Just as organisms evolve to take in what helps and keep out what harms, humans take in ideas that motivate and keep out ideas that demotivate. That's called confirmation bias. Decent people recognize confirmation bias as a problem to be managed. Total jerks treat confirmation bias as the solution to all of their problems. 

To improve, we can pretend we already have or we can admit we haven't. For example, on racism we can fake it, saying "I don't see color," or we can face it, admitting that we still do. Both approaches have their place, but we often talk as though we should always be hopeful and fake it or realistic and face it. 

Self-flattery on the assumption that your talk accurately describes your walk, as though you are a neutral accurate observer of your own behavior. Talkiswalkism like "No really, I've got integrity!" is meant to reassure but ends up having the opposite effect.

Science has been weirdly silent about a central topic in morality: A**holes, a lifestyle that's more inclusive than narcissist, psychopath, bully, or criminal. Psychoproctology is a humbly-light name for a serious research subject. In a free society we don't get to tell people how to live but we have to constrain a**holes or it won't remain a free society.

Jeremy, the podcaster introduces himself and explains what it's all about. 

A short orientation to this podcast series.