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:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

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!

What’s your love language? Is it gifts? Words of affirmation? Or is it podcasts about books with extremely weird, reactionary gender dynamics?

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:

• Can Gary Chapman Save Your Marriage?
• The Sixth Love Language Does Not Exist
• How ‘The Five Love Languages’ Gets Misinterpreted
• The 5 Love Languages Don’t Matter as Much as You Think
• The Creator Of The 5 Love Languages Is A Homophobe And This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
• Famed Author Gary Chapman Talks Love, Marriage, Sex 
• Evangelicals Incorporated

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Is it bootstraps? It's bootstraps.

To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

In 1997, Robert Kiyosaki revealed the secret to lifelong success: Deliver grifty seminars and hire child slaves.

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:

• Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry
• ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad' Robert Kiyosaki Exposed
• Stupid Investment of the Week
• Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Education on Real Estate Investing Review
• The Ticket to Easy Street? The Financial Consequences of Winning the Lottery
• Why the Myth of the Miserable Lottery Winner Just Won’t Die
• Work Centrality and Post-Award Work Behavior of Lottery Winners
• "The best way to get even with A-grade students was to make them employees of mine"
• Ohio real estate investor’s warning statement on Robert Kiyosaki and Bill Gatten’s complex PACtrust for real estate investing
• Academic Discipline and Personal Finance Instruction in High School

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

Get in loser, we're going to Oberlin.

To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

In 2016, J.D. Vance informally launched his political career with "Hillbilly Elegy," a memoir that blames the relative poverty of Appalachian and Rust Belt populations on their own culture. Despite its reactionary premise, mainstream and liberal press outlets were so enamored by the book that they accidentally made Vance a senator.

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:

• Appalachian Reckoning 
• America’s Divided Recovery 
• What Did Hillbilly Elegy Get Wrong? 
• J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America 
• Hillbilly Elitism
• Welfare Queens and White Trash 
• Consumer Expenditures in 2016 
• Household Expenditures and Income 
• CFPB Data Point: Payday Lending 

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

TRIGGER WARNING: if you're a SNOWFLAKE college professor afraid of how your students are expressing themselves, you might need a SAFE SPACE, because Michael and Peter are discussing "The Coddling of The American Mind," a book about campus culture that's light on facts and heavy on cherry-picked anecdotes.

CORRECTION: The Socrates quote mentioned at the end of this episode is apocryphal. We thank the listeners who pointed this out for refusing to coddle our American minds.

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:

• The Miseducation of Free Speech (https://www.virginialawreview.org/articles/miseducation-free-speech/)
• College and the “Culture War”: Assessing Higher Education’s Influence on Moral Attitudes (
• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00031224211041094)
• The Myth of the Campus Coddle Crisis (https://academeblog.org/2018/12/28/the-myth-of-the-campus-coddle-crisis-the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/)
• What ‘Safe Spaces’ Really Look Like on College Campuses (https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-safe-spaces-really-look-like-on-college-campuses/?bc_nonce=peduocnzcslb08jxmt1dlb&cid=reg_wall_signup)
• Are College Campuses Really in the Thrall of Leftist Censors? (https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/03/hypersensitive-campus-progressives-judith-shulevitz-is-half-right-but-takes-her-criticisms-too-far.html)
•  Speaking Freely: What Students Think about Expression at American Colleges (https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/student-attitudes-free-speech-survey)
•  ‘Not all cultures are created equal’ says Penn Law professor in op-ed (https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/08/amy-wax-penn-law-cultural-values)
•  How Right Wing Media Has Tried to Stifle Student Speech at Evergreen State College (https://psmag.com/education/the-real-free-speech-story-at-evergreen-college)
• I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me (https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid)
• In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas (https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-hiding-from-scary-ideas.html)

Thanks to Mindseye for our theme song!

The nation's most prestigious newspaper insists on asking a very stupid question. So for this month's bonus episode, we decided to answer it.

To hear the rest of the show, support us on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/IfBooksPod

As we mentioned at the top of the episode, we're donating this month's support to three of our trans journo-friends! They've been unbelievably patient with Mike as he's navigated the science and politics of this issue over the last year. Here's where to find and support their work:

• Parker Molloy (readtpa.com) 
• Katelyn Burns (patreon.com/katelynburns)
• Evan Urquhart  (assignedmedia.org) 

"If your thesis doesn't hold up to obvious criticisms, there's a chance that your thesis sucks."

Thanks to Paul Musgrave and Alex Cruikshanks for helping us fact-check 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

Links!

• Huntington’s 1993 article
• Statistics on deaths in state-based conflicts 
• The Clash of Civilizations: An Islamicist’s Critique
• Paul Musgrave’s Roundtable on  Clash of Civilizations  
• “The Hispanic Challenge” 
• The “Arab Street”? Public Opinion In The Arab World 
• The Clash of Ignorance 
• Can Civilizations Clash?