Episodes

Finding ways to accentuate the positive, and figuring out what those "Anti-Elon Tesla Club" stickers are really saying.

The power and promise of imagining alternate realities: Remembering a pre-enshittified internet; revealing a less awful form of capitalism; and, considering a different type of Zionism. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: CSA: The Confederate States of America (YouTube) Jeff Tiedrich: Everyone Is Entitled to My Opinion (Substack) Daily Links from Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic.net) Good Thing/Bad Thing Graph (Google) Measuring the Income Gap from 1975 to 2023 (Rand) Ahad Ha'am: Nationalist with a Difference ...

If playing to the center has brought us to this, shouldn't moderate Democrats more accurately be called Extreme Centrists? Mentioned in this episode: Lennar Lobbies for Endless Profits -- Substack Lennar Launches e-Marketplace -- The Lever

Our views and experiences impact how we see the world. One man's take on a 19th-century anti-monopoly law changed the world entirely. Mentioned This Week: Tony Conrad's "The Flicker" [ YouTube ] "Google Is Now the East India Company [ The Honest Broker ] "Beware of the Google AI Salesman" [ HouseFresh ] "The Antitrust Paradox" [ Wikipedia ] "The Profound Nonsense of Consumer Welfare Antitrust [ The Antitrust Bulletin ]

This episode explores how we so often believe in something -- from who is the NBA GOAT, to the legitimacy of one's economic status -- and then work backward to figure out why it's true. Mentioned this week: CNBC: Banks Keep Credit Card Rates High Doctorow: The Meritocracy to Eugenics Pipeline Forbes: Under-30 List Psychology Today: Your Brain on Power NYT: The Techno-Futurist Philosophy Behind Musk's Mania

They say that experience is the best teacher, but what if you're not a particularly great student and you learn the wrong lesson? I share a wrong-lesson experience from my childhood that stayed with me for decades, and nominate the Greatest Wrong Lesson Learner of all time. Mentioned this week: William Deresiewicz’s book, EXCELLENT SHEEP Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset Stellantis Announces Dividend The History of Monopoly!

Next time you inhale a burrito and slip into a food coma, don't blame yourself, because the very nature of the burrito requires that it be eaten too quickly to maintain consciousness thereafter. On this episode of The Great Ungaslighting, we explore ways that we misdirect blame, and how that can lead us to pursue the exact wrong remedy. Mentioned this week: The BIG Newsletter: Why a Corporate Deal You Haven't Heard of Should Scare You New Yorker Cartoon: Neanderthal's in Charge American Journa...

This week I discover how a NSFW photo trick -- that makes it appear as if a naked butt is above your head -- helps explain what's wrong with everything from our understanding of high egg prices to the Chicago School's "rational markets" argument. MENTIONED THIS WEEK: YouTube: Paul Rudd explains the finger-butt technique YouTube: The Kids in the Hall "Crush Your Head" sketch The BIG Newsletter: "Hatching a Conspiracy" Pluraslistic.net: Yanis Varoufakis's "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?"...

This week, an unsightly discovery while cleaning my house leads to some deep thinking about just how much truth about America I can handle. With a little help from Van Halen, Pee-Wee Herman, and Woody Allen, I come to terms with the fact that there have always been tyrannical Americans. And while it may just be wishful thinking, I manage to use that realization to try and figure out what it'll take to get back on track. Mentioned this week: A ridiculous review of AI features in appliances (For...

We've known for decades that our healthcare system is deeply flawed, so maybe the key to fixing it is figuring out what we actually want it to accomplish. Mentioned this week: The Lever: Health Insurer Stock Buybacks The Prospect: How AARP Shills for UnitedHealth The Hartmann Report: White Supremacy and Healthcare NYT: UnitedHealth Group CEO on Fixing Our Healthcare System NYT: Dr. Aaron Carroll on Fixing Our System

There's been a line from a movie stuck in my head since election day, and it has forced me to re-examine everything my previous reaction to and understanding of so many things that led to the outcome of November 5, 2024. And I think it provides a path forward for the political party that came up short on that fateful day. Referenced in this episode: The Guardian: Rupert Murdoch and Artists Aligning in AI Fight Bluesky: Daniel Kibblesmith on Abominable AI Payoff Offer The Guardian: HarperCollin...

The people of Libby, Montana have been left barely able to breathe by industrial pollution, and the company that Medicare contracted to provide breathing machines has been screwing them over for decades. Why should they believe any politicians' promises to fight for regular people? And can you really blame them for wanting to blow up the whole system? Mentioned this week: ProPublica: "How Lincare Became a Multibillion-Dollar Medicare Scofflaw"

On this election day, to remind everyone that most people are mostly decent, I'm re-playing the poem that inspired this podcast: "Small Kindnesses" by Danusha Laméris.

This week, I'm reminding everyone that our brains don't just record reality, but interpret it based on prompts and expectations. This is especially relevant given we're near the end of an election cycle where candidates seem to be inhabiting totally different realities. Mentioned this week: Instagram for my tattoo artist, Alex Prop 34 Analysis from LAist Prop 33 Analysis from LAist Heather Cox Richardson's "Letter from an American" 10/28/24

This week, we explore how one writer's habit of imagining that magical elves are making her morning yogurt just for her pleasure can help us all find a little more security and comfort in the dangerous, scary outside world. Mentioned this week: MIT Study Shows Tailgating Causes Phantom Traffic Jams On "Friends," Chandler Tries to Quit the Gym Inadvertent Subscription Payments Increase Seller Revenue 14-200% Jenny Slate's Graduation Speech About Yogurt-Making Elves "The American Bystander" Humor ...

This week, we look at how we use our understanding of the variability of time to take some control over how we experience time, and use that sense of control to build up our resistance to the gaslighters of the world. Mentioned this week: The Guardian: The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli The American Prospect: Epic Dystopia Pluralistic: Epic Systems, a Lethal Health Record Monopolist Office of The HHS Inspector General: Trend Toward More Expensive Inpatient Hospital Stays Journal of Experimental ...

This week, we take a quick look at immigration, taking a moment to acknowledge the actual real human beings involved, and to push back on the anti-immigrant arguments that hold sway these days. Mentioned this week: Wikipedia: What is Dividend Recapitalization? The BIG Newsletter: Safelite is a PBM The Atlantic: The Truth About Immigration and the American Worker Northwestern Now: Immigrants Less Likely to Commit Crimes MIT News: Immigrants More Likely to Start Businesses

This week, we're reminded to heed Maya Angelou's warning, especially when it comes to politicians: "When people show you who they are, believe them." Mentioned this week: The Guardian: The Housing Crisis That Thatcher Built The BIG Newsletter: Rental Inflation Due to Price Fixing Bureau of Labor Statistics: August 2024 Consumer Price Index Cory Doctorow: Wall Street's Internet of Shit Landlords Housing Is a Human Right: Ken Rosen Deceiving CA Voters

There are lots of things in life that we only notice when things go wrong. This week, we'll look at some public institutions that fit that description and remind ourselves not to take them for granted when things are boringly normal. Mentioned in this episode: Matt Stoller's BIG Newsletter: Monopoly Round-Up Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic.net: What the F%&$ are PBMs? HuffPost: Keep Your Goddam Government Hands Off My Medicare!

Are humans the most successful species in the history of the world, or is it too soon to tell? After all, we've only been around for 300,000 years or so, and our long-term prospects aren't looking too great. This week, I look at how we define success and the benefits of looking at that definition differently. Mentioned this week: The American Prospect: "U.S. Steel Threatens to Go Rogue " NYT: "Born This Way? Born Which Way" by Lydia Polgreen

This week, I share a few of my very minor, totally reasonable pet peeves, including one that I've recently come to discover occurs more because of other people's ignorance rather than they're trying to piss me off. And that got me thinking about how we all should test our beliefs and assumptions and make sure they're well founded, and also closely interrogate the politicians we support for the same reasons. And when I did that, I found that for my entire life, Democratic politicians have mostl...

This week, I look at how the key to healthy, happy relationships could be something as simple as reliably showing up. Mentioned in this episode: The CA Chamber of Commerce's Deceptive Poll The Marginalian on Donald Winnicott

This week, I consider why it's so difficult to get Americans to fight back against getting screwed at airports, movie theaters, ballparks, etc. Since it feels almost un-American to push back against corporate gouging, does that mean it's our patriotic duty to get screwed? Mentioned this week: Popular Information: Major Corporations Sponsor "Anti-Woke" Event Calvin Coolidge's Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors Jimmy Carter's Crisis of Confidence Speech The Intercept: The Devil'...

This week, I try to figure out what the originators of neoliberal economics were thinking at the time, as well as the mindsets of those who ascribe and benefit from that thinking today, and ask, does their behavior tell us anything about humanity in general?