Two shocking observations: 1950s children knew enough about the obscure Barbary Wars to buy toy soldier sets of them, while TWO-THIRDS of today's 10-year-olds are functionally illiterate. College professors confirm each new class is increasingly anxious, less knowledgeable, and less skilled than before. This episode examines why American education has become so expensive, biased, ineffective and universally disliked—revealing surprising connections to history, anthropology, and Game Theory.

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Bibliography:

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman

Seeing like a State by James C Scott

The Geography of Nowhere by Kunstler

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The History of Civilization by Will Durant

Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer

The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein

Spiteful Mutants by Edward Dutton

Witches, Feminism and the Fall of the West by Edward Dutton

The Moral Animal by Robert Wright

Bullfinch's Mythology

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Coming Caesars by Amaury de Riencourt

The Hunter Gatherer's Guide to the 21st century by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein

Envy by Helmut Schoeck

The History of Manners by Norbert Elias

The Unabomber's Manifesto

The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan

The Pursuit of Power by William McNeil

Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuel by Ian Morris

Cynical Theories by James Lindsay

After Liberalism by Gottfried

Woke Racism by John McWhorter

A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell

Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell

The Master and His Emissary by McGhilchrist

Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley

The Rise of the West by William McNeil

Ages of Discord by Peter Turchin

The Coddling of the American Mind by John Haidt

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari