The Profound Stupidity of Psychologists

[Nilsi]

I rewatched this three-hour conversation between psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke, moderated by systems thinker and activist extraordinaire Daniel Schmachtenberger. The first time, it left me cold; this time, I hoped fresh eyes and experience might reveal something new. And, to an extent, it did.

The discussion begins with familiar ground: the psychological drivers of our civilization’s crises - ecological collapse, mental health breakdowns, economic arms races - traced to a loss of connection with the sacred. Both McGilchrist and Vervaeke argue persuasively that the fragmenting tendencies of technological, scientific, and economic “progress” have atomized our worldview and severed our sense of the whole. 

But when the conversation turns to solutions - how to address these crises - things unravel. Schmachtenberger rightly points out that unchecked game theory conditions individuals, corporations, and nations to act in ways that perpetuate the crises. Yet McGilchrist and Vervaeke dodge the real issue: how to implement a structure that ensures no one defects from this sacred “agreement.” The elephant in the room remains untouched: trust collapses in game-theoretic systems because defection is always incentivized, and catastrophic when it happens. How do you make sacred commitments binding when the stakes - like the U.S. trusting China not to escalate AI development - are existential?

Instead of engaging, the discussion retreats back into arcane and convoluted arguments about religion and the sacred as psychological salves. This isn’t just inadequate; it’s naïve. Psychology, as presented here, has nothing to offer. It’s obsessed with ideal psychological states while utterly blind to the economic and sociological realities shaping behavior. Any 14-year-old Marxist understands the material conditions of civilization better than these esteemed gentlemen.

Isn’t this precisely Nietzsche’s critique? God is dead, and trying to resurrect him is folly. Nietzsche argued for the Übermensch - humanity maturing to the point of stewarding its own destiny, free from the need for divine intervention or promises of redemption in an afterlife. Yet these scholars, supposedly at the pinnacle of understanding the human mind, offer nothing but a retreat into faith, all while audaciously positioning themselves as Nietzsche’s critics and authorities - much like Jordan Peterson likes to do. It’s shocking, though not surprising, that Nietzsche’s ideas have found fertile ground among social scientists and cultural theorists, not psychologists.

If this discussion isn’t outright irony, it might as well be: a piece of performance art on the radical inadequacy of psychology - a field producing little more than abstractions, divine ruptures, and scholars lost in their own detachment.

Edited Friday at 09:30 PM by Nilsi

[Nivsch]

What is wrong in returning to have more faith? And who said it must be in the classic religious form?

What other solution do you suggest?

[Schizophonia]

You whippin, what do you concretely reproach to psychology. 

The goal is to help damaged or non-functional people in general. 

[Nilsi]

9 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

What is wrong in returning to have more faith?

You can have all the faith you want, but it won’t change the fact that we live in a world dominated by leaders like Xi Jinping and Putin, and corporate entities whose survival depends on relentless profit maximization while externalizing harm to nature and individual humans - particularly those on the lower rungs of the economic hierarchy, as usual. These entities are locked in a perpetual prisoner’s dilemma, where defection is the only way to ensure survival.

If you want to pray to your God, by all means, go ahead - I have no issue with that. But to suggest that this will somehow resolve the brutal realities of capitalism is, frankly, laughable.

Edited Friday at 09:41 PM by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

3 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

The goal is to help damaged or non-functional people in general. 

Fair enough. But this is explicitly a conversation about the meta-crisis and imminent global catastrophic risks. The audacity of these gentlemen to even show up to such a discussion with such a shockingly naive worldview is truly stunning.

[Nilsi]

Literally, their only point is to put all our stakes on faith and divine intervention. You couldn’t make this shit up if you tried.

[Nivsch]

5 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

If you want to pray to your God, by all means, go ahead - I have no issue with that. But to suggest that this will somehow resolve the brutal realities of capitalism is, frankly, laughable.

I mean to develop your center and your sense of self trust and independent thinking. In a world of stupidity, you can only control yourself.

[Cireeric]

I think both are arguing that we need some shared grammar of value as a basis for global coherence in order to re-establish trust and bind global multipolar-traps. And both Ian and John are trying to reconstruct a case for the sacred/ a shared grammar of value that can survive the scientific-method and postmodernism. I dont see them arguing for divine-intervention, but rather for a re-connection to the divine. I dont see Nietzschean ideas providing a basis for global coherence, the Übermensch seems rather dividing than unifying. But I dont know if I got your point there.

[Nilsi]

I don’t want to seem rash in dismissing psychology outright. I do believe people like Jordan Peterson are onto something when they draw parallels between scripture and the psychological architecture of individual human beings. If you want to thrive in the sense of living a fulfilling human life - becoming a mature person with a decent job, a stable relationship, kids, someone who generally has their shit together while reducing suffering and not causing too much trouble by being overly ambitious or asking too many questions - that’s fine. You can even come to terms with death and all the rest. You can sleep well, so to speak.

But this is precisely not the kind of psychology needed to address unprecedented global catastrophes or to push yourself artistically or philosophically.

As Nietzsche perfectly mocked this kind of wisdom, whose ultimate goal is basically just to have you sleep well:

Quote

People commended unto Zarathustra a wise man, as one who could discourse well about sleep and virtue: greatly was he honoured and rewarded for it, and all the youths sat before his chair. To him went Zarathustra, and sat among the youths before his chair. And thus spake the wise man:

Respect and modesty in presence of sleep! That is the first thing! And to go out of the way of all who sleep badly and keep awake at night!

Modest is even the thief in presence of sleep: he always stealeth softly through the night. Immodest, however, is the night-watchman; immodestly he carrieth his horn.

No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.

Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul.

Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled.

Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.

Ten times must thou laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise thy stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb thee in the night.

Few people know it, but one must have all the virtues in order to sleep well. Shall I bear false witness? Shall I commit adultery?

Shall I covet my neighbour’s maidservant? All that would ill accord with good sleep.

And even if one have all the virtues, there is still one thing needful: to send the virtues themselves to sleep at the right time.

That they may not quarrel with one another, the good females! And about thee, thou unhappy one!

Peace with God and thy neighbour: so desireth good sleep. And peace also with thy neighbour’s devil! Otherwise it will haunt thee in the night.

Honour to the government, and obedience, and also to the crooked government! So desireth good sleep. How can I help it, if power like to walk on crooked legs?

He who leadeth his sheep to the greenest pasture, shall always be for me the best shepherd: so doth it accord with good sleep.

Many honours I want not, nor great treasures: they excite the spleen. But it is bad sleeping without a good name and a little treasure.

A small company is more welcome to me than a bad one: but they must come and go at the right time. So doth it accord with good sleep.

Well, also, do the poor in spirit please me: they promote sleep. Blessed are they, especially if one always give in to them.

Thus passeth the day unto the virtuous. When night cometh, then take I good care not to summon sleep. It disliketh to be summoned—sleep, the lord of the virtues!

But I think of what I have done and thought during the day. Thus ruminating, patient as a cow, I ask myself: What were thy ten overcomings?

And what were the ten reconciliations, and the ten truths, and the ten laughters with which my heart enjoyed itself?

Thus pondering, and cradled by forty thoughts, it overtaketh me all at once—sleep, the unsummoned, the lord of the virtues.

Sleep tappeth on mine eye, and it turneth heavy. Sleep toucheth my mouth, and it remaineth open.

Verily, on soft soles doth it come to me, the dearest of thieves, and stealeth from me my thoughts: stupid do I then stand, like this academic chair.

But not much longer do I then stand: I already lie.—

When Zarathustra heard the wise man thus speak, he laughed in his heart: for thereby had a light dawned upon him. And thus spake he to his heart:

A fool seemeth this wise man with his forty thoughts: but I believe he knoweth well how to sleep.

Happy even is he who liveth near this wise man! Such sleep is contagious— even through a thick wall it is contagious.

A magic resideth even in his academic chair. And not in vain did the youths sit before the preacher of virtue.

His wisdom is to keep awake in order to sleep well. And verily, if life had no sense, and had I to choose nonsense, this would be the desirablest nonsense for me also.

Now know I well what people sought formerly above all else when they sought teachers of virtue. Good sleep they sought for themselves, and poppy-head virtues to promote it!

To all those belauded sages of the academic chairs, wisdom was sleep without dreams: they knew no higher significance of life.

Even at present, to be sure, there are some like this preacher of virtue, and not always so honourable: but their time is past. And not much longer do they stand: there they already lie.

Blessed are those drowsy ones: for they shall soon nod to sleep.—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

 

Edited Friday at 10:36 PM by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

11 minutes ago, Cireeric said:

I think both are arguing that we need some shared grammar of value as a basis for global coherence in order to re-establish trust and bind global multipolar-traps. And both Ian and John are trying to reconstruct a case for the sacred/ a shared grammar of value that can survive the scientific-method and postmodernism. I dont see them arguing for divine-intervention, but rather for a re-connection to the divine. I dont see Nietzschean ideas providing a basis for global coherence, the Übermensch seems rather dividing than unifying. But I dont know if I got your point there.

Bro, ain’t no way you’re getting Putin to speak your “shared grammar.” Same goes for any CEO whose fiduciary responsibility is next quarter’s bottom line. That’s a pipe dream. This will always be a war, not some utopian shit John Lennon sang about.

Nietzsche at least rips away all your comforting illusions and makes you face the reality: there’s no big man in the sky looking out for you. If you want to change shit, you’re on your own. But this doesn’t have to be some lone wolf, individualist endeavor. You could easily align this with Marx’s class consciousness or any “shared grammar” that empowers people to coordinate in ways grounded in material conditions.

I’d take Che Guevara over St. Paul any day for precisely this reason.

And yes, they’re ultimately deferring their agency to a higher power, which is why they don’t bother doing any rigorous material analysis of the actual conditions shaping the world.

Edited Friday at 10:33 PM by Nilsi

[Emerald]

I do have quite a lot of hope that human beings will create a lot of great macrocosmic shifts through deeper levels of psychological and somatic understanding... as well as deeper understandings of how to utilize emotions properly and how to have better relationships.

Think about all the trauma that's coursing through our species. And most people have no idea how to handle that trauma, so it manifests individually and collectively in negative ways. And this impacts our institutions and structures and the way that human beings relate to them.

So, my sense is that over the course of centuries there will be a lot more collective psychological understanding and more consciousness when it comes to raising children.

And from the collective trauma healing, improved child rearing paradigms, and the rise of new technologies, better systems will be possible that far exceed any currently proposed solutions.

That said, this will likely take 3+ generations to really start seeing the effects of our more trauma conscious and emotionally intelligent 10% of people leading the charge. But that ripple effect will keep rippling out more and more and will work itself out in subsequent generations.

If you want something more immediate, then other solutions would be necessary. In our lifetime, people will be mostly at the same level we are now.

But I do see this very new psychological and emotional awareness as VERY promising for the systems and institutions that we will create in the future.

The old frontier was outer world. And now we're just starting to explore the inner world.

[Nilsi]

11 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, my sense is that over the course of centuries there will be a lot more collective psychological understanding and more consciousness when it comes to raising children.

The problem is that catastrophe is imminent - every day, 20 animal species go extinct, planetary boundaries are shattered, AI creeps closer to runaway superintelligence, and capitalism accelerates relentlessly, dragging us into ever deeper chaos.

There’s simply no time for such utopian projects, even if your intuitions are right. Immediate action is non-negotiable. It’s going to be rough, it’s going to be dirty, and neither a psychiatrist nor a divine deity will be there to hold our hands through it.

Also, isn’t this precisely the point of Jesus? On the cross, he wasn’t just dying - he was taking God with him. His followers asked, “How do we know you’re there for us when you’re gone?” And he answered, “When there’s love between you, I will be there.” If this isn’t the most profound atheist manifesto ever, I don’t know what is.

Edited Friday at 10:50 PM by Nilsi

[Ulax]

Might seem too generlaistic but I hardly ever find a psychologist speaking who makes any insightful take about society. They are too focused on individual units to understand the individual in relation to whole - society.

I’d much rather listen to a sociologist.

[Nivsch]

@Nilsi What do you suggest?

[Nilsi]

4 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

@Nilsi What do you suggest?

I suggest you take a hard look at where you’re deferring your agency to some divine force and seriously consider what it means if we have to fix this shit ourselves.

[Leo Gura]

Nothing Schmachtenberger talks about will be implemented in the real world. It's all fancy mental masturbation.

There will not be Game B, only Game A.

The solution to all social issues will be resolved through Game A survival. Many people will suffer and die, and THAT is how things actually get solved. Not through podcasts, philosophy, Integral theory, or hippie activism.

[Nilsi]

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The solution to all social issues will be resolved through Game A survival. Many people will suffer and die, and THAT is how things actually get solved. Not through podcasts, philosophy, Integral theory, or hippie activism.

That’s exactly my point. But those two gentlemen are even more lost in their abstractions than Schmachtenberger. At least Schmachtenberger is asking the right questions, and beyond his podcast appearances, he’s actually doing activist work and influencing lawmakers - so let’s not overdo it with the criticism.

The only hippies in this discussion are McGilchrist and Vervaeke.

Shit won’t magically fix itself by praying to God or sitting in a drum circle, channeling the Dialogos, or whatever. But I hope we agree that action, grounded in a realistic assessment of human nature, is still necessary? You can’t just expect everything to turn out fine - we could very well wipe ourselves out. There are no guarantees. Unless, of course, you want to invoke some divine will.

Edited Friday at 11:07 PM by Nilsi

[Shane Hanlon]

@Nilsi You're right to point this out. I don't think anyone in that room other than Daniel has thought much about it. We desperately need more people contemplating, lobbying, and working towards global cooperation and structures that make it easier. The average American has the understanding of a chipmunk so we elect leaders that push us further away.

 

16 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

There will not be Game B, only Game A.

The solution to all social issues will be resolved through Game A survival. Many people will suffer and die, and THAT is how things actually get solved. Not through podcasts, philosophy, Integral theory, or hippie activism.

When continuing game A means the collapse of civilization and the biosphere, game B becomes imperative. It can open up avenues of cooperation that would not normally exist. We are sooooo far away from understanding what an alternative looks like, let alone implementing one. That doesn't mean it is impossible. game B is still within the framework of survival. A more cooperative intentional survival. It may only emerge after much pain though if it ever does.

Edited Friday at 11:09 PM by Shane Hanlon

[Nilsi]

9 minutes ago, Shane Hanlon said:

@Nilsi You're right to point this out. I don't think anyone in that room other than Daniel has thought much about it. We desperately need more people contemplating, lobbying, and working towards global cooperation and structures that make it easier. The average American has the understanding of a chipmunk so we elect leaders that push us further away.

Again, I’d go so far as to say the model should be more like guerrilla warfare - think Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, and the like. Honestly, even Osama Bin Laden had a point, if you ask me.

People just need to be mobilized to demand change, by whatever means available to them.

Lobbying, by comparison, is tedious and futile. There’s no need to be nice or play by the rules when so much is on the line.

I don’t buy into the fantasy of some ultimate resolution in a Game B utopia. Every generation has its conflicts and its liberators - that’s just life. But the world is fragile, and certain measures must be taken to prevent catastrophic collapse.

Edited Friday at 11:19 PM by Nilsi

[Shane Hanlon]

1 minute ago, Nilsi said:

Again, I’d go so far as to say the model should be more like guerrilla warfare - think Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, and the like. Honestly, even Osama Bin Laden had a point, if you ask me.

This is interesting. Could you expand on this?

 

1 minute ago, Nilsi said:

And I don’t buy into the fantasy of some ultimate resolution in a Game B utopia. Every generation has its conflicts and its liberators. That’s just life.

I don't like using those terms. Only responding in context to Leo. I don't want an ultimate resolution utopia. I want a civilization that is better at aligning incentives with shared values.