Base Code

According to Donald Trump, the best words come from--Donald Trump! What if he's right? What if his 4th grade vocabulary is actually changing expectations of public discourse? What if 77 words are really all that's needed from a president? Episode 9 explores how political speech is eliminating facts and content, reducing it to simple emotional triggers that provoke strong feelings and reinforce categorical thinking. Bonus: Rudy Guliani, America's Mayor, reclassifies truth as...not truth.

According to Donald Trump, the best words come from--Donald Trump! What if he's right? What if his 4th grade vocabulary is actually changing expectations of public discourse? What if 77 words are really all that's needed from a president? Episode 9 explores how political speech is eliminating facts and content, reducing it to simple emotional triggers that provoke strong feelings and reinforce categorical thinking. Bonus: Rudy Guliani, America's Mayor, reclassifies truth as...not truth.

Religious texts speak of wonder, miracles and the soul. But it gets better: do the words themselves have power? We talk with Matthew Stackhouse, a pastor, teacher and speaker on theology about the power and sanctity of words, as well as the special role of words in some of the world's great religions. Then we get underneath religious language into the concepts that make these words powerful and everlasting.

Religious texts speak of wonder, miracles and the soul. But it gets better: do the words themselves have power? We talk with Matthew Stackhouse, a pastor, teacher and speaker on theology about the power and sanctity of words, as well as the special role of words in some of the world's great religions. Then we get underneath religious language into the concepts that make these words powerful and everlasting.

In June of 1971, US government agents shot an NRA member in his home. This event started a change in language and politics that exposed deep beliefs about guns in America, changes that ultimately established an individual right to a gun. Base Code looks underneath the language and culture to reveal the true drivers of this change. In this episode, Harry shops for guns at a local supermarket, we learn about the word 'right' and the thinking behind it, and try to understand why 3% of Americans own half of the country's 300 Million guns.

Love: verb or noun? Concept or action? The answers to these questions sometimes elude us, and looking across cultures we find evidence that the thinking behind these words might just be substantially different. We learn from Poets, Translators and Scientists about the art, culture and neurology of sharing concepts like love.

Tokyo Comedians Aziz Vora, Evans Musoka Luseno, Hagar and others guide us on a journey to discover the universal joke. They help us understand what it's like to write and tell jokes in a foreign country, often in a foreign language.  Surprisingly, they identify several topics that all humans may consider funny, and discuss the deep satisfaction that comes from their efforts.

Bill Wood's stories have delighted audiences in America for almost 30 years. Basecode joins Bill on a journey to discover why and how we tell stories, starting with a shocking premise taken directly from an unexpected source. Topics include: the origin of words, creative listening, and enchantment.

The Germanic Language called English developed over 1,600 years mostly through the conquest of Britain by waves of European Invaders. This bonus episode was made at the request of listeners and is partly a history of English and partly a love note to English--with occasional good-hearted satire.

As Artificial Intelligence develops languages on-demand, what can we learn from human languages to predict how AI will evolve? We look at Japanese, Swahili and English for a deeper understanding of how machines are creating more language than has ever been spoken in the history of the world--and the implications for existing languages. Also: Cannibalism and Placentaphagy in Japan.