Highlights

The cultural power of brutal honesty in hiring (and why job posts should repel as much as they attract).

Vampires as symbols of modern alienation and eternal cool.

Fascism as a false cure for loneliness and economic despair.

Monsters as mirrors of humanity’s deepest fears and longings.

A defense of national parks and public lands.

Segment Breakdown

00:00 – Intro: Brutal honesty and vampire week preview

06:00 – What Fresh Hell: The war on empathy

12:00 – Question 1: “Can I be a vampire?”

27:00 – Question 2: “Why are people still obsessed with Nazis?”

48:00 – Fixing Shit: Saving public lands

57:00 – Question 3: “Why do we keep making monsters?”

1:08:00 – Outro: Fairy Circles™ and the existential loneliness of humanity

Dan and Michael discuss the following works:

Living Right: Far Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe by Agniezska Pasieka

The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Allen Sheridan:

https://archive.org/details/naziseizureofpow0000alle\_m2p7

The Jersey Devil: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey\_Devil

The Sopranos e3 ep11, "Pine Barrens:" 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0705272/

What We Do in the Shadows: 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7908628/

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

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So go to people-stuff.com