People Stuff

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael are joined by Princeton anthropologist Agustín Fuentes—author of Sex Is a Spectrum and Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You—to ask what human nature actually means, and why people keep using it to justify behavior they don’t want to examine too closely.

We cover:

Plus: Michael tries to fix Gen Z, Dan defends gossip as civilization, and we discover that humanity may just be pre-crab evolution.

We’re anthropologists. We know stuff about people.

This week, Dan and Michael talk about books.

Along the way:

Plus:

And in “Fixing Shit”:

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by what to read—or quietly judged someone by their bookshelf—this episode is for you.

We’re anthropologists. We know stuff about people.

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael are joined by applied anthropologist Jeff Greger to ask a deceptively simple question:

Why do utopias always fall apart?

From Silicon Valley hackerspaces to Danish communes to the U.S. Constitution itself, the episode explores humanity’s enduring obsession with building perfect systems—and our equally durable tendency to break them.

Inspired by everything from communal farming dilemmas to sci-fi dreams of Starfleet, the conversation moves across scales: from chore wheels to constitutional design, from co-living conflict to cosmic hope.

Topics include:

Along the way, listeners ask about commune freeloaders, collapsing faith in American institutions, and whether it’s naïve to still believe in a better world.

As always, the anthropologists attempt to fix society—this week by bringing back gatekeeping.

Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael follow the red yarn across humanity’s favorite pastime: connecting dots.

Inspired by Susan Lepselter’s The Resonance of Unseen Things, the hosts explore apophenia — the human tendency to impose meaning on scattered events — and why conspiracy thinking may be less irrational than we like to believe.

Topics include:

Along the way, listeners ask about spirit-protecting neighbors, uncomfortable family revelations, and whether sharing ghost encounters is ever a good idea.

As always, the anthropologists attempt to fix society — this week by solving childcare entirely.

Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael are joined by technology manager, nonprofit veteran, and repeat Jeopardy contestant Mike Dawson to confront one of humanity’s oldest questions:

Why do we care so much about things that don’t matter?

Topics include:

Along the way, the hosts debate whether knowledge should be endured, abandoned, or absorbed slowly like baseball statistics.

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by trivia, excluded by fandom, or haunted by the sense that culture is secretly a giant game show — this episode is for you.

Remember: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

Is People Stuff a weekly podcast? Philosophically, yes.

In this Season 3 preview, Dan and Michael emerge from their off-season hibernation to read listener messages ranging from supportive to Victorian-newspaper furious. Along the way:

This episode serves as a warm-up before a 20-episode season featuring jeopardy contestants, horse whisperers, boats (yes, an entire episode about boats), and more cultural analysis disguised as advice.

New episodes begin March 31.

Until then: remember — we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people.

Stress isn’t just biology—it’s culture, symbols, expectations, and the stories we tell ourselves. This week Dan and Michael are joined by UCLA’s Dr. Michelle Rensel to unpack why Americans are so stressed, why hunters get buck fever, why high-schoolers are spiraling, and why self-discipline has become a competitive sport.

We dig into social prescribing, predator-prey symbolism, the high-wire act of modern work, and whether our bodies are betraying us or sending a message we should finally listen to.

Chapters
00:00 — Intro
02:30 — What Stress Actually Is
06:10 — Fresh Hell: Doctors Prescribing Parties
11:45 — Question 1: Buck Fever in the Deer Stand
19:30 — Predator vs Prey Symbol Systems
25:00 — Question 2: High-School Stress Spiral
34:10 — Fixing Shit: The Cult of Self-Discipline
47:00 — Question 3: Catastrophe Thinking for Adults
58:00 — Outro + Fake Sponsorship

This week, Dan and Michael welcome writer and sports scholar John Florio to dig into America’s real religion: sports. We cover the rise of prop bets, whether athletes can ethically nudge a stat or two, why AI-powered officiating is killing the pathos of the bad call, and how youth sports became an arms race disguised as “character building.”

Along the way, we detour through Birkin bag lawsuits, Tommy John surgery, the death of knuckleballing, and the eternal question: Can you force your kid to play sports without turning into a meritocratic ghoul?

As always: we’re anthropologists, and we know stuff about people. People Stuff.

Chapters:
0:00 — Intro & Why Americans Worship Sports
4:32 — Birkin Bags and the Anthropology of Luxury
11:20 — Prop Bets and the Ethics of Self-Rigging
21:55 — MLB, Corruption & the Luis Ortiz Case
28:40 — AI Officiating & the Death of the Bad Call
37:15 — Children’s Sports & Class Panic
50:22 — Fixing Shit: Baseball Pitchers Edition
58:10 — How to Raise Non-Doughy Kids
1:08:45 — People Ball: Our Fake Sponsor
1:10:00 — Outro & Credits

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We’re joined by Steve Black, linguistic and medical anthropologist at Georgia State University, whose work spans ethics, care, Zulu gospel choirs, Indigenous youth in Costa Rica, and global health discourse.

In this episode:

🚗 Why millennials think a new car should cost exactly $30k

🧮 Inflation as a vibe, not a natural law

👑 Letters of recommendation: the medieval patronage system we somehow still use

🏛️ First-generation students & the unwritten rules of academia

🤖 Why academic publishing is drowning in AI slop (and rat genitals)

🧑‍💼 How to quit your job without burning your whole life down

🏃‍♀️ Why tech workers accidentally work two jobs at once

Anthropology: because the economy is mostly feelings.

This week on People Stuff, Dan and Michael explore humanity’s oldest problem: people hitting other people and calling it “order.” Joined by anthropologist Scott Freeman, we talk violence, enclosure, billionaires, medieval sword fights, and the enduring smugness of horses.

Featuring:

Horse violence as a disciplinary technology

The Enclosure Movement, Marx, and why Madonna legally can’t stop you rambling through her estate

Corporal punishment, pacifism paradoxes, and why People Stuff is firmly against child-beating but open to beating adults who think child-beating is fine

Billionaire term limits (ten years and then the hoard goes back to the people—no rollover minutes)

HEMA: When history nerds and jocks converge into a Darwinian crab-shaped sword fighter

Utah Mom linguistic innovation, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and Dan’s ongoing war with Vox

Whether horses enjoy trampling (spoiler: yes, they’re smug)

As always, we know stuff about people. Sometimes too much.

Submit your questions or leave us a voice memo at people-stuff.com.