Political Psychology Series Episode 2: Jim Penman

If you grew up in suburban Australia, you would be familiar with the green and gold trailers regularly appearing on our streets to mow our lawns. Jim’s Mowing has since expanded and the Jim’s Group is now the largest franchise in Australia and New Zealand with some 4,000 franchise owners turning over more than $500m a year serving 35,000 customers a day!

But don’t let the blue-collar grass mowing success story fool you – Dr David Jim Penman, that’s right…Dr, is an avid student of history and how its cyclical nature is determined by biology, epigenetics and character amongst other things.

Buckle up for a wild ride as we explore a huge range of topics including how civilisations are built, how to reverse their decline with epigenetics, why he is fighting the Victorian lockdown laws, and how Jim's franchises are truly a family.

Show notes:

1:40 Jim’s academic history

3:10 Gibbons vs Baboons

5:00 Slow vs fast life history strategy

6:32 Genetic hard wiring and adaptations

7:35 Epigenetics

8:27 How civilisations are built

11:02 Restrictions that create productivity

12:15 Religions as cultural technologies

13:30 Where is civilisation going?

15:50 Elon Musk draws together high productivity people

16:34 Advanced peasant societies

17:20 Strictness on infants can set productivity

20:18 Using epigenetics to halt the decline

21:50 Caloric restriction in rats transferred through pheromones

23:15 CRISPR gene editing

25:00 Alternatives to Ritalin for students

26:22 Dystopian social engineering?

27:45 Victoria Australia descending into tribalism

28:38 Parallels with the decline of the Roman Empire

29:55 Giving up the Rule of Law for personal loyalties to Dan Andrews

31:00 Where Dan Andrews draws his political power from

32:20 The absurdities of lockdown laws covered by blind loyalty

34:00 Saving liberty through science?

38:12 Why Jim makes idealistic business decisions

39:50 Humanism won’t work because it’s incomplete

41:45 Progressive vs fundamental churches

43:52 10% of the population saving civilisation

46:35 The new immunisation?

48:38 Jim’s defence of Bill Gates

49:25 Jim clarifies his stance on Victorian lockdown laws

51:35 What is an unjust law?

53:10 Civil disobedience in Melbourne

54:50 The human cost of the lockdowns

56:05 The importance of mental health

1:00:50 The uniqueness of Jim’s Group franchises

1:03:30 Customers are not at the top of Jim’s hierarchy

1:06:10 Shareholder value should not be the final goal

1:09:10 What will Jim do until he dies?

1:10:45 Jim’s strengths and weaknesses

1:13:00 Jim doesn’t think about numbers – he thinks about culture

1:14:40 Jim’s message on Christianity

Watch this episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/O2YGNzhxSYY

Follow Jim:

Twitter - @thejimpenman

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/thejimpenman

IG - @thejimpenman

Jim's Podcast - https://jims.net/the-jimscast/

Jim also does a weekly Facebook live show #ASKJIM Wednesday nights from 7 PM AEST via his FB page.