There is like a beauty in magical thinking can really help us cope and tap into our

imagination and it's really when you combine it with the overthinking of the information age

that we're sort of displacing those instincts onto a more complex and

cerebral world.

Amanda Montel is the hope world.

Amanda Montel is the host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult,

as well as the author of three books,

including Cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking, notes on modern irrationality,

which we will be talking about today.

Each personal essay in this brand new book looks at a different

cognitive bias, those irrational thought processes of our ancient

outdated hunter-gatherer brains. of our ancient Amanda covers many of these cognitive biases and explains why they were important for the survival of early humans,

as well as how they currently manifest in a technologically advanced society that has very little in common with the distant past.

Whether personal, cultural, or political, these thinking patterns affect us all in tremendous ways.

And Amanda explains what we can do to understand, combat, and maybe even harness these cognitive biases to create a better life and a better world.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith, and this is American Hysteria.

Hi, Amanda. I am so thrilled that you are on our show right now. I finished your book this morning and I thought it was absolutely fantastic and so vital to everything that's happening right now and

has always happened from the beginning of time.

So thank you for being here. I really appreciate that.

Oh, the thrill is mine. Thank you for having me. That's a nice way to open.

Thank you. Yeah, a little drama to open.

I appreciate it. So I think the reason that I call it vital is that on our show we do talk a lot about

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