Mansplaining

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For decades, American suburbia has resembled one continuous green lawn stretching across property boundaries in every direction. Indeed, lawns are part of the fabric of American life. When was it that we all decided to put grass around our homes, and why? Joe and Mark ramble through America’s iconic yardscape to dig up the history of grassy lawns, why they took hold here, and whether recent anti-lawn proclivities will eventually take root or be RoundedUp and killed like yesterday’s crabgrass. (Recorded June 13, 20025.)

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Bullet trains have been a major component of transit systems in places like Japan, China, and Europe for decades. Why hasn’t high-speed rail taken root in the supposedly forward-thinking United States? Mark and Joe set off on a journey of discovery through issues like inadequate infrastructure, population density, and the usual economic and political obstacles before reaching its terminus in America’s ongoing, dysfunctional love affair with cars.  Daunting as these challenges are, there’s still a way forward, if we have the will to get there (a big if). (Recorded May 30, 2025.)

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To meet the increased demand for carbon-free electricity that might mitigate the climate crisis that is already upon us, nations the world over are reconsidering nuclear energy.  Mansplaining listeners of a certain age remember the No Nukes movement that gained steam after frightening meltdowns at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.  What they may not realize is that nuclear power remains an important piece of the world’s energy portfolio.  Joe and Mark assess nuclear’s risk profile to determine whether it’s part of the problem or part of the solution. (Recorded May 11, 2025.)

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Recent estimates are that the United States has a shortage of housing volume of 4-7 million homes. A problem of that scale doesn’t happen overnight and involves decades of neglect and inaction.  With the chronic lack of housing likely to be a major issue for the foreseeable future, public policy experts have been brainstorming about potential solutions, and a few have dusted off an idea that’s older than the Republic: a tax on the value of land without regard to the buildings and other property improvements on it.  Mark and Joe trace the history of the land-value tax, the difficulty of implementing it, and whether it can be part of the solution to our housing crisis. (Recorded April 18, 2025.)

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Like its cousin AGI, quantum computing, which harnesses the quantum states of subatomic particles to perform impossibly difficult computations at lightning speed, is a new-ish technology that many of its proselytizers believe is thisclose to reality.  The “quantum supremacy” of this new technology over classical computing promises stunning breakthroughs in areas as disparate as drug development, materials science, weather forecasting, and cybersecurity. Is it for real, though? Joe and Mark discuss the coming quantum revolution, the ways it’s likely to change our lives, and whether it’ll arrive quickly enough to be the subject of a future episode of Mansplaining. (Recorded March 28, 2025.)

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The New York Yankees’ recent relaxation of half-century-old rules about facial hair got Joe to thinking about dress and codes generally.  Why do they exist?  Where do they come from?  Mark takes Joe on a historical tour of dress codes, from ancient Rome and China through medieval Europe and Tudor England, ending in the modern era of school uniforms and casual Fridays.  As our heroes discover, attire-related restrictions are less about affirming people than about keeping them in place, serving as effective instruments of social or class control—and sometimes symbols of resistance. (Recorded March 14, 2025.)

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You know them by their brand names, like Ozempic, Trulicity, or Mounjaro. They're the GLP-1 receptor agonists that were originally formulated for Type 2 diabetes but have caused a revolution in the treatment of weight loss. As more research rolls in, they’re also looking like game-changers for treating conditions as far-ranging as heart disease, dementia, and substance use disorders. Do they represent a medical breakthrough on the level of penicillin, or are they too good to be true? Joe and Mark review the pros and cons and consider how some things in life can be truly double-edged swords. (Recorded February 28, 2025.)

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State lotteries are a 12-figure business in the US of A. Americans spend more money on lottery tickets than on books, video games, recorded music, movie and sports tickets combined. Of course, lottery revenue is allocated to public goods like schools and parks, but it’s a double-edged sword, as lotteries are disproportionately funded by the poorest third of households, i.e., the people who can least afford them. Mark takes Joe through the checkered history of lotteries, their pros and cons, and the role they might play in the lives of all those people who trade their hard-earned dollar for an elusive dream. 

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Here are a couple sobering numbers: The typical American has only $8,000 in the bank, and the median savings for the age cohort approaching retirement is only $120,000. Neither is anywhere close to adequate. Might a fiscal cliff be approaching for millions of retirees? Joe and Mark do a deep dive into the scary numbers outlining Americans’ financial distress and declining optimism about the future, consider some reasons how and why we became so uniquely bad at saving, and ponder whether this phenomenon is something new or simply a return to the perilous days of yore. (Recorded January 31, 2025.)

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You’ve probably used a map app like Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze to help you get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.  But did you ever wonder how they work?  Did you ever wonder whether we should slavishly follow their directions or be skeptical and consider external factors like our own prior driving experience?  Well, wonder no more.  Mark and Joe take the fastest route that starts with paper maps, brings them past an obscure  mathematician’s brilliant idea, stops for gas to consider the wonders of GPS and crowdsourcing, and arrives at the destination of Clarityville (population: you). (Recorded January 16, 2025.)