One of my dirty secrets is that I’m a fan of pro wrestling. Whenever I tell people this the first thing I inevitably hear is, “you know it's fake right?”
This idea that people think professional wrestling is real comes from the concept that wrestling insiders call kayfabe.
Learn about the history of kayfabe and how this concept from professional wrestling can be used to navigate the modern world on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Is there really an ancient, shadowy secret society running the world? If so, what's their endgame - and why hasn't anyone conclusively proven their existence? Join Ben and Matt as they look back on their Illuminati series in this classic episode of Stuff They Don't Want You To Know.
We have some heady stuff for you this week—on school segregation, the perennial struggle between historians and journalists, and religiosity in Asian America.
0:40 – After a quick update on Tammy’s new life of canoeing in Missoula, Jay describes his roundtrip between Berkeley and Whidbey Island, when he listened to the newest, most Upper West Side podcast ever: “Nice White Parents,” by Chana Joffe-Walt.
We discuss the first three episodes of that series—tldr: the road to hell is paved with good intentions—and the broader contours of education, race, and class in the US. Are Asian students missing from the show’s presentation? Can we distinguish “good integration” from “bad integration”? Do individual choices make a difference, or are government policies all that matter? WTF, Rob?
* An earlier (2015), touchstone series of This American Life, featuring Joffe-Walt and Nikole Hannah-Jones, on school integration in Hartford, Connecticut and Normandy, Missouri.
37:04 – Andy shares a NY Mag interview with public intellectual Adam Tooze, which includes hot takes on the role of history vs. journalism. Is the archive-digger the natural enemy of the reporter? In this hellishly unprecedented(?!) moment, are some disciplines especially relevant? What about the political economy of journalism and academia? Included: the 1619 Project, fascism, and ye olde breakfast foods.
1:08:34 – Listener Jonathan Tang asks why so many East Asians, especially from the upper middle class, seem to be churched. We apply all kinds of anecdata in the search for truth. (Correction: Tammy references Christian missionaries’ visiting Korea by the early 19th century; she meant the late 19th century.)
P.S. – Tammy’s new nightly hike (suckers):
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Russia claims to have the world's first coronavirus vaccine. Why the President was whisked away from a White House briefing. Wild weather in the Midwest. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
Psychedelic drugs are making a comeback. In the mid-twentieth century, scientists actively studied the potential of drugs like LSD and psilocybin for treating mental health problems. After a decades-long hiatus, researchers are once again testing how effective these drugs are in relieving symptoms for a wide variety of psychiatric conditions, from depression and obsessive–compulsive disorder to posttraumatic stress disorder and substance addiction. In Acid Revival: The Psychedelic Renaissance and the Quest for Medical Legitimacy (University of Minnesota Press, 2020), Danielle Giffort examines how this new generation of researchers and their allies are working to rehabilitate psychedelic drugs and to usher in a new era of psychedelic medicine.
As this team of researchers and mental health professionals revive the field of psychedelic science, they are haunted by the past and by one person in particular: psychedelic evangelist Timothy Leary. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with people working on scientific psychedelia, Giffort shows how today’s researchers tell stories about Leary as an “impure” scientist and perform his antithesis to address a series of lingering dilemmas that threaten to rupture their budding legitimacy. Acid Revival presents new information about the so-called psychedelic renaissance and highlights the cultural work involved with the reassembly of dormant areas of medical science.
This colorful and accessible history of the rise, fall, and reemergence of psychedelic medicine is infused with intriguing narratives and personalities—a story for popular science aficionados as well as for scholars of the history of science and medicine.
Lucas Richert is an associate professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He studies intoxicating substances and the pharmaceutical industry. He also examines the history of mental health.
Born and raised in Japan, Yoshi Yokokawa started his career at Leimen Brothers in the US. In doing so, he was exposed to the fragility of the economies, yet saw how all things were connected and potential for areas of automation - IE, where things didn't need a human hand. A marathon runner, triathlete and yoga teacher, he attempts to understand himself physically, spiritually and mentally. When he set out on a venture of his own, he originally started building deep neural net prediction models for trading funds and hedge funds. In doing so, he quickly figured out that in order to scale this quickly, his solution would need to work with existing brokerage firms and banks. It was at this pain point that he decided to pivot and build Alpaca, the best way for developers to trade US stocks through an API.
As clinical trials progress, policymakers must determine how heavily to fund the pre-emptive manufacture of candidate vaccines, and how to distribute the successful ones. Given Britain’s bungled pandemic response, the separatist mood in Scotland has surged to record levels. And travel tips from the vloggers of illegal migration.
In which puzzled medieval rabbis decide that it's not Adam and Eve—it's Adam and Lilith and Eve and Eve, and John wonders if anyone ate beets in the Garden of Eden. Certificate #14309.
The U.S. Census Bureau has faced setback after setback. And, this year, who makes it into the official population count is going to be a lot more complicated.
Guest: Hansi Lo Wang covers the 2020 Census for NPR.
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The first genetically altered squid is here. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce explains how this breakthrough was made and why it's a game changer for scientists who study these critters.
