You open your phone and start scrolling. What do you see? In music, media, and adverts what is it that people keep talking about? Foreign cars, designer brands, and cash; but why?

Materialism is the belief that wealth and conspicuous consumption (i.e. buying things so other people can see them) will make people think better of you- and that it'll make you happy. The flipside is that people who don't do this aren't worth listening to and can be dismissed. Materialism, in short, is the advocation of making and spending money not to meet basic needs, but as an end in itself. It is the view that an individual's social status and sense of worth is contingent on material accumulation.

Materialism is presented by people on your screen and in the music you listen to as beyond question. But we don't need to take randos' word for it: there's a massive body of scientific evidence on what ACTUALLY makes us happy and increases our social status. If we want to think freely and critically, we should turn to the scientific method rather than blindly absorbing what others preach.

The overwhelming weight of genuine, quality-assessed, evidence-based scholarship tells us that in reality, materialism is one of the most self-defeating views out there. It is directly antagonistic to achieving happiness, and will not bring you friends or respect. In any case, when you see a luxury car driving past you, do you think 'wow, what a cool person?' or 'wow, what a cool car?'

And this scientific consensus is validated by thousands of years of philosophy. Across continents and centuries, humanity's wisest repeatedly come to the conclusion that spending money for the sake of it will not improve your life. Real happiness comes from dropping out of the rat race and focusing on the meaningful things in life.

In this video, I present both the scientific and philosophical consensuses on materialism. Rather than giving you an unfiltered opinion- which gives me no more credibility than materialist influencers- I draw together the combined findings of science and philosophy to relay to you what people significantly smarter than me have figured out.

Enjoy!

What does it mean to be an Islamist and what do they want? What distinguishes Islamism from Islam? And is Islamism violent? What is terrorism itself? Or jihadism and fundamentalism?

In this episode, we'll be answering all these questions and much more. Islamism is currently a politically charged topic, but as always on Polymath this video is free of opinions, biases, or political agendas. The only purpose of this video is to use real academic scholarship and political science to analyse this ideology in a neutral way.

For more neutral explanations of political ideologies which draw on the social sciences rather than the arbitrary opinion of the presenter, feel free to check out my channel. Either way, however, enjoy!

What 'should' the role of religion in society be?

The West and the Middle East have very different attitudes to religion and its place in society: the former generally removes it from politics, the latter doesn't. The West is more economically developed and has higher HDIs than the Middle East; despite the fact that until a few centuries ago, Western Europe was a backwater compared to the thriving and sophisticated civilisations of the Middle East.

But are these two variables- secularism and development- related? What are the consequences of religion in politics? What happens when the basis of morality comes from a religious text? And if, as in more secular countries, the basis for politics and morality isn't religion- what is it? Why is the West generally secular anyway? What's different about it? And did that difference also enable the West's economic development?

In this episode, we explore all these questions and more. Religion is a very sensitive topic. This video is not meant to attack anybody or facilitate prejudice: and this channel will never tolerate that in general. This video seeks to use sociology, political science, and history to academically examine different civilisations in more detail, based on honest analyses of different religious texts and social science methodology. There are no agendas or ulterior motives behind this video: it's just one person trying to understand the world around them using social science, and attempting to relay that understanding to you.

With that disclaimer out the way, enjoy!

Even the biggest NPC you know can still feel happiness, sadness, pain, disgust, and love. But why?

Why have we evolved to feel things, rather than just process information and compute responses? Why is it that no matter how much you could learn about neurobiology, you could never deduce what it feels like to see the colour blue? What is a mind anyway? What is it made of? How does it relate to the body? Is there more to the universe than just energy and matter? And who- or what- has consciousness anyway? Does consciousness pervade the entire universe?

We explore all these questions and more from multiple perspectives. Here, we examine all the various philosophical and scientific perspectives on consciousness, giving you all the positions you need to know to help you understand the debate properly.

This episode will explore philosophy, life, neurobiology, and the universe: all within the framework of real experts and scholars. As always in Polymath, we delve into this complex debate giving you just the facts and just the scholarship: nothing else.

And it's all in just 20 minutes! More episodes on consciousness will potentially come out on this channel in the future, exploring some key concepts and neuroscience further. Until then, enjoy!

Mental illness: what is it, who has it, and is it even real? Let's find out!

Everyone is talking about mental illness these days. The transcending of stigma is good, but it's led to a massive explosion of misinformation- and in some cases, plain lies- online. You switch on a screen and get bombarded with thousands of people all giving their takes, their opinions, their guesses, their ideas. But when it comes to something like mental illness, people's 'opinions' aren't good enough: we need facts. And that's where this video comes in.

In this video, we look at psychology, neuroanatomy, neurobiology, sociology, history and more. None of that information is filtered through the lens of my opinions or agenda: it's just expert consensuses from lots of different fields, all integrated together to give you legitimate answers. Enjoy!

PS: In this video I say that a certain individual has committed multiple rapes and human trafficking; these are in fact allegations and I withdraw my comments because I was presenting these allegations as facts. I also say in this video that the same individual has been teaching other individuals how to commit human trafficking online. I withdraw this comment too, as although a BBC investigation that people were being taught how traffic women on this individual's group chat, it's not proven that he specifically was teaching people how to do it.

Why are you the way that you are?

No, I'm not quoting your parents, I'm asking a profound scientific question. What makes you psychologically distinct from other people? Are there meaningful personality differences caused by age, gender, nationality, politics, health, and religiosity? What are they? Let's explore!

And as always with Polymath, this is not a video where I shower you with opinions or guesses. We will examining reliable, scientific info from personality psychology, and always basing what we say on evidence and empirical data: so you can be sure that you're getting proper answers. Enjoy!

We've all heard of it- what is it?

What do fascists want? What do they believe? What makes fascism different from other ideologies? And what makes fascism so violent?

We'll be answering all these questions and more- and we'll be doing it properly. None of this episode is my opinion, or a 'hot take', or guesses. All of this is reliable, academic information from political science, political philosophy, political psychology, and modern history, all integrated together to give you the best answers possible.

And it's all in 20 minutes! So sit back, relax, and enjoy a pleasant, soothing discussion about fascism and violence. Enjoy!

Why do female, educated US university staff rate female job applicants as less competent and less likely to get hired? It's probably not that they're misogynist: let's go a little deeper.

This is a 20 minute compression of a colossal psychological and sociological journey spanning 3 hours: Episode 25 of Polymath. In this 20 minute video, we strip away our society to its core and scientifically analyse its norms, structures, and beliefs.

What does it mean to be a man? To be a woman? To be a human being? What makes a woman 'good'? Why, in fact, do people act the way they do? Why do different groups and demographics come into conflict?

This video is not designed to push an agenda or make you think a certain way: we don't do that here. If you don't believe that systemic sexism exists, that's fine- you don't have to. Just watch the video and if you disagree with it, you have the freedom to do so: just don't close yourself off to other views. And remember- for the mountain of evidence which I don't have to time to address in this video, check out Episode 25 here https://open.spotify.com/episode/7tKa3m6PHbboR8qJolsDIl?si=42ac9591750b42fd. Enjoy!