Podcast Summary: Something You Should Know

Episode: The Science of Morbid Curiosity & The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Colton Scrivener, Ernest Scheider
Release Date: October 20, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives into two compelling topics:

• The science behind our morbid curiosity—why we can't look away from accidents, true crime, and horror—with insights from behavioral scientist and horror producer Colton Scrivener.
• The often-overlooked “dirty secrets” of clean energy—exploring the environmental and human costs involved in mining and producing the critical minerals for batteries and green tech—with Reuters correspondent and author Ernest Scheider.

The episode combines practical advice, scientific explanation, and thought-provoking commentary for listeners interested in both human psychology and the future of energy.

Segment 1: Morbid Curiosity—Why We Can't Look Away

Guest: Colton Scrivener, behavioral scientist and author of Morbidly Curious
[Starts at 06:03]

Key Points & Insights

Definition & Universality of Morbid Curiosity

• Everyone experiences it: Most people have moments where they can't help but look at something disturbing or listen to unsettling stories, despite feeling they shouldn’t.
  • Quote: “Pretty much everyone has had some kind of experience where maybe they didn't want to look, ...but they couldn't help but listening, and they couldn't help but maybe peeking.”
    —Colton Scrivener [06:25]
• Evolutionary roots: The drive comes from our need to learn about potential dangers safely.
  • “We are fascinated by and curious about potential threats or dangers in our environment. And it's good to be curious about those things when we can learn about them from a safe perspective.”
    —Colton Scrivener [06:25]

The Push and Pull: Gas & Brakes

• Curiosity as gas, fear/disgust as brakes: The psychological experience involves both being drawn in (curiosity) and pulled back (fear, disgust).
  • “Your curiosity is your gas. …You have things like disgust, you have things like fear, you know, things that push you away…”
    —Colton Scrivener [07:14]

Other Species and Morbid Curiosity

• Not unique to humans: Animals also inspect predators (“predator inspection”) to learn about threats.
• Humans are unique due to storytelling: We can experience and learn about danger safely through stories, movies, and imagination.

Real vs. Fictional Danger

• Why fiction still feels real: Different parts of the brain process real and imagined threats. The amygdala lights up whether the threat is real or onscreen, but the prefrontal cortex “knows” it’s safe.
  • “When you watch a horror movie...your amygdala is activated...But other parts of your mind are telling you, well, it is a killer on the screen, but it's on a screen and you're not in any real danger.”
    —Colton Scrivener [11:07]

True Crime vs. Fictional Crime

• True crime’s appeal in podcasts: People are especially drawn to true stories about danger without the intense “brakes” of fear/gross-out.
  • “True crime really gives you a lot of descriptive details without a lot of those brake pedals...without a lot of the fear, a lot of the disgust. And that makes it particularly attractive to us.”
    —Colton Scrivener [13:21]

Individual Differences

• Spectrum of morbid curiosity: It's a personality trait like extroversion, normally distributed in the population. Some people are very curious, others not at all.
  • “Just like any other personality trait, it exists kind of on a spectrum and it tends to be normally distributed.”
    —Colton Scrivener [18:18]

Gender and Subcategories

• No major overall differences between men and women.
• Women: More curious about the minds of dangerous people.
• Men: More curious about the acts of violence.
  [22:30]

Empathy and Horror Fandom

• Empathy is central: Enjoyment of horror is often about empathetic connection to the protagonist, not a lack of compassion.
  • “If you didn't have empathy for the protagonist, the horror movie wouldn't really be scary…”
    —Colton Scrivener [25:53]

Learning through Stories

• We learn what NOT to do: Horror stories reinforce lessons on avoiding danger by showing protagonists making poor choices.
  • “They're really good at learning when they witness someone doing something that is a poor choice, that's usually how we learn best.” —Colton Scrivener [26:56]

Notable Quotes

• “Morbid curiosity is a perfectly normal, widespread feature of human nature. And it doesn't seem to have pathological effects on our psychology, on our behavior, delinquency, anything like that.”
  —Colton Scrivener [24:58]

Segment 2: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy

Guest: Ernest Scheider, Reuters correspondent and author of The War: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives
[Starts at 31:26]

Key Points & Insights

The Misconception of Clean Energy

• “There's this general assumption that oil and gas companies are bad and therefore the inverse—green energy—must be clean. But it's not really the case. Green energy has a lot of dirty parts to it.”
  —Ernest Scheider [31:44]

What Goes into Every Device

• Critical minerals: Lithium, copper, graphite, cobalt, nickel, and others are required for every phone, tablet, laptop, battery, EV, and even common household devices like leaf blowers.
  • “Every single cell phone, tablet and laptop in the world has a lithium battery in it. That's a lot of lithium.”
    —Mike Carruthers [28:46]
  • “All of these devices are built with critical minerals and they were not nearly ubiquitous 20 or 30 years ago.”
    —Ernest Scheider [39:01]

The Complex and Eco-unfriendly Mining Process

• Lithium sources: Mainly mined in Chile (evaporation ponds, very water-intensive) and from hard rock in Australia, China, and Africa. Both methods are harsh on the environment.

  • “It's extremely water intensive…It essentially wastes water. …The other way is hard rock mining.”
    —Ernest Scheider [33:07]

• Not just lithium: Copper, graphite, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths are all “critical” with varying environmental impacts and sourced from across the globe (often outside the US).

  • “Copper is another key critical mineral…used in every single motor that's out there. …Other critical minerals include graphite…cobalt and nickel.”
    —Ernest Scheider [34:46]

The Hidden Environmental Costs

• Mining is still dirty and disruptive: While much safer than decades ago (automation, robotics), mining still scars the planet, creates waste, and uses a lot of energy.
  • “It is a loud, intrusive, dirty and disruptive industry. …If the metal is in the ground, you have to dig a big hole to get it out.”
    —Ernest Scheider [39:51]

Recycling: Potential and Challenges

• Batteries can be recycled, but infrastructure is lacking: Most homes hoard old electronics. Recycling practices for lithium lag behind those for car batteries.

  • “The average person has six cell phones sitting in their house that they don't use that could be recycled…”
    —Ernest Scheider [44:05]
  • “That's a huge, huge problem right now with the recycling industry.”
    —Ernest Scheider [45:41]

• Recycling process: Companies like Redwood Materials and Apple are pioneering methods to break down electronics and recover critical minerals.

The Circular Economy and the Future

• The ultimate goal is a “circular economy,” where all critical minerals are continually recycled instead of mined, but we’re a long way from that reality.

Carbon Footprint of Green Energy

• It depends how electricity is generated: If EVs are powered by coal or gas, net emissions savings disappear.
  • “Just because you buy an electric vehicle does not necessarily mean that you're helping the planet…Are you powering that electric vehicle with a solar panel on your roof or a wind turbine…?”
    —Ernest Scheider [49:08]

Notable Quotes

• “We just love to take old electronics, especially as Americans, and just shove them in a drawer and forget about them.”
  —Ernest Scheider [44:05]
• “At some point, we will dig the last mine as a species and be able to recycle all these critical minerals and all of these electronics again and again.”
  —Ernest Scheider [45:23]

Practical Intel: Friends, Teenagers & Lifelong Health

[50:40]

• Friendships in adolescence predict health in adulthood: Strong friendships during teen years lead to better health outcomes in adulthood.
• Isolation causes stress: Chronic social isolation is linked to long-term stress and negative health effects.
  —Mike Carruthers [50:40]

Timestamps for Noteworthy Segments

• 06:03 — Intro to morbid curiosity with Colton Scrivener
• 10:01 — Why car accidents fascinate us
• 13:21 — Why true crime podcasts are so popular
• 18:18 — Morbid curiosity as a personality trait
• 22:30 — Gender differences in morbid curiosity
• 25:53 — Empathy, horror fandom, and what horror teaches us
• 31:26 — The realities of “clean” energy with Ernest Scheider
• 33:07 — How lithium is mined and its environmental toll
• 39:51 — The ongoing environmental costs of mining
• 44:05 — Recycling challenges and the future of a circular economy
• 49:08 — The true carbon cost of green energy and electric vehicles

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “Your curiosity is your gas. …you have things like disgust, you have things like fear…that push you away.”
  —Colton Scrivener [07:14]

• “Morbid curiosity is a perfectly normal, widespread feature of human nature.”
  —Colton Scrivener [24:58]

• “Green energy has a lot of dirty parts to it.”
  —Ernest Scheider [31:44]

• “At the end of the day, we're still tied to a mine.”
  —Ernest Scheider [43:02]

Episode Tone and Style

The episode blends practical science, hard-hitting journalism, and friendly, curious conversation. Mike Carruthers’s tone is inviting and inquisitive; guest experts speak clearly, with vivid metaphors and accessible explanations.

Summary Takeaways

• Morbid curiosity is a natural, widespread human trait rooted in survival and learning—it helps us understand danger from safe distances.
• Stories about real danger (like true crime podcasts) are particularly irresistible because they let us learn without confronting real risk.
• Green energy is not without environmental costs—mining and processing the required minerals are resource-intensive and ecologically damaging.
• Recycling is critical but current systems to reclaim battery materials are underdeveloped. We’re far from a genuinely green, circular economy.
• For green tech to truly help the planet, both our energy sources and our mining/recycling methods need radical innovation.

Further Resources

• Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains why We Can't Look Away by Colton Scrivener
• The War: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives by Ernest Scheider

[For more details, check the episode show notes for links to the guests’ books and additional reading.]