Johnathan Bi — Girard, Desire, and Modernity (EP.116)

Johnathan Bi started out getting trained in Mathematics, and then eventually went on to study Philosophy and Computer Science at Columbia. He hosts a lecture series on René Girard’s Mimetic Theory and is also a founding member of Lonsdale Investment Technology. Important Links:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnathanBi
• Lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qu6vBebwwg
• Website: https://johnathanbi.com/
• Lonsdale Investment Technology: https://www.longterm.com/

Show Notes:

• Becoming pessimistic with age
• Humiliation always comes back to bite you
• How Jonathan got introduced to Buddhism and Girard
• Why Jonathan left academia
• The driving human emotion
• Has modernity ignored the “spirit”?
• Girard’s apocalyptic predictions
• Wild, wild west of capitalism
• The mystery with the discovery of the skull
• What does eugenics say about science?
• Science becoming dictatorial
• Buddhism figuring out the inner telescope
• Physical vs. metaphysical desires
• Mimesis in asset valuation
• Price to magic ratio
• Nietzsche's will of power
• Is delusion bad?
• Can internet lead to greater violence?
• “The Buddhist Solution”
• Girard—A rescuer of spirit
• And MUCH more!

Books Mentioned:

• The Status Game; by Will Storr
• The Struggle for Recognition; by Axel Honneth
• Sapiens; by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Science of Storytelling; by Will Storr
• The Origin of Species; Charles Darwin
• Untimely Meditations; by Friedrich Nietzsche