Ben examines the psychology of Facebook birthday fundraiser posts, shares his parsimonious working theories of podcasting, and addresses the motivation to produce art that has no audience.

Ben enters second grade, Pantera releases Cowboys from Hell, and Hubble glimpses doom. Dick van Dyke stops by to snap some photos.

Ben learns something terrible, Ian gets to know a pterodactyl, and Doug bumps into an old pal.

Ben takes you back to Buffalo, New York in 1881 when a dentist named Alfred Porter Southwick witnesses an accidental electrocution. What happened next changed the way we carry out executions and helped shape the War of the Currents that soon erupted between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Ben also recounts the tale of Zambian Afronaut Edward Nkoloso and remembers the call he placed that landed him in his first band.

Ben loses to his girlfriend at Chess Costanza-style, shares what he’s learned about constellations, and remembers Chantel singing Mariah Carey.

Ben confronts our lack of inborn knowledge, learns ancient Mesopotamian history from the bass player for the Bangles, and proposes a new way of talking.

Ben explores the significance of impermanence, remembers Nana and Henry, and confesses to having toppled the Sick Man of Movie Rentals. Boethius pops by to worship Satan.

Ben explores definition types, including the definitional boundary problem, his disappointment with Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblances, and the elusiveness of essences. He also mischaracterizes the nature of body heat.

Ben explores what it means for a debate to be purely semantic, why he doesn’t believe plants feel pain, and neuroscience research that helps explain why he is a pizza-eating zombie. Michael Gazzaniga pops in to lobotomize our studio audience.