaknesses and encourage them to follow their strengths and steer them away from their weaknesses. Forcing everyone into the same channels is actually disrespecting people and ironically having the opposite result to which the identitists are seeking.  Afterall self awareness and equal rights for self determination will not lead to the same outcomes for all but it will be the better outcomes for individuals as well as society in general

Are women too objectified in society? And if so why? Is it wrong? We discuss how identity politics as a result of the disintegrative acid of political correctness and the incorrectly applied notion of free speech are leading to a very dangerous far left  where an extreme few think they have the moral high ground in representing everyone of their type. This emotion driven ideal will always lead to disaster as it did in the time of Stalin and Mao because there is no logic to it. Being emotion driven it also seeks rapid change but the glue of our society is there for a reason and attempts to unstick it rapidly will have worrying consequences. We discuss the scientific facts and figures that show that men and women are physically, hormonally, emotionally different and that therefore seeking the same outcome for them regardless of their individual strengths and weaknesses will be suboptimal and not the nirvana that the identitists seek. A simple example is that more males are psychopaths and that there is a higher proportion of men versus women in prison and as CEOs. All being equal the identitists should be asking why men are over represented in prison. The fact is that it is the nature of the sexes especially at the extremes that determine some of the observed differences we see in society. Furthermore by attempting to unstick the glue of society which is based on religious ideals we run the risk not of further equality but of chaos and unhappiness. One of the reasons that the channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman was so aggressively feminist with Professor Jordan Petersen was that a lot of what he said refered directly to her. She even agreed with him when he suggested her male style higher level of disagreeableness was responsible for her success. We suspect what really upset her was the quite inference that she was also unhappy in her personal relationship as a power woman with an overgrown infant of a man. Relationships are not about competition and dominance that is increasingly the case but about equality and teamwork which need to be worked at by both sides. Simple solid management principles apply. Identify some ones strengths and weaknesses and encourage them to follow their strengths and steer them away from their weaknesses. Forcing everyone into the same channels is actually disrespecting people and ironically having the opposite result to which the identitists are seeking.  Afterall self awareness and equal rights for self determination will not lead to the same outcomes for all but it will be the better outcomes for individuals as well as society in general.

Summary of this week's topical talkology

The hype over the president's club is nothing more than the vested interest of the media to sell stories using political correctness as a fulcrum of righteousness. We interview a random female member of the public about this who reflexly says 'we all know what the media are like'. But that does not stop them from ruining people's lives for the sake of a couple of columns of marketable script. We quote research that shows the media cannot function economically while also reporting news objectively and that the media are responsible for misoforming the public about politics producing a cynical public unable to make informed decisions at voting time. Running lives and sabotaging democracy for profit. Or legally and sociably making money to give to charity? We all know where the real outrage lies. It also means that we as a society need to define free speach more carefully in order to prevent it being used against the very society it is supposed to be protecting.

All of us deal with things we are worried about every day. Using Andy's crash and burn example which has happened to all of us at one time or another we discuss how you can take control and not be controlled by your anxiety. We are controlled by our evolutionary instinct to reflexly reduce anxiety to achieve survival needs and escape predators. The problem in today's urban jungle is that we mistake most of what we do as a need and are therefore controlled by it. Instead the opposite is true. Most of what we do is a want and it is the ability to re frame that which puts us in control of our daily lives. We discuss logical and illogical fear as both need a different approach. One of humans basic needs is that of belonging and without a unifying state and or culturally led ideal we are left fending for ourselves finding our own groups to link to or aspire to. The increasing numbers of us who fail due to social disintegration leads to loneliness which has severe negative health consequences. We question whether Theresa May's new Minister for loneliness is a product of deep insight and a firm intention to start investigating and addressing our failing society or simply a politically correct knee jerk response to a Martyr which will would be better placed in a futuristic Harry Potter novel.

Should you live a life of vice or virtue? Research shows that people who have led a life of vice have fewer regrets at the end of their life than those who lived a life of virtue. We discuss if this is correct and how you too can achieve this while nagivating through some of this week's media gaffs and politicaly correct quick sand. We also touch on Donald Trump and Attention Deficit Disorder and how he is more in control of his job than politicians in the UK are. We conclude that whether it's a vice or a dream be a slave to neither, but know how to enjoy both.