New video series: In the field with Michael Muthukrishna

And updates on A Theory of Everyone

Hi Lab,

Just 16 days till A Theory of Everyone launches in the UK, Australia, and the rest of the Commonwealth (Oct 24 for the US and Canada). I have lots to share and I want to share it with you first.

Scroll down for the first video of “In the field with Michael Muthukrishna”. But first…

More Endorsements

It’s been so rewarding hearing from my first readers how much they’ve been enjoying the book. Two of my favorites:

• The head of a government agency wrote to tell me ran into a set of stairs because he was so engrossed in the book

• A well known UK political advisor wrote to say he missed a bus *and* and tube stop while reading

Please do share your reactions once you get a copy! (Don’t forget, I’m shipping signed copies to founding lab members and paid subscribers can win one of 10 signed copies, shipped anywhere in the world).

I think of A Theory of Everyone as complementary to Yuval Harari’s Sapiens and I’ve been thrilled to see so much support from so many disciplines. If you know people who enjoyed Sapiens, please tell them about A Theory of Everyone!

Two more blurbs came in since I last emailed you.

Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene (author of Moral Tribes) sent this blurb:

If you hear the engine of human prosperity sputtering and see the world going dark, Michael Muthukrishna is knocking on your door with a lantern and a toolbox. With wisdom and precision, A Theory of Everyone makes sense of our historical moment and gives credible hope that, after some retooling, human energy and ingenuity can prevail.

– Joshua Greene, Harvard University, author of Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them

And St Andrew’s biologist Kevin Lala (formerly Laland; author of Darwin's unfinished symphony) said:

“The world is breaking” and society is becoming ever-more polarized – yet, a better realm is around the corner, if only we can stimulate our collective brains. In his magnificent A Theory of Everyone, polymath Michael Muthukrishna teaches us how to govern in the twenty-first century, how to address inequalities, and how to trigger creative explosions, improve the internet, and become brighter – all by harnessing the power of cultural evolution. A marvellous rich and entertaining read.

- Kevin Lala (formerly Laland), Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology, University of St Andrews, author of Darwin's unfinished symphony: How culture made the human mind

If you want to read the rest, I’m keeping the endorsement and first reactions list updated here:

Audible recording

It took 5 and a half days, but we finally finished the audiobook recording!

I tend to speak quickly, so it was quite an effort to slow down to Audible pace. For anyone like me who prefers things a bit faster, Audible lets you speed things up to 2-3x, so don’t worry.

Here are a couple of unedited sample clips from the introduction. What do you think?

Laws of life sample clip

Theories make the world less chaotic sample clip

How do you make this meme funny in an audio format?

Here’s my attempt:

In the field with Michael Muthukrishna

Last year I was on sabbatical. Sabbaticals are difficult to organize, because your department has to find someone to cover your classes and other duties. You have to book them years in advance. Mine didn’t work out quite as planned, but arguably worked out better.

I wrote the book proposal in early 2020 and my plan was to submit the full manuscript by late 2021 with a September 2022 release date. I would then use my Sep 2022 - Aug 2023 sabbatical to do a book tour. But of course, a few things happened over those years. Life changed for the whole world, schools closed, my daughter Gabriele was born, and various other personal circumstances for many people involved in the book meant that, long story short, the book was delayed by a year. So sabbatical plans had to change. Or so I thought.

I suggested to my wife, Stephanie, that we just go somewhere nice to finish the final edits on the book. She thought that would be boring and suggested we do the book tour anyway and finish the book along the way. Naturally, I was confused - how do you do a book tour without a book?

She said, “Why don’t you accept talks you would normally give virtually, we’ll travel to those places, and I’ll film short clips for social media where you talk about some aspect of the book related to where we are”. My first reaction? “You know we have 3 kids, right?”. Her response, “Let’s try. We can always come back if it doesn’t work”.

It did work and it was an amazing year traveling up and down the East and West coasts through the US and Canada, a short stop in Japan, a few months in Australia, visiting my field site in Namibia, meetings in Estonia, and various conferences and talks around the world.

Thanks to the generosity of the Templeton World Charity Foundation and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), we were able to turn those videos into a series, “In the field with Michael Muthukrishna”.

Here’s the first video about how the shipping container led to the rise of East Asia, decline in US manufacturing, and what it reveals about innovation in the collective brain. Let me know what you think! If you like it, please share and encourage your friends to subscribe for more.

Best wishes,

Michael