HANGOVER CURE, INSIDE THE CIA, FINANCIAL COLLAPSE, & I INTERVIEWED A PSYCHOPATH
Hello ladies and gents,
I hope you all had a blessed holiday and a fantastic New Year. On New Year’s Eve, I cosplayed as a mustached man from the 1920s at a Gatsby-themed soiree. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find a single photo of a man with a long hairstyle from the roaring 20s, so if it makes you feel better you can pretend I’m a hairy woman.
Then, the next morning, my girlfriend and I thrust ourselves into the icy waters of the Atlantic for a New Years Day polar plunge. It turns out that submerging yourself into a 40-degree bath is a great way to cancel out 9 vodka sodas from the night before. Hangover cured.
And while we’re on the topic, here’s my patented hangover cure that has never failed me. I’ve used this routine at least a dozen times and have arguably felt better than before I started drinking:
Chug 1-2 shaker bottles full of water with a quarter teaspoon of Himalayan salt (for each bottle). Liquid IV also works.
.5 tsp - 1 tsp of Kratom Tea. I use Super Speciosa and have no affiliation with them other than I love the product.
3-5 rounds of Sauna and Cold Shower (If you have a cold tub, even better!) I use this sauna from Serene Life (also no affiliation) and it’s held up pretty well over the 6 months I’ve had it. It also travels well in the car and folds down flat for storage. My past two snowboarding trips in Okemo it’s been an absolute God send to hop off the freezing slopes and into the Sauna, not to mention the recovery benefits. As for my actual routine, I set the Sauna to 140 degrees (the highest setting - if this doesn’t sound that high for a Sauna that’s because it’s infrared. Trust me, you still sweat your ass off and it’s HOT) and stay in for about 20 min. Then I hop in a cold shower for about 3 min. Then, I repeat that 2-3 more times as I keep hydrating while I use the sauna.
Go for a walk in the sun.
This entire routine takes me about 75 minutes and it takes back the day the hangover tries to steal from me. Not this time bitch!
Now, onto some content.
LATEST AUXORO RELEASES:
Since the last newsletter, I’ve released four episodes with a bunch of insightful, fascinating people.
The first one was with Kelsi Sheren, an artillery gunner and veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces who served in Afghanistan.
She’s an absolute badass and we went deep into various topics. We got into her background in martial arts, the ins and outs of running an artillery gun, seeing one of her comrades blown to pieces outside the wire, recovering from PTSD and traumatic brain injury, what makes the Taliban so effective, and more.
You can stream the full episode here on Youtube and here on your favorite pod player.
Next up we have neuroscientist and psychopath Dr. James Fallon:
That’s right, I said psychopath. Dr. Fallon discovered that his brain matched that of other psychopaths during a mixup in brain scans at UC Irvine. Here’s what he had to say about it in Smithsonian Magazine:
One afternoon in October 2005, neuroscientist James Fallon was looking at brain scans of serial killers. As part of a research project at UC Irvine, he was sifting through thousands of PET scans to find anatomical patterns in the brain that correlated with psychopathic tendencies in the real world.
“I was looking at many scans, scans of murderers mixed in with schizophrenics, depressives and other, normal brains,” he says. “Out of serendipity, I was also doing a study on Alzheimer’s and as part of that, had brain scans from me and everyone in my family right on my desk.”
“I got to the bottom of the stack, and saw this scan that was obviously pathological,” he says, noting that it showed low activity in certain areas of the frontal and temporal lobes linked to empathy, morality, and self-control. Knowing that it belonged to a member of his family, Fallon checked his lab’s PET machine for an error (it was working perfectly fine) and then decided he simply had to break the blinding that prevented him from knowing whose brain was pictured. When he looked up the code, he was greeted by an unsettling revelation: the psychopathic brain pictured in the scan was his own.
Now, Dr. Fallon in his own words is a “pro-social psychopath” which is characterized by deception by charm and lack of empathy, not a tendency towards violence. So if you’re thinking American Psycho, that’s just one violent extreme of psychopathy which Dr. Fallon does not occupy.
In this conversation, we got into how Dr. Fallon discovered his brain matched that of a psychopath, what makes someone a psychopath, free will, torture, manipulation, how to act around someone you suspect is a psychopath, and more.
Stream this episode with Dr. Fallon here for audio only and here on YouTube.
Next, we have ex-CIA Officer Alex Finley:
Alex is an expert in Russian Intelligence and influence, disinformation, and counterterrorism. In this episode, we explored Alex’s time in the CIA based in Europe and Africa, whether 9/11 was an intelligence failure, traditional spycraft versus war zone spycraft, the power of propaganda, deep fakes and AI, and the future of the information war.
Stream it here on YouTube and here for audio-only.
Last, but not least, we have heterodox Economist Steve Keen.
Steve Keen was one of the few economists to predict the 2008 financial crisis and he believes that the traditional Neoclassical way of thinking is batshit wrong.
In this episode, we get into what Steve was seeing before 2008 that few others saw, why Neoclassical economics is taking us to the brink of extinction, spending time in Cuba, the genius of the Physiocrats, Bitcoin, The New Economics Manifesto proposed by Steve, and more.
Stream the full episode here on Youtube and here on your favorite pod player.
THINGS I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT:
I am a huge fan of standup comedy, and I say that with zero exaggeration. I watch standup on my lunch break and often before I go to bed. I listen to about 15 different podcasts hosted by standup comedians. One of my favorite channels on YouTube is Joke WRLD which is basically like SportsCenter for the standup comedy universe. I masturbate to Kill Tony on YouTube (Okay, that last one’s a lie. I do it on Spotify too).
I’ve never told a single joke on stage but I’ve become a student of stand-up as an audience member. The value of comedy is not just in the laughs, it’s in the soup that stirs up the laughter. It’s not funny if you see it coming and it’s not funny if it’s the “easy take” on a topic. If you see it coming, then there’s no pop in the punch line. And if it’s the same take everyone else has on an issue, well, then it’s hack, and that’s about the worst thing you can be in any creative pursuit.
So, I’ve started to apply this way of thinking to podcasting, specifically solo podcasting. If you’ve been listening to my solo podcast The AUX since its inception, first of all thank you because it sucked at the beginning (some say it still does), and second of all, you know it started out as these fifteen-minute daily episodes where I shared “life hacks” or takeaways from content I consumed.
Eventually, I got bored of that and began releasing highly researched hour-long episodes once per week on various topics of interest: Obesity, Tom Cruise, The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, MK Ultra, etc.
With all of this research for The AUX and The AUXORO Podcast, I was feeling burnt out and stopped the solo episodes for a bit. I needed that.
And all of this time, I’m watching comedy, listening to comedy podcasts, and I’m realizing that none of it is researched and all of it is entertaining and insightful. It’s a highly skilled pursuit where being funny is the Northstar, not being right.
I would never call The AUX a comedy podcast because I respect comedy too much to call myself a comedian (I don’t tell jokes on a consistent basis), but I started to record the solo episodes wearing a more comedic hat. Instead of picking one big topic and doing hours of research and regurgitating it on the mic, I now pick a few smaller topics (articles, thoughts, current events) and spend time thinking about what the unique point of view is that also makes me laugh, or at least tickles me.
I make it clear that there’s little to no research involved, and it’s fun as hell.
Let’s take an example to show the difference in approach.
Logan Paul has been through the wringer recently after being exposed as a fraudster by Coffeezilla. Logan Paul created a crypto project called ‘CryptoZoo’ and allegedly defrauded investors out of millions of dollars. In the past, I would’ve watched the entire series on Logan Paul and my conclusion would have been “Logan Paul is bad man! How dare you bad man Logan!” Of course, that’s the “hack” take and anyone with a pulse can see that.
From a more comedic point of view, I’d be inclined to think “Logan Paul should just lean into this and start an actual zoo with the money he stole. He could give the people he defrauded first access and use the proceeds from the physical zoo to start his next Ponzi scheme.”
Horrible, but funny to think about, and even funnier to say. And you might actually work your way around into something insightful by avoiding at first the obvious take.
So, if there is a point to this whole rant it’s that comedy isn’t just for the people with the mic or the laughers in the audience. Comedy is a tool that forces you to think differently and you can apply it to any form of content.
Give it a try.
WORK OF OTHERS THAT INSPIRES ME
Speaking of, here’s the first part of three-part series where Coffeezilla exposes Logan Paul’s Crypto scam. The production is immaculate and wow is the investigation thorough. Who ever thought that one of the best fraud investigators on the planet would be a YouTuber? What a time.
BONUS
If you want more podcasts, I release hour-long bonus episodes on AUXORO Premium. You also get minisodes sprinkled throughout the month and the ability to submit questions for guests. It’s five bucks per month and you can cancel at any time. Check it out here.
Until next time,
Zach