Andrew Huberman's Mechanisms of Control | Hacker News Reader

Andrew Huberman's Mechanisms of Control

nymag.com

31 pointscasca25 comments

There's something real here.

As someone whose life has been changed by Huberman's advice, I have to say that systemic lying in his personal relationships makes me doubt the soundness of information on his podcast.

Over the last three years, he's slowly moved out of his area of expertise and into fameland, interviewing whoever has a new book out or has a brand name and opinions. There is less and less scientific foundation for the information he's selling.

And if he behaves in such a way with people close to him, why should he treat strangers on the Internet any better? He's made a lot of choices that damage his image as a paragon of good behavior. He's hurt the movement he created.

Now that this is out, there will be other shoes to drop. Lies are like Pringles and cockroaches.

How he totes "Stanford, Stanford, Stanford" in his bio and credentials but lives in LA and barely goes to his empty shell of a lab operated by 1 grad student on her own grant is more damning than any of the personal life drama imo.

He wants to be a full time fameball snake oil like Dr. Oz, not a real academic researcher. He's a quack in academic clothing imo.

The stunning "gotcha" of this witch hunt (undoubtedly brought on by his proximity to individuals that the author doesn't like) is that Andrew Huberman was a bad boyfriend, weirdly flaky in his social life, and not an expert in all of the 100s of topics he discusses on his podcast (usually discussed with actual experts in the topics).

Okay...

Listen, if we stopped deriving information, education, or entertainment from people who have weird personal flaws, we would not read books, go to school, listen to music, or watch movies. Or have friends. What a silly article.

I've listened to a few episodes of the podcast, and enjoyed them, but I think he sometimes acts as though he is a model of how to live a healthy, well balanced life, and this article is a pretty convincing account that he isn't.

Did people expected him to be some kind of ultra healthy, jacked up, Buddha-Christ figure in his daily life?

Of course he has flaws, he is human.

And his personal life is his personal life. Writing a news profile about his would be as moral or relevent as some newspaper writing one about yours or mine.

I'd be actually concerned about his public function: about how he sells some new "scientific" lifestyle advice every week, an endless cycle of shallow unsettled science, bro advice, fads, and basically selling hope.

> I'd be actually concerned about his public function: about how he sells some new "scientific" lifestyle advice every week

Why? It’s great advice.

His “sleep toolkit” episode taught me a lot about how to get better sleep.

> but I think he sometimes acts as though he is a model of how to live a healthy

I think he more often tells listeners that x is the findings and suggests behavioral changes. Its hard to count the number of times his message comes across as "model your protocols after me".

My goodness what a cavalcade of tedious gossip. I had no idea who this "famous" Andrew Huberman chap is. Sure, neuroscience is interesting but pop professors seem ten a penny these days. Reading a mini PhD thesis on what felt a far too intimate a deconstruction of someone's personal life was uncomfortable. I thought this "journalism" died with Hello Magazine.

With few exceptions, this is what journalism is now. Hitpieces and spinjobs - written by people with no accomplishments working for decaying name brands that used to stand for something.

Anecdote. I saw him talk on stage ant Psychedelic Science '23 about his MDMA experiences and he recounted how in his 3-4th experience he did it alone and at home and he felt nothing but hours of anger and rage. He didn't go into more detail about it but it raised an a big eyebrow and left me confused how that could happen.

sudden anger seemed to be reflected in the witness accounts from ex girlfriends and a recent YouTube video of a reporter, Scott Carney, who recounted being befriended by Huberman, ghosted, ghosted again on a trip that involved learning to dive and swim with shark. The journalist had a scathing impression of Huberman.

https://youtu.be/d1oTcX7SoE8?si=MVSYriHGy_GcMkp1 https://youtu.be/RvOKFXmkmc0?si=-yQcyGF90UWQ_iW4

Huberman gets angry.

Huberman didn’t treat his girlfriend nice.

Huberman ditched a journalist on a vacation.

Are we trying to cancel Huberman for being a human?

His behavior being oddly shifty with appointments, scheduled dates, delaying delaying delay, and then canceling last minute, sort of points to his pattern of lying and how messy his tangle of lies and schedule got.

In a business, where science, truth, and integrity are core to his brand. I think this really damaged his image.

I think he really needs to respond and not just brush aside these allegations against his character. Admitting real fault and harm and seeking help would've shown some humility and maturity. No one is perfect, but in an industry where you talk about how to optimize your health, mental, physical and relationships. It's a bad look.

I will say that I have personally benefited from some of his presentations and discussions with experts on various topics like eye health. For that I am grateful.

I will also say, some of his podcasts lacked tighter presentation and would veer into questionable science or studies.

Okay, so:

Huberman does not cancel appointments in good time.

I’ll keep that in mind if I ever make an appointment with him.

you do that.

Of the alcohol episode, the article says:

>While he claims repeatedly that he doesn’t want to “demonize alcohol,” he fails to mask his obvious disapproval of anyone who consumes alcohol in any quantity.

I've listened to that ep a couple of times and not once did I come away with that impression, even remotely. This article is kind of garbage.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I even went back to some of his episodes to hear his messaging and I cannot see where these reporters are getting this from.

I'm thinking this is some kind of bias by these "journalists" who just want to tag on to whatever is trending right now. I really wonder how many of them actually listened to his episodes or the things he says, especially about alcohol.

so many academics and doctors have been criticizing his "science" for years, this total loss of integrity should be the final straw that breaks the camels back

From the article:

> Sarah was, in fact, changing. She felt herself getting smaller, constantly appeasing. She apologized, again and again and again. “I have been selfish, childish, and confused,” she said. “As a result, I need your protection.” A spokesperson for Huberman denies Sarah’s accounts of their fights,

Having played around with local LLM chatbots using different models and templates ("characters"), I find this pattern of talking _remarkably_ similar to how chatbots would respond to certain situations. The repetition ("again and again and again"), the use of multiple adjectives in a row as self-description ("I have been selfish, childish, and confused"), and the explicit closing of sentences ("As a result, I need your protection") fits almost perfectly with what I would expect from a waifu/husbando chatbot at the ChatGPT 3.5 level.

Does anyone talk like this in real life? English is not my native language, but this all sounds extremely weird to me.

Perhaps vapid, pseudo-intellectuals are overrepresented in the text of the internet because of their excess blogging, tweeting, etc. Thus the LLMs are biased toward that way of speaking.

It is indeed a very weird way of talking, characteristic of prepared statements and forced apologies.

Manipulation always involves diminishment.

Abuse always involves isolation.

Coercion always involves fatigue.

Symptom; method; cause; tool; good ends or bad; doesn’t matter. If X is present, Y is also present.

There is a reason why I rarely trust teetotalers.

I'd be more interested in the dirty personal laundry of the author of the article.

Are they a model boy scout in all aspects? Did they ever lied in a relationship? Did they ever cheated? Did they back stab some colleague to get a leg up? Do they write hypocritically about things they don't believe in because they sell? Do they ever call their aging mother who sacrificed her life to raise them? Have they hurled abuse at their ex while drunk?

Sadly we will never know. We could really use some quality journalism such as this.

So character-assassinate the messenger ?

"Assassinate the assasinator" - this doesn't sound as bad now, does it?

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