Culturally Determined

By Aryeh Cohen-WadeSociety & Culture News News Commentary Politics

Culturally Determined episodes

May 01, 2022 Sex with Robots, with Sam Lipsyte
Author Sam Lipsyte discusses his recent cover story in Harper's, "Ghosting the Machine: Humans, Robots, and the New Sexual Frontier." We talked about "digisexuals," sex bots, virtual reality, Las Vegas, loneliness, and the gamification of everything.

Recorded April 29, 2022

LINKS:

Sam's article, "Ghosting the Machine"
https://harpers.org/archive/2022/05/ghosting-the-machine-humans-robots-and-the-new-sexual-frontier-sam-lipsyte/

Follow @AryehCW
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43 min
April 19, 2022 Cognitive Empathy and Ukraine, with Robert Wright
On a special crossover edition of "Culturally Determined" and "The Wright Show," Aryeh asks Bob about cognitive empathy and how to apply it to Putin's war in Ukraine. Plus: Is Mickey Kaus infecting Bob's brain? And does Bloggingheads.tv still have a reason for being?

Recorded April 13, 2022

LINKS:

The Nonzero newsletter
https://nonzero.substack.com/

The Wright Show on Bloggingheads.tv
https://bloggingheads.tv/programs/wrightshow

Follow @robertwrighter

Follow @AryehCW
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 13 min
April 08, 2022 Uncanny Algorithm-Generated Content for Normies, with Howell Dawdy
Comedian and musician Howell Dawdy talks about writing a funny song in just 30 minutes, the vanished artistic medium of Twitter Fleets, magicians who make Facebook videos of women using banana peels to slowly tie-dye their underwear, and more!

Recorded March 31, 2022

LINKS:

"Howell Dawdy's Fast Track" podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/howell-dawdys-fast-track/id1558186545

Howell's Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/HowellDawdy

Howell's Twitch stream
https://www.twitch.tv/bighowellandpossum

Howell's Fleets account
https://twitter.com/FleetsGood

Follow @HowellDawdy

Follow @AryehCW
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 17 min
March 14, 2022 Is It Funny for the Jews? with Jason Zinoman
"Culturally Determined" is back! Aryeh speaks with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman, author of the recent essay "Is It Funny for the Jews?". They discuss Jewish comedy in a time of rising anti-Semitism, whether Jewish characters should be played by Jewish actors, Dara Horn's recent book "People Love Dead Jews," "The Merchant of Venice," Philip Roth, how younger Jewish comedians understand their heritage, and more!

Recorded February 21, 2022

LINKS:
Jason's NYT piece, "Is It Funny for the Jews?"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/arts/television/comedy-jewish-identity.html

Follow Jason on Twitter: @zinoman
Follow Aryeh on Twitter: @AryehCW
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51 min
January 20, 2022 Debating "Biden-Cheney 2024?" with Chris Novembrino
Culturally Determined is leaving BhTV, so here's how to keep following the show ... Tom Friedman's controversial column, "Biden-Cheney 2024?" ... Why Israel's anti-Netanyahu coalition could never happen in the US ... Aryeh's defense of Friedman's column ... A Hamilton song on Zoom, and other absurdities of centrist liberalism ... Chris: Any "grand coalition" would need to have Bernie and AOC in the lead ... Returning to the "is Trump a fascist" debate ... Has Trump moved on to other grifts?
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1 hr 3 min
January 10, 2022 More Than Meets the Eye, with Milton Lawson
The strange history of the Transformers action figures ... Diving into Transformers: The Movie (1986) ... Unicron, the giant planet-eating robot god voiced by Orson Welles ... Why the film is more than a glorified toy commercial ... Does the movie have any sort of politics? ...
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1 hr 11 min
January 03, 2022 Creating Content for the Algorithm in the Sky, with Douglas Lain
How Doug came to run the leftwing book publisher Zer0 Books, and why he got kicked out ... Dave Chappelle, cancel culture, and the attention economy ... Doug narrates his ejection from Zer0 ... Doug's new company, Diet Soap Media ... How Bloggingheads was ahead of its time (yet failed to conquer the globe) ... How you can help shape the future of Culturally Determined ...
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1 hr 14 min
December 27, 2021 Online Vibes Edition, with Max Read
Max's new newsletter, Read Max ... The significance of Buzzfeed's underwhelming IPO ... Where are the cool kids online? ... Private equity squeezes a bit more blood from online media ... What is web3? And is it bullshit? ... Why Melania Trump is embracing NFTs but Elon Musk isn't ... Max's typology of '90s Dad Thrillers ...
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1 hr 2 min
December 20, 2021 Riding the Waves of Prediction Markets, with David Rees
David's podcast, Election Profit Makers ... Riding the waves of political prediction markets ... David: I don't think there's a limit to the depravity of the GOP ... Weighing the odds of American politics ever becoming normal again ... Can J.D. Vance out-crazy Josh Mandel in Ohio? ... Elon Musk, Time's Person of the Year and EPM's Bad Boy of the Week ... Esoteric rabbit holes into which the podcast digs deep ...
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55 min
December 13, 2021 The Many Mistakes of "Newark," with Erin Schwartz
The many disappointments of The Many Saints of Newark ... Was any Sopranos prequel doomed from the start? ... How the opening scene undermines a key theme of the series ... Clumsy dialogue, broad acting, and flashes of the classic Sopranos wit ... Why Erin loves The Masked Singer ... An anti-narrative that rejects the meritocratic ethos of reality TV ...
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
58 min