Who poses the greatest threat to democracy? Is it the movement that openly identifies with the symbols, goals and policies of fascist governments? Or is it the median bureaucrat at the Department of Health and Human Services?

In 2008, a National Review nepo-baby attempted to answer this vexing question.

Support us on Patreon:
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Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• History News Network: A Symposium on Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism
• The Nature of Fascism
• How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
• The Anatomy of Fascism
• Mussolini and Fascism: The View From America
• The Return of Old-Fashioned Racism to White Americans’ Partisan Preferences in the Early Obama Era
• Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America
• What Hillary Rodham Clinton Really Said About Children’s Rights and Child Policy
• The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915-1930
• A campus takeover that symbolized an era of change

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

In our "Rules" and "Game" episodes we didn't get a chance to dissect the phenomenon of online dating (i.e. describe our worst dates and read cringe profiles out loud to each other), so that is what we are doing on today's bonus episode. 

To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
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Lots of subscribers asked us to release last month's bonus episode in full so here it is! Share it with the conservatives, the boomers and the Satanists in your life.

Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod
 

Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

In 1995 a bestselling book proposed a simple dating strategy for women: Lose weight, wear bright colors and become a completely different person for the rest of your life.

Thanks to Moira Donegan for helping us with this episode!

Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America 
• Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s essay, “Stuff Your ‘Rules’” 
• The More Things Change: The Rules And Late Eighteenth‐Century Conduct Books For Women 
• Shrinking Violets and Caspar Milquetoasts: Shyness and Heterosexuality from the Roles of the Fifties to "The Rules" of the Nineties 
• From Mountain Peak to Total Woman: An Evolutionary History of Pre-feminist Dating Advice 
• The Mating Game: How Gender Still Shapes How We Date by Ellen Lamont 
• So Many Rules, So Little Time 
• Abiding by The Rules: Instructing Women in Relationships 
• What leads to romantic attraction: similarity, reciprocity, security, or beauty? Evidence from a speed-dating study 
• "Playing Hard To Get": Understanding An Elusive Phenomenon 
• Egalitarian Daters, Traditionalist Dates 
• Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets 
• Disintermediating your friends: How online dating in the United States displaces other ways of meeting 
• Playing Hard To Get 

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

This week we're discussing "Atomic Habits," a book about how to use science (and also some stuff that’s definitely not science) to train yourself to be a more functional person.

Support us on Patreon:
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Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• How 1% Performance Improvements Led to Olympic Gold
• From paupers to kings: The lottery-funded revolution 
• Habit Formation
• Implementation Intentions to Reduce Smoking: A Systematic Review of the Literature
• Effectiveness of the use of implementation intentions on reduction of substance use: A meta-analysis
• When Intentions Go Public
• Effect of Intensive Handwashing Promotion on Childhood Diarrhea in High-Risk Communities in Pakistan

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

To celebrate Pride Month we recorded the most depressing bonus episode we've ever done.

To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
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Much has been said about globalization, but perhaps no one has said it worse than Thomas Friedman.

Content Note: Discussions of xenophobic and racist content, especially toward the end of the episode.

Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Why The World Isn't Flat
• The World Is Still Not Flat
• DHL Global Connectedness Index 2022
• The Fallacies of Flatness
• The Sociopathy of Thomas Friedman: A Compendium
• Thomas Friedman sums up the Iraq War (YouTube)

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

The Nudgening.

Support us on Patreon:
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Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• David Gal's "Behavioral Winter"
• The i-frame and the s-frame: How focusing on individual-level solutions has led behavioral public policy astray
• Why Is Behavioral Economics So Popular?
• Applying Behavioral Insights To Intimate Partner Violence
• What Counts as a Nudge?
• The Power of Nudges, for Good and Bad
• Allowing Patients to Waive the Right to Sue for Medical Malpractice: A Response to Thaler and Sunstein
• Obama’s Obama
• Behavioural Insights Applied to Policy - Country Overviews 2016
• The opioid crisis and nudge theory
• On the Supposed Evidence for Libertarian Paternalism
• The effect of charter schools on charter students and public schools
• Re-election Strategy Is Tied to a Shift on Smog
• Is the White House delaying too many health and safety rules?
• Down the Regulatory Rabbit Hole
• Why regulations are good — again
• Cass Sunstein: The Obama Administration's Ambivalent Regulator

 Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

In 2021, scrappy young investors from across the world joined forces to buy GameStop stock, aiming to take down greedy hedge funds. What came next was tragedy, injustice, and a conspiratorial internet cult so stupid we had to do an episode about it.

To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
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In 2008, an economist and a law professor proposed a radical new approach to politics: Telling people not to do bad stuff.

Support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

Where to find us: 

• Twitter
• Peter's other podcast, 5-4
• Mike's other podcast, Maintenance Phase

Sources:

• Mike's Maintenance Phase episode on the godfather of the "cafeteria nudge"
• Nudge: Concept, Effectiveness, and Ethics
• From mechanism to virtue: Evaluating Nudge theory
• The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains
• Why the Most Important Idea in Behavioral Decision-Making Is a Fallacy
• Behavioral Winter
• Why Is Behavioral Economics So Popular?
• The Origins of Anti-Litter Campaigns
• Do Normative Appeals Affect Tax Compliance? Evidence from a Controlled Experiment in Minnesota
• Opt-out legislations: the mysterious viability of the false
• Opt-out policies capacity to increase organ donors is limited
• Assessing Global Organ Donation Policies: Opt-In vs Opt-Out
• What Counts as a Nudge?
• Preventing Secondary Pregnancy In Adolescents: A Model Program
• The Effect of Monetary Incentives and Peer Support Groups on Repeat Adolescent Pregnancies A Randomized Trial of the Dollar-a-Day Program
• The i-frame and the s-frame: How focusing on individual-level solutions has led behavioral public policy astray
• Can behavioural economics make us healthier?
• On the Supposed Evidence for Libertarian Paternalism

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!