In March of 2024, the newsman and sports commentator Keith Olbermann tweeted that the “Supreme Court had betrayed democracy” and called for it to be “dissolved.” This was the second time he’d called for the Supreme Court to be dissolved: he did that also in 2022. This is a review of some of Olbermann’s more unreasonable and incendiary behavior over the last twenty years, with a focus on his political rage and how that relates to America’s toxic polarization problem. Because clearly there are many people around us, like Olbermann, with extreme contempt toward their political opponents, and a lot of biased, unreasonably certain takes about all sorts of events and happenings. What might we learn from Olbermann's behavior?

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I talk to Dr. Jess Snitko, who has researched online dating and other online communication, about the signals and messages we send, intentionally and unintentionally, with dating app profiles and pictures. Jess earned her Ph.D. in Media, Technology, and Society from Purdue University in 2020. Topics discussed: Factors in pictures and profiles that cause people to swipe right or swipe left; the so-called “duck-face” expression some girls make in photos; men’s shirtless photos; men who post pictures of holding a fish or posing with dead animals; bathroom mirror selfies; pictures of partying and drinking; group photos and problems with those; cropped photos where an ex is being removed from the picture; how first impressions can be prone to errors; and more.

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Cheo Rose-Washington had an accident that ruptured his knee cap tendons. Then a medical miscommunication between healthcare providers led to him rupturing those same tendons again! That experience led to him deciding to try to do something to improve medical “hand-offs” (the sharing of a patient’s information and status from one healthcare provider to another). Hand-off mistakes are due to a range of communication problems. Cheo founded the company Hand-off to try to fix this all-too-common problem. We talk about: How it felt to experience such a serious mistake; the common types of miscommunications and misunderstandings that happen in faulty hand-offs; what Cheo is doing with his startup.

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What if I told you the left-right political spectrum was an illusion? What if I told you there is no “left” or “right”? My guest is Hyrum Lewis, co-author of The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America. They argue that we’ve embraced a simplistic, faulty idea of an essential “left/liberalism” and an essential “right/conservatism.” And that, similar to embracing a faulty medical idea (like the old theory of the four humors), embracing a faulty political theory has hurt us in major ways. For one thing, it creates a perception that instead of there being many different issues, there is just a single issue (left versus right) and that choosing the right “team” gains you access to all the right ideas. Embracing that concept in turn amplifies conflict and anger, by making our divides seem like a war between two set and essential ideologies. It makes it easier to embrace a good-versus-bad way of seeing our political divides. Topics include: why Hyrum believes the left-right spectrum is an illusion; common objections to their idea; how persuasive political thinkers have found their idea; the ways in which language and foundational concepts can amplify divides; the horseshoe theory; ways we might speak and write in better ways about our political disagreements, and more.  

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Every time I go in Trader Joe's, the checkout person asks me a question of some sort. I used to think everyone there was just happy and friendly, but then I heard reports that it was more of a rule or strong encouragement that employees talk to customers. I read conflicting reports about this online and wanted to talk to someone who'd worked at Trader Joe's, to see if she could shed some light on this. I talk to Twiggy, who has a YouTube channel (youtube.com/@TwiggysDollHospital) and who makes custom dolls (twiggysdollhospital.com).

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The fraud Chase Hughes, whose major lies and unethical behaviors I’ve examined in past episodes, continues to succeed in getting popular podcasts with large audiences to interview him. Chase recently appeared on the podcast The Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett; he also appeared on Patrick Bet-David’s podcast (PBD podcast). He's also been on Dr. Phil's show, and on Leon Hendrix's podcast DRVN. I examine some clips from Chase's appearances on a couple of these podcasts, as a public service announcement to the millions of people who may have recently learned about Chase and become fans. I recap some of the absurd claims Chase has made. I talk about why I think these podcasts keep interviewing him, and what it tells us about the internet information ecosystem. I examine an early podcast interview where the host told me for Chase's bio he just wrote what Chase said and didn’t vet it, which is what many of these podcasts have done. More podcast appearances; more seeming legitimacy. For the first episode of mine about Chase’s many lies, search online for “Chase Hughes lies” and you’ll probably see it near top of search results. 
 

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In June of 2024, I got an op-ed published in TheHill.com about Elon Musk's polarization -- specifically his affective polarization, which refers to how people perceive and treat their political opponents. Like many in our highly polarized, righteously angry society across the polical spectrum, Elon Musk treats the "other side" with much contempt and disdain. You can often find him insulting and demeaning people on his social media platform, as well as claiming to know with high certainty the hidden, malicious motives in his opponents' minds. In this episode, I read my op-ed and add some additional observations. Topics discussed include: How high-contempt approaches help create pushback from opponents and in that way are self-defeating; The importance of distinguishing 'what we believe' from 'how we engage'; How conflict influences more and more people, on both "sides," to behave in high-contempt ways; How we might criticize "our side" in order to encourage better ways of engaging.

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Brian Dunning, creator of the podcast Skeptoid, made a documentary that brings a skeptical, analytical eye to the recent UFO craze – including those three famous UFO videos released by the Pentagon that got a whole lot of attention in a 2017 New York Times article. His documentary has the tongue-in-cheek title “The UFO Movie They Don’t Want You To See” and you can find it at www.briandunning.com/ufo. I think more people need to see Brian’s movie; it explained a lot and now I feel like I finally understand those videos. It’s been surprising how little attention the more rational, analytical explanations for those videos have gotten. If you’re someone who’s seen those videos and thought “What the hell is going on?” I think you’ll want to watch Brian’s movie. In this short episode I focus on one specific explanation for one of the videos in question. (I recommend watching my YouTube video version of this episode.)

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I thought it'd be interesting to read a very dumb book from 1969 called "Face Reading: A Guide to How the Human Face Reveals Personality, Sexuality, Intelligence, Character, and More." It's about finding meaning in people's physical facial characteristics; not about reading emotions or expressions. To be clear: this is a very bad book with no sense/logic to it, basically astrology-like, and I'm reading it because I was curious what it said and thought some other people would find it interesting. I'm generally curious about the weird things people believe; also curious about some stereotypes that were present about facial characteristics in the 60s era. I thought it was an interesting relic and some other people might also think so. 

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I interrogate an 8-year-old about her belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and other magical creatures. 

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