533 - Dario Pescador
chrisryan.substack.com
Jun 25, 2022 • 1HR 35M
533 - Dario Pescador
(Spanish Science Journalist)
Appears in this episode
Chris Ryan
Tangentially Speaking is dedicated to the idea that good conversation is organic, uncensored, revelatory, and free to go down unexpected paths with unconventional people.
Episode details
8 comments
Dario is a science journalist based in Madrid who was instrumental in getting Sex at Dawn published in Spain (En el Principio era el Sexo). We’ve been friends since around 2011, when he interviewed me about that book. In this conversation, we talk about Spanish culture and history, the challenges of writing about science for Spanish publications, and some of the personal challenges Dario has worked his way through over the past few years and the loving friends who stood by him (but not too close by!). Dario’s intelligence, courage, and kindness are on full display in this chat. I hope you enjoy it.
Intro music “Brightside of the Sun,” by Basin and Range. “Mulata,” Raul Paz; Outro: “Smoke Alarm,” by Carsie Blanton.
533 - Dario Pescador
I enjoyed this conversation, and the fact Darío is a science communicator and briefly mentioned a connection with skeptical groups (I'm sure he'd find my personal interests to be "pseudoscientific") reminded me of an episode that happened to me a couple of years ago: I follow a very notorious AND skeptic science communicator on Twitter, and he retwitted a Tweet from his daughter that mentioned her life-long struggle with severe clinical depression. With nothing but good intentions I recommended to her psilocybin therapy which was beginning to make headlines due to its effectiveness to treat such cases... and she and all her followers treated me as if I had shown to her wearing an Atlantean headband and suggested a realignment of chakras using 5-D vibrations and crystals!
The girl chose to use electro-shock therapy instead.
I do hope it worked for her, but part of me wishes she would have been a little less skeptical and more open minded, like Darío was.
Very interesting conversation. It seems like this mental health crisis has reached even the countries which are supposedly easy going and have less pressure in their societies than the US, Britain, Germany etc. Dario did point out that there is this stereotype of the hard working efficient German and the more relaxed easy going Spaniard, which according to him is wrong, as you have a lot of people from Spain working in very high intense scientific fields in Switzerland and Germany. There might be a difference between north and south Spain. North being more industrious and high paced, south being more agricultural slow paced, siestas etc. Although I heard even in Barcelona they have siestas. Just like Three Dog Night, I have never been to Spain but it still seems they have maintained their work-to-live culture amidst the onslaught of the "Protestant work ethic" coming from the US and alike.