Episodios

  • HBH 57: Extreme Tribalism -- The North Sentinelese and the Death of John Allen Chau

    HBH 57: Extreme Tribalism -- The North Sentinelese and the Death of John Allen Chau
    Jul 22 2024
    Part 1: The most tribal of tribes, the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island

    We don't know much about them. We don't know what they call themselves, what they think the world or universe is like, what they believe about the rest of humanity.

    We don't know how they are organized, what they worship, how they see right and wrong.

    What we do know is that the North Sentinelese are the most tribal of tribes -- hostile to outsiders, uninterested in changing or developing along 'Western' lines, and unwilling to extend any moral status to vistors.

    In 2018 a young American Christian missionary, John Allen Chau, was killed by these people. Was it murder of an innocent or defense against an invader? Sadism or self-preservation?

    To understand what happened, we will first look into the history of interactions between the people of North Sentinel Island and outsiders, contacts that went occasionally acceptably, but usually very badly, for one party ot the other.
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    38 m
  • HBH 56: The Psychopathography of Adolf Hitler

    HBH 56: The Psychopathography of Adolf Hitler
    Apr 17 2024
    Hitler was a failure who achieved the opposite of nearly all of his stated intentions.

    But was he insane as well?

    His life and legacy might argue he was, but what do the experts say?

    If he was insane, what was the diagnosis? And if he was not insane, how do you account for his actions?

    Was he a meth head, dragon chaser, narcissist, psychopath, schizophrenic, oedipal conflicted anal regressive, or what?

    In this episode we explore the body of literature devoted to explaining the motivations and actions of Adolf Hitler, and ask the question of whether he should be explained at all.
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    38 m
  • HBH 55: The Gruesome Wretched Death of Herod the Great

    HBH 55: The Gruesome Wretched Death of Herod the Great
    Feb 27 2024
    He's one of the most reviled people in Western history -- a man whose cruelty, jealousy, and violence are proverbial. And yet his legacy is much more nuanced, his person more complicated than most of us know.

    One thing that is not in question is that he died a miserable death; in pain, angry, and resentful. Was it, as Josephus said, divine justice? Was it foul play?

    Spoiler: as bad as it was, it appears to have been neither, and can be easily explained.
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    30 m
  • Introductory YouTube Video

    Introductory YouTube Video
    Feb 7 2024
    I have released my first TouTube video and this is the audio -- see the episode here:

    https://youtu.be/uVfn5Ar1rmg?si=e3TE_6tCWEuQxf7h

    Schrodinger's Cat Quick and Easy

    Yes, this is based on a longer podcast episode -- but hey, you've got to start somwhere!
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    6 m
  • HBH 54: Homo Erectus

    HBH 54: Homo Erectus
    Jan 1 2024
    The OG, greatest generation of Human ever! At least if your metric is a dogged determination to keep existing.

    For 2 million years these prehistoric hominins wandered far and wide, high and low, filling every available lakeshore and riverbed.

    What can we know about them? Their looks, abilities, traits? Did they use fire? Language? Clothing? Where did they come from and get to?

    And why, after such a successful run, did they exit the world stage?

    Today on the History of Being Human, the essential guide to all things Erectus.
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    38 m
  • HBH 53: 23,000 Year-Old White Sands Footprints with Dr. Edward Jolie

    HBH 53: 23,000 Year-Old White Sands Footprints with Dr. Edward Jolie
    Nov 14 2023
    This week I wander off the topic of Life Extension (more next episode) to take advantage of an opportunity to interview an anthropologist about the White Sands footprints.

    Not since the Laetoli Australopithecus prints has a set of human footprints rocked the world of paleontology like those found in White Sands, New Mexico. Studies have dated these prints to 21-23,000 year ago, more than 6000 years older than humans were known to have arrived in the Americas!

    Many scientist are convinced the date is accurate; but if it is, it means a reshaping of an entire paradigm.

    In this episode I speak with Dr. Edward Jolie about his work, and about those prints.

    Dr. Jolie is the Clara Lee Tanner Associate Professor of Anthropology (School of Anthropology) and Associate Curator of Ethnology (Arizona State Museum) at the University of Arizona.

    In this wide-ranging discussion we cover:

    0: 00 Intro to Dr. Jolie and his work
    12:10 Were the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo people) cannibals? (Sorry, I couldn't resist the Man Corn debate!)
    14:40 The White Sands footprints
    16:40 The "Clovis First" paradigm (ie., the "Standard Model" of peopling of Americas
    20:50. Why the White Sands prints are potential paradigm changers
    28:40 The reliability of oral cultural transmission
    30:40 Two objections to the 21-23K year old dating

    Thank you to Dr. Jolie for sharing his insights with us. See him here: https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm%3Fid%3DA09EF77D-2A1B-47FD-A9B9-B9F1EC9BD00E



    Graphic by Ian Armstrong
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    37 m
  • HBH 52: Human Lifespan, Aging, and Death

    HBH 52: Human Lifespan, Aging, and Death
    Oct 27 2023
    It is time to take a trip to that Undiscovered Country and visit our greatest teacher. How long do we live, how long did we live, and why don't we just keep on going?

    Never mind that we do the world and our gene pool a great service by only taking up space for a finite time, what are the chances we can extend our time for a while? Indefinitely?
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    37 m
  • HBH 51: Quantum Entanglement

    HBH 51: Quantum Entanglement
    Aug 29 2023
    In this episode we cover the underpinnings of the either/or, cause-then-effect, deterministic, distance-separates-things, no-info-travels-faster-than-light, orderly world of classical physics. It is the world inhabited by such luminaries as Newton and Einstein.

    Then we descend into the merely probabilistic, action-at-a-distance, neither/both world of Quantum Physics to cover the most bafflng and counter intuituve (nay, SPOOKY in the words of Einstein) phenomenon in nature -- Quantum Entanglement.

    If you have not listened to the episode on Schrodinger's Cat (HBH 50) it is recommended you do so first. Superposition is a necessary precursor to this topic also.

    For more info:

    https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/proving-that-quantum-entanglement-is-real#:~:text=The%20Freedman–Clauser%20experiment%20was,2010%20Wolf%20Prize%20in%20physics.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-entanglement-isnt-all-that-spooky-after-all1/

    Art by Ian Armstrong
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    25 m