The James Altucher Show

I wish I was as smart as Steven Johnson. I asked him, "What is your one favorite thing that everybody thinks is bad for you that is actually good for you?" He didn't want to tell me. "My kids might listen to this later," he said. But he told me... He's the author of "Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation," "Everything Bad is Good for you," and the recent "Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World"- how the idea of "play" more than anything else, is what created the modern world. "I regret saying this a little, but, the assumption that video games are just a terrible waste of time and that this generation is growing up playing these stupid games is really... it's so wrong," he said. He was talking about using play for education reform. "If you think about it, we walk around with a bunch of assumptions of what a learning experience is supposed to look like: listening to a lecture, watching an educational video, taking an exam to test your learning." I was gonna puke.  "I've been watchi