Reversing Polarity is a queer Doctor Who fancast, watching classic episodes in a random order and explaining that Doctor Who has always been gay, actually. Episodes released every other Thursday.
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Reversing Polarity Podcasts
For history lovers who listen to podcasts, History Unplugged is the most comprehensive show of its kind. It's the only show that dedicates episodes to both interviewing experts and answering questions from its audience. First, it features a call-in show where you can ask our resident historian (Scott Rank, PhD) absolutely anything (What was it like to be a Turkish sultan with four wives and twelve concubines? If you were sent back in time, how would you kill Hitler?). Second, it features lon ...
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A different kind of financial podcast, where money is NEVER about money.
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In the modern era, our nutrition systems are in crisis. Foods that once had high levels of minerals and vitamins have seen their levels plummet as a result of the compromised health of our soil and ecosystems. With these changes, our waistlines have expanded, as food is less nutrient-dense and therefore less filling. Entire communities are undernourished and overweight. This is a direct result of the figurative and literal food deserts we live in today. It's time for a new era, one that puts ...
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Maps Have Bigger Problems Than the Mercator Projection. They Invent Mountain Ranges and Usually Eliminate New Zealand
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45:39Maps have always had problems. Five hundred years ago, maps were wildly inaccurate simply because cartographers were drawing the edge of the known world, limited by slow ships and nonexistent satellite data, resulting in continents that were too large, too small, or entirely misplaced. All of those problems have been solved thanks to new technology…
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The Great Mathematicians of the Early 1900s Ran into an Unsolvable Problem. They Realized Math Made No Sense
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45:38In the 1800s, it seemed like mathematics was a solved problem. The paradoxes in the field were resolved, and even areas like advanced calculus could be taught consistently and reliably at any school. It was clearly understandable in a way that abstract fields like philosophy weren’t, and it was on its way to solving humanity’s problems. Mathematica…
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437 - Memories Don’t Discriminate: Don’t Let a Lack of Resources Rob You From Creating Beautiful Memories
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10:54Many people are hurting financially this holiday season. Things feel tight. This can lead many families to feel defeated and throw their arms in the air when it comes to creating memories for their kids. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton discusses how memories are memories because they are memories…..period. Memories don’t require a large fin…
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The American Revolution was a World War in All but Name
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56:43
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56:43The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, known as the "shot heard round the world," marked the first military engagements of the American Revolution. Ralph Waldo Emerson named it that because it launched revolutionary movements in Europe and beyond, marking it as a key moment in the fight for liberty and self-governance. But this moment …
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How Napoleon and Churchill Used Neuroscience to Make a Better Soldier and More Loyal Public
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45:23
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45:23The brain acts in strange ways during wartime. Even in active combat situations, when soldiers are one mistake away from death, many can’t fire on their enemies because their brain is triggering compassion centers against other soldiers. Studies of World War II show that while soldiers were willing to risk death, only 15% to 20% fired their weapons…
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436 - Closer Than You Think: Why You’ve Probably Made More Investing Progress Than You Believe
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13:05We invest, invest, invest, and invest some more, only to look at our numbers and get frustrated by little progress we’ve made. Sound familiar? It’s common for people to experience immense frustration and fatigue about 10 years into their investing journey, sometimes leading to apathy….or quitting altogether. Did you know that $100,000 is 1/3 of the…
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William F. Buckley JR.'s Guide to Friendship in a Polarized Era
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39:43
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39:43William F. Buckley Jr., the charismatic intellectual who defined modern American conservatism, was famously skilled at forging friendships across the ideological divide, a talent that helped him both shape the political landscape and navigate public opinion. His capacity for personal charm allowed him to be a public extremist and a private moderate…
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What it Was Like Living Through the USSR’s Collapse
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55:37The Collapse of the Soviet Union was twice as devastating as the Great Depression for those who lived there. It immediately led to widespread economic chaos and a breakdown of public services, plunging millions into a difficult period where mere survival was the priority. As one Russian described, after hyperinflation wiped out their family's savin…
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The Battle of Agincourt, 1415: Longbowmen, Bands of Brothers, and Henry V’s Triumph
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53:15From Shakespeare's 'band of brothers' speech to its appearances in numerous films, Agincourt rightfully has a place among a handful of conflicts whose names are immediately recognized around the world. The Battle of Agincourt, fought in 1415, is famous for the decisive role of the English and Welsh longbowmen, who—despite being significantly outnum…
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Clarence Dillon: The Roaring 20s Wall Street Baron Who Wrote the Rules for Corporate Takeovers, Junk Bonds, and Bankruptcy
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45:11J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Charles E. Mitchell are names that come to mind when thinking of the most prominent icons of wealth and influence during the Roaring Twenties. Yet the one figure who has escaped notice is an enigmatic banker by the name of Clarence Dillon. In the 1920s, as he rose in wealth and influence, Dillon became one of t…
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435 - Reverse Engineering Our Obituary: Starting With the Desired End in Mind
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11:06
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11:06We’re all going to die. Yeah, morbid, we know. What will your obituary say about you? In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton talks about the exercise of writing our own obituary. What do we want to be remembered for? What impact do we want to make on this world? How do we want the end of the story to read? Then, once we do that, we reverse enginee…
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A Utah Indian Chief Controlled the 1800s Mountain West Through Slave Trading, Building Pioneer Trails, Horse Stealing, and Becoming Mormon
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1:00:05The American Indian leader Wakara was among the most influential and feared men in the nineteenth-century American West. He and his pan-tribal cavalry of horse thieves and slave traders dominated the Old Spanish Trail, the region’s most important overland route. They widened the trail and expanded its watering holes, reshaping the environmental and…
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Why Did Rome Fall? Wrong Question. How Did it Last 2,000 Years Despite Changing its Religion, Language, and Government?
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53:46
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53:46Rome began as a pagan, Latin-speaking city state in central Italy during the early Iron Age and ended as a Christian, Greek-speaking empire as the age of gunpowder dawned. Everything about it changed, except its Roman identity. This was due to a unique willingness among Romans to include new people as citizens, an openness to new ideas, and an unpa…
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434 - What Would You Pay For Meaning? When Meaningful Work (Initially) Requires a Pay Cut
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12:23
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12:23Would you take a pay cut to pursue work that would provide you with more meaning and a higher level of well-being? In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton shares the story of a friend who recently weighed this very decision, and chose meaning. His decision may be counter-cultural, but through the lens of pursuing work that matters and living a fulf…
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The Real Deadwood: A Gold Rush Town Built in a War Zone but Obliterated in an Inferno
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37:30Gunslinging, gold-panning, stagecoach robbing, whiskey guzzling – the myth and infamy of the American West is synonymous with its most famous town: Deadwood, South Dakota. The storied mining town sprang up in early 1876 and came raining down in ashes only three years later, destined to become food for the imagination and a nostalgic landmark that n…
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America's Pacific Dawn: The Spanish-American War Ushered In Global Reach and Savage Conflict
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55:59
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55:59Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross, was in Havana in 1898, investigating the terrible conditions endured by Cubans whom the Spanish government had forced into concentration camps, where an estimated 425,000 people died of disease and starvation. While she was there, the American warship USS Maine exploded in Havana's harbor, which served as…
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433- More Is Never Enough: How the Curse of More Can (and Will) Hunt Us Down
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11:44
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11:44You know what the problem is with more? Every time we get more, more is still, well, more. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton shares an intense story about a couple that is painfully losing the battle for more. It’s a brutal story to share, and one that far too many people can relate to, but perhaps this story can help to shift the perspective…
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The Unhealed Wounds of WW2 POWs and Combat Veterans
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50:10Nearly 16.4 million Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, and for millions of survivors, the fighting left many of them physically and mentally broken for life. There was a 25% death rate in Japanese POW camps like Bataan, where starvation and torture were rampant, and fierce battles against suicidal Imperial Japanese forces, l…
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Robert McNamara Thought Enough Data Could Win Any War. Instead, It Led America to the Vietnam Quagmire
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1:00:21Robert S. McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense during JFK and LBJ’s administrations, and one of the chief architects of the Vietnam war, made a shocking confession in his 1995 memoir. He said “We were wrong, terribly wrong.” McNamara believed this as early as 1965, that the Vietnam War was unwinnable. Yet, instead of urging U.S. forces to exit, h…
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The Philistine Connection: Do the Roots of October 7 Go Back 3,000 Years?
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36:24
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36:24The October 7th attacks of Hamas on Israel were an unprecedented, surprise incursion by land, sea, and air that stunned the world and prompted Israel to declare war. The attacks, which included massacres in Israeli communities and a music festival, resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals and the capture of some 251 hosta…
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The Thucydides Trap: How A Rising Athens Made The Peloponnesian War Inevitable
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46:29
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46:29The Peloponnesian War is considered one of the most famous wars of the ancient world not only because it was a massive and devastating conflict that reshaped the Greek world, but also because its thorough documentation by the historian Thucydides transformed how we understand history and war. On the face of it, the Peloponnesian War, fought over 20…
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432 - Recent Does Not Mean Real: The Risk of Recency Bias When Making Decisions
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13:00
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13:00Whether you know it or not, there’s a hidden force at play in your life. It’s called recency bias. It’s a phenomenon where we humans place too much emphasis on recent experiences when making decisions. It’s present in all areas of our lives, but nowhere as impactful and prevalent as in our finances. We’re notorious for allowing recent events and ex…
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The Free French Army in North Africa, 1940-1945
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49:37One of the principal architects of Allied Victory in North Africa during World War Two was French General Louis Dio. His importance in North Africa lies in his role as a key leader of the Free French forces and a trusted subordinate to General Philippe Leclerc. He participated in every battle from Douala to the Fezzan Campaigns in the early 1940s. …
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An Inventor’s Quest to Build a Pneumatic Subway System in 1870s New York
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45:11Alfred Beach built America’s first operational subway in secret beneath 1860s Manhattan, decades before the city’s official electric subway line in 1904. He designed and commissioned a 300-foot-long, eight-foot-diameter tunnel 20 feet underground, built with a tunneling machine he invented for this purpose. The car moved quietly and silently, pushe…
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431 - It’s Gotta Come From Somewhere: The Art & Science of Budgeting in the Real World
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11:37Budgeting is simple on paper, but we don’t live on paper. We live in a chaotic, volatile, and ever-changing world. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton discusses how best to live in a budget when the real world decides not to cooperate with our best laid plans. It’s not easy, but it is simple. Podcast website: https://www.travisshe…
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Spirited Rivalry: Did Ireland or Scotland Invent Whisky?
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48:53There’s a divide between Scotland and Ireland as fierce as the Protestant/Catholic split during the Thirty Years’ War or the battles between Sunnis and Shias in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. It’s the debate over who invented whisky. Both Ireland and Scotland claim to have originated the spirit. Ireland cites its early monastic traditions and the …
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The Horse That Ate the Legion: Rome’s Cavalry's Triumph Over the Infantry
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41:21The cavalry 'wings' that probed ahead of the Roman Army played a key role in its campaigns of conquest, masking its marching flanks and seeking to encircle enemies in battle. However, at the very beginning of Rome’s history, it didn’t even have a cavalry, and relied on Greek-style phalanx formations instead. It began as a small cavalry arm provided…
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430 - Live By the Sword, Die By the Sword: The Dangers of Businesses Polarizing Their Customers
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11:16
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11:16We’re living in crazy times. Never before has our culture seemed so divided, so polarized. This sentiment also applies to businesses, unfortunately. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton explores the dangers of what happens when businesses decide to adopt human beliefs, values, and polarizations. It may seem like a zero-sum game, but it’s far fro…
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Beyond Joan of Arc and Agincourt: How the 100 Years War Crushed Medieval Europe and Launched its Global Order
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58:41Modern France and Britain were forged in the fires of the Hundred Years War, a century-long conflict that produced deadly English longbowmen, Joan of Arc’s heavenly visions, and a massive death toll from Scotland to the Low Countries. The traditional beginning and end of the Hundred Years' War are conventionally marked by the start of open conflict…
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Reverse Ellis Island: American Migrants Who Fought for Mussolini and Built Stalin’s USSR
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38:33By History Unplugged
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429 - The Unfixable Mistake: The Harsh Lessons of Trying to Time the Market
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10:08Buy low, sell, high, right? That’s the motto when it comes to stock market investing. One problem: It doesn’t work. It’s nearly impossible to time the right moment to buy, and even if we get lucky, it’s also nearly impossible to time the right moment to sell. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton shares a cautionary tale from one of his “expert” …
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Don’t Use Rome as a Model of Why Societies Collapse; Use Crime Syndicates and Somalia Instead
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49:42
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49:4212,000 years ago, human history changed forever when the egalitarian groups of hunter-gathering humans began to settle down and organize themselves into hierarchies. The few dominated the many, seizing control through violence. What emerged were “Goliaths”: large societies built on a collection of hierarchies that are also terrifyingly fragile, col…
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2701
A Union General Found a Loophole in the Fugitive Slave Act, Causing 1 Million Slaves to Flee North
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45:21After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, enslaved people feared running away to the North, as their return was mandated, and they faced brutal punishment or even death upon return to deter others from escaping. But that changed during the Civil War. Black slaves in Confederate Virginia began hearing rumors that they could receive their …
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2801
The Civil War’s Brutal Finale: A War of Attrition as Terrible as WW2-Pacific and the Napoleonic Wars
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47:55In 1864, the American Civil War reached a critical juncture with Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign, including the brutal battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, which claimed over 60,000 casualties, surpassing Gettysburg as the Americas’ deadliest clash. Abraham Lincoln faced a contentious re-election against George B. McClellan, while Confe…
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2901
Camp David Looks Like a 1970s Lakeside Retreat. Why is it the Site of the World’s Biggest Political Summits?
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41:42Camp David, nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, spans about 125 acres, making it significantly smaller than other presidential getaways like Lyndon B. Johnson’s sprawling 2,700-acre Texas ranch or the vast 1,000-acre Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Compared to grand diplomatic venues like the White House or international summit …
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428 - It’s Just Money: Why We Can (and Should) Make Some Decisions That Hinder Our Finances
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8:35
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8:35Have you ever intentionally made a decision that hinders your finances? Good! That’s great news! It means there are more important things in life than money. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton shares his controversial perspective about how the mission should matter more than the money. Sometimes, in order to pursue the mission (and the meaning…
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3051
How British Scientists' Self-Experiments on Underwater Rebreathing Created D-Day Submarine Tech (And Nearly Killed Them in the Process)
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53:29In August 1942, over 7,000 Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, in a largely forgotten landing, with only a small fraction surviving unscathed. The raid failed due to poor planning and lack of underwater reconnaissance, which left the Allies unaware of strong German coastal defenses and underwater obstacles. Inadequate submersible…
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3101
Over 200,000 Allied Troops Tried and Failed to Crush the Soviet Revolution After World War One
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41:20The Allied Intervention into the Russian Civil War remains one of the most ambitious yet least talked about military ventures of the 20th century. Coinciding with the end of the first World War, some 180,000 troops from several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Romania, among others…
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427 - The Bar Has Never Been Lower: Your Opportunity to Make An Impact Has Never Been Greater
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11:20It seems like our culture has grown accustomed to mediocre. We’ve normalized bleh. It almost feels like every time we engage with a business and they hit a home run, we’re shocked. We didn’t expect that. We expected to be let down like every other time. In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton discusses why the bar is so low today, and how that has …
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3251
How the U.S. Occupation of Japan After WW2 Forged the Most Durable Peace of the 20th Century
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1:00:19During World War II, the U.S. and Japan were locked in bitter hatred, fueled by propaganda portraying each other as ruthless enemies, exemplified by dehumanizing "Tokyo Woe" posters in the U.S. and Japanese depictions of Americans as barbaric invaders. After the war, the feelings seemed to turn 180 degrees overnight. By the early 1950s, American se…
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3351
Homer Couldn't Have Written the Iliad, But He Probably Dictated it Word for Word
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52:53The Iliad is the world’s greatest epic poem—heroic battle and divine fate set against the Trojan War. Its beauty and profound bleakness are intensely moving, but great questions remain: Where, how, and when was it composed and why does it endure? To explore these questions is today’s guest, Robin Lane Fox, a scholar and teacher of Homer for over 40…
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426 - Sometimes, the Only Prescription Is More Income
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11:32In the personal finance world, experts are typically keen to recommend all sorts of cutting, saving, hacks, and frugality. Don’t get us wrong, all of these have value! However, sometimes, the only prescription is more income. Sometimes, there simply isn’t enough fat to cut in order to get on the other side of our financial tensions. Sometimes, we j…
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3451
Depression-Era Planners Thought They’d End Poverty with Public Housing. Instead, They Created the Projects
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41:02In the 1930s, New Deal-era technocrats devised a solution to homelessness and poverty itself. They believed that providing free or low-cost urban housing projects could completely eliminate housing scarcity. Planners envisioned urban communities that would propel their residents into the middle class, creating a flywheel of abundance where poverty …
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The Alabaman Jacksonians Who Rejected the Confederacy and Marched with Sherman to the Sea
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49:01As the popular narrative goes, the Civil War was won when courageous Yankees triumphed over the South. But an aspect of the war that has remained little-known for 160 years is the Alabamian Union soldiers who played a decisive role in the Civil War, only to be scrubbed from the history books. One such group was the First Alabama Calvary, formed in …
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425 - Quality Over Quantity: Why Less Is More
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11:40Whenever we spend money, there’s a tension in the air. Do we buy cheaper items so we have the resources to buy more, or do we focus our resources on buying fewer, but higher quality items? In today’s episode, host Travis Shelton shares why he believes quality over quantity is almost always the right answer. Not only that, but buying more expensive …
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Frederick Douglass’s Private Writings on Abraham Lincoln, His Strong Critiques and Stronger Praise
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49:05Frederick Douglass made the strongest arguments for abolition in antebellum America because he made the case that abolition was not a mutation of the Founding Father’s vision of America, but a fulfillment of their promises of liberty for all. He had a lot riding on this personally – Douglas was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818, escaped to …
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The Industrial Revolution Was Supposed to Lead to Unlimited Free Time But Only Gave Us Smartphones and Endless Dopamine
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31:11Free time, one of life’s most important commodities, often feels unfulfilling. But why? And how did leisure activities transition from strolling in the park for hours to “doomscrolling” on social media for thirty minutes? Despite the promise of modern industrialization, many people experience both a scarcity of free time and a disappointment in it.…
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424 - Give An Inch, Take a Mile: Why We Self-Sabotage Our Own Best Interests
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10:02For more than four years, we produced two episodes per week.....like clockwork. 419 episodes in a row without a single miss. Then, something happened. We decided to skip one episode, which led us to take a week off, which led us to take two weeks off, which eventually led us to take nearly three months off. If we give ourselves an inch, we'll take …
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James Cook Mapped the Globe Before Dying At the Hands of Hawaiians Who Once Worshipped Him
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56:56Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan are known for discoveries, but it was Captain James Cook who made global travel truly possible. Cook was an 18th-century British explorer who mapped vast regions of the Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coast, with unprecedented accuracy. He meticulously conducted soundings to measure…
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American Anarchists: The Original Domestic Extremists
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39:37In the early twentieth century, anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman championed a radical vision of a world without states, laws, or private property. Militant and sometimes violent, anarchists were heroes to many working-class immigrants. But to many others, anarchism was a terrifyingly foreign ideology. Determined to crush it, gover…
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