RADIO CURIOUS: LONG FORM INTERVIEWS ABOUT LIFE and IDEAS
Welcome to the 31st year of Radio Curious, now proudly part of the Library of Congress, and regularly broadcast on approximately 100 radio stations.
Here you will find close to 1000 half hour interviews on a curiously wide array of topics concerning life and ideas. These programs are a gift to you from Radio Curious host and producer Barry Vogel. He started Radio Curious in 1991, to expand the work he began in 1974 as an Attorney, Counselor and Mediator in Ukiah, California, the Mendocino County seat, located about 110 miles north of San Francisco, California.
THIS WEEK’S INTERVIEW: My guest in this edition of Radio Curious is Laurence Gonzalez. Why do smart people do stupid things? This is the question asked by Laurence Gonzales, author of “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why” and “Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things.” Gonzales examines the mental scripts we follow as we live our lives and how these scripts prescribe our response to a situation based upon our past experiences. The problem is that sometimes these scripts result in wrong and possibly dangerous actions based on insufficient evidence or memory in our past experience. Gonzales’ work demonstrates how these scripts can sometimes lead to us being our own worst enemy.
To break from this cycle and encourage full understanding of a situation and wise decision making, Gonzales encourages “curiosity, awareness, and attention.” He writes, “Those are the tools of our everyday survival… we must all be scientists at heart, or be victims of forces that we don’t understand.”
In a series of two Radio Curious visits with Laurence Gonzales we discuss how our mental scripts are created both genetically and from our personal experiences and how to keep them from getting us in trouble.
I spoke with Laurence Gonzales from his home near Chicago Illinois on January, 19 2009. Our conversation began when I asked him how human behavior today has been shaped by that of our ancestors many thousands of years ago.
The book he recommends is “Survival in Auschwitz” by Primo Levi
All programs are free for anyone to enjoy, download, copy, share or rebroadcast as you wish. Please credit Radio Curious and let us know what you like about the program. There are several hundred more editions that are in the upload queue. If you are a station that airs Radio Curious or a listener please let us know so we can add you to our announcement list when we have specials and take vacations. Contact us at curious@radiocurious.org.
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We always welcome your comments and ideas. Please send them to curious@radiocurious.org.
“Radio Curious” and the “Radio Curious” logo are trademarks and property of Barry Vogel, Attorney and Counselor, 700 West Smith Street, Ukiah, California 95482 USA. Phone (707) 621 5075. Email is curious@radiocurious.org.