It Could Happen Here - Natalism feat. Andrew

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

Andrew and Mia discuss the pro- and anti-natalist movements and how they generate reactionary politics. Sources:  https://iep.utm.edu/anti-natalism/ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/what-is-pronatalism-right-wing-republican https://www.npr.org/2025/04/30/nx-s1-5382208/whats-behind-the-pronatalist-movement-to-boost-the-birth-rate https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40660745/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, everybody. It's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist

that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut.

I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product with every sip you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman'scutburbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.

For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cuturban.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Michael Lewis here. My bestselling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008.

A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, and now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by yours truly. The Big Short's story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial situation? system is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm slash audio books

or wherever audio books are sold. Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause, even And if it's natural, why should we suffer through it? Listen to Decoding Women's Help with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZo Media. Hello and welcome to Ike Rappanere.

I'm Andrew Siege, also known as Andrew Zulm, and I'm joined once again by... Mia Wong girl who was really, really the first time was like, I am not going to miss my cue this time. And then this time I was like, oh, I'm waiting for the queue. And then it was like, shit, that's the cue.

And then it took my brain like several seconds to be like, oh no. It would be very funny if the editors just edited it out the pause and so everyone has no idea what I'm talking about. That would be hilarious actually. But there was unaware That was like a 10 second pause before Mia came in.

No, really, truly, this is, this is Mia on like three hours of sleep, brain. I was like, oh, yeah, right. The cue's going to come, but that it, things going great for Bea Wong, the other person who's on this show. You know who I am, statistically. If you're listening to the show, woo. Of course. I mean, speaking of seconds, by the way, in those 10 seconds,

that you were waiting for your queue that had already passed, hundreds of people were born. You know, every second somewhere someone is being born. Like other animals, humans have this tendency to multiply. But should they? That is the question of the day. You see, last episode I was on, we spoke about the worries surrounding population.

You know, whether we have too many people or too few people, But the question of making people or not making them has been the subject of a few ideological clashes. There's a whole movement of thinkers who argue that bringing new life into the world is a big mistake. These are the anti-natalists. And on the other side, you have those who say that having children is good and essential. That's the pro-natalist camp. So in this episode we'll be getting into that tug-of-war philosophically. and weighing the issues with both

because I'm not going to make it a secret. I'm not a fan of either of them. I don't know. How do you feel about? Yeah, this is the one good Stalin quote. They're both worse. So we have to pick among those two. Let's start with the anti-naturedists. What's the kind of gut reaction or impression

you get from those folks? I don't know. I think there's a combination of stuff that's largely harmless. and sometimes it's funny like you get protested people holding up signs that are like I didn't ask to be born

or didn't consent to be born and it's like sure but then there's also people just doing mass shootings about it so it's great it's a good time it's a very normal time for politics

um yeah yeah yeah I mean when I think of them I tend to think cringe and Reddit but they actually have a philosophy outside of Reddit forums

So, according to the internet encyclopedia, philosophy, antinatalism is the view that it is either always or usually morally impermissible to procreate. Now, most of us grew up with the idea that life is inherently valuable, right? But antinitalists disagree. They see life as a budan rather than a gift. Very edgy, very Reddit. But, you know, it's something that has been around since before the internet. While not himself an anti-natalist, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who lived in the 19th century, is thought by some anti-natalists as a contributor to their philosophical foundations in his descriptions of life as constant striving, frustration, and pain.

In the 20th century, the Romanian writer Emil Choran argued that non-existence is the ultimate form of peace. His philosophical pessimism regarded individual life and human history as a whole as a record of error, illusion, and futility. And most famously, South African philosopher David Benatar laid out one of the main anti-natalist arguments in his book, Better Never to Have Been, the Harm of Coming Into Existence. It's a banger title, though. Now, you can find theoretical contributions to anti-natalist thought in Buddhism's ideas. that life is suffering, or incident interpretations of it, rather, or incident gnostic traditions that saw the material world itself as a kind of cosmic mistake.

Now, there are a lot of reasons that anti-natalists put forward for their stance. There are philanthropic and misanthropic arguments for antenatalism. You know, the philanthropic ones focus on harm to the individual who is brought into existence. While the misanthropic arguments tend to focus on the harm that new people cause to the world, So there's the consent argument that Mia would have mentioned, you know, basically a child cannot consent to being born. So by creating them, you're forcing them into a life they didn't ask for, a life that will inevitably include suffering. Another argument is in that sort of negative utilitarianism camp, it's the idea that our moral priority should be reducing suffering,

not increasing happiness. In fact, they don't see the potential or actuality of pleasure as an offsets to suffering at all. Under their view, even a single unit of suffering is unacceptable. And since every new life will include suffering, not creating life is the surest way to reduce it. David Benetor had the famous asymmetry argument, which is that the presence of pain is bad, the presence of pleasure is good, but the absence of pain is always good, even if no one appreciates that good, and the absence of pleasure isn't bad unless there's

someone missing out. So put simply, according to the argument, by not having a child, you avoid guaranteed suffering without depriving any person of joy because that person doesn't exist. So that equation is probably one of the main pillars, I'd say, of the anti-nate lists as a movement. Hey everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more.

So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage. I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak? And what did they learn from it?

I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash. I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have thrown the tomatoes. Let's be honest. We've all had those moments we'd rather forget.

We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal failed through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about that and how we made it through. So when they sat me down, they were kind of like, we got into the small talk. And they were just like, so what do you got?

What? What ideas? And I was like, oh, no. What? Check out Not My Best Moment with me, Kevin on stage on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers. And what is this?

How is that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you? From smartless media, campside media, and big money players comes crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoville, comedian, as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's

dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfish is a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes. There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch. And it freaks you out.

He has x-rayed vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Stefan Curry. And this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different

is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cutbuburn.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit

gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. You know, you might be thinking to yourself, oh, but I'm glad to be alive. No, you're not. According to Benetter and the anti-natalists, you're deluded to think so. The internet encyclopedia philosophy calls it

the deluded gladness argument. Basically, your positive view of your own life is unreliable. Benetter argues that we have cognitive biases, like optimism and selective memory and so on, which distort how viciously we assess our own suffering. So many good life reports, even if you think you have a good life or a decent life, you're deceiving yourself, according to him.

Do you think people are deceiving themselves when they say that they enjoy their lives? You know, this entire line of argument is just making me be like you need to do less philosophy and like go outside and live. Like, it's just like, yeah, I mean, I get the whole thing about, you know, all mental bias towards optimism and that kind of thing. But that doesn't invalidate the joy of people appreciating their life. Yeah, it's like this, this sounds like the exact script you get in your head when you're really depressed.

It's like, okay, like, have you considered getting your depression managed and getting help for it instead of like doing philosophy? about it. I feel like E.O. would be an antennae list. Oh, Eeyor, yeah. Like, nothing matters. Well, and it's also frustrating because it's like,

the most compelling version of this argument is about, like, this world right now is absolutely dog shit, and I can't justify bringing someone into it. But that's, like, too grounded. And so all these people are like,

no, no, no, no. Actually, here's like this philosophy that proves that, that life bad. And it's like, oh. I mean, there are antennaseless arguments that do get into that more grounded. Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah.

You know, that they have one argument about multiplying suffering, right? Because every child you bring into the world isn't just one person. You know, they have the potential to have children themselves and grandchildren and so on, multiplying the chances of pain, disease, loss, suffering down the generations. It's like, this is like long-termism shit. It's just like, instead of, of like actually analyzing the world we're going to build unbelievably complicated and completely meaningless like abstract models of it and try to base our things off of that. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

it's absolutely ridiculous. Now I understand, you know, our track record isn't the best, you know, there are plagues and slavery and genocide, environmental destruction. And some of them say, well, that's the best thing. The best thing we could do is to voluntarily go extinct, you know, to step off the stage of the earth. And that connects with the general misanthropy and I think the misanthropic argument that humans are some kind of blight on the world.

Yeah. And they are anti-Aetless who take it a step further as well and they're not just anti-natalists for humans. They're universal antitellists. Oh, Jesus Christ. So they believe that not just human births are problematic, but existence itself, sentient beings across the board, human or animal

are better of never being brought into life at all. Really, truly, at this point, brother, this is a you problem. Like, you just don't like existing. Like, we can work on that, but, like, this is not a philosophical thing. Like, you're just depressed. Like, come on. Yeah.

What are we doing here? Yeah, I mean, Antoniaism is making some very heavy claims, and they're obviously going to be coming to arguments because people are not going to roll over with the kind of assertions that it makes. The most intuitive answer I would give is that, yes, life involves suffering, but it also includes pleasure and joy and creativity and achievement. And for most people, those positives outweigh the negatives. And if you're a radical, you recognize that some of the negatives of life are not inevitable. The famines, the wars,

the suffering, the poverty, it's not inevitable. It's a product of economic and political systems that we have the power to change. And yes, they will always be suffering. They may always be some diseases, there will always be death, right? But that doesn't mean that existence is worse than non-existence. I'm glad to exist. Mia, I feel like you're probably glad to exist. I'm glad you exist. Most of the time. Like, oh, this is a distinct improvement for positions I have been in, but like, yeah, it's nice. Yeah. It's, you know, like, even, even in the middle of, like, hell world, it's nice. Yeah. And yeah, the biases may skew our perspective, but the fact that we overwhelmingly choose life itself is a reason to not throw it out.

You know, as people are given the choice, do you want to live right now or die? Most people want to say they're going to live, you know. Yeah. And yes, we don't consent to being born, but there are other things that we don't consent to that we still benefit from. You know, infants don't consent to being vaccinated, but it's something. their benefits them. You know, we educate infants. We restrain them from danger. We don't ask their permission necessarily to do these things, but it's just for their well-being, for their benefit. And I don't think, while consent is an important factor in the way that we engage with

others, I don't think consent is the only factor for a framework of determining what is moral and immoral. You know, you can't use consent to determine whether it's moral or not to exist. I don't feel like those two pieces mashed together very well. Yeah, well, and also I think like there are so many other things that we didn't consent. Like, for example, you know,

like, and this is another thing we're talking about, like, we never consented to die. On a less metaphysical level, I don't know, like, I didn't consent to, like, to live under this state. Yeah. Where, you know, they're like doing helicopter raids on apartment buildings

and, like, dragging naked children screaming away from their parents in the middle of the night. Like, you know, And that's a thing that you can actually actively do something about that you didn't consent to that is actively harming you and everyone else around you versus like being born and making that the thing that you're doing. It's like, okay, like, we didn't consent to live in our capitalism. We didn't, we didn't consent to colonialism. Like, we didn't consent to any of the shit.

And that's something you could, you know, make not happen versus you being born, which there is nothing you can do that change the fact that you were born. and it's like, oh, well, I'll focus on the next generation. Yeah, you want to focus on, like, reducing the amount of suffering the next generation will create in the world. Have we considered, like, climate change? Yeah, yeah. I also think that on a broader level, right, I think it's good to be questioned some of the intuitions that we may have, you know, even if they're our deepest moral intuitions,

I think it's good to maybe consider them or to be thoughtful about them. But also, as the incident encyclopedia of philosophy argues, if a theory implies that the creation of all human life is a moral mistake, that conclusion itself might be reason to doubt the theory. This is something called the repugnant conclusion objection. You know what I mean? Because it's repugnant. It's intuitively repugnant to most people to hear that existence is a mistake. Nobody should be alive. I was like, well, no, like, absolutely not.

Like, get your shit worked out. Exactly. The train of logic here, not great. Like you were saying, yeah, there are a lot of things in the world that suck right now that cause suffering. And there's a lot of present joy is alongside that present suffering. But there's also the value to be had in that potential joy. You know, the potential possibilities have value. If potential suffering has value, potential.

potential joys should also have value, the potential of creating a better world. Each new child bringing the potential for greater love, for incredible arts and crafts, for scientific breakthroughs, for reshaping the world in a positive direction. You know, the potential for the unique goods that each individual life can bring, I believe justifies the risk of suffering because a world without those future goods would be worse than a world with them. And yes, humanity can cause harm, but we are also capable of extraordinary good.

We can change, we can reduce suffering over time. New generations are going to be part of that solution. I will say, though, to anti-natalists credit, one of the points of the internet insight of philosophy points out is that the debate about anti-natalism is theoretical. You know, this is stuffy philosophers sitting around exchanging notes and writing books, right? Most of its advocates are not actually putting forward policies that are restricting people's ability to create life.

But the same cannot be said for the other side of the coin, the pro natalists. Yep. Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What up, y'all? It's your boy, Kevin on stage.

I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists, athletes, entertainers, creators, friends, people I admire who had massive success about their massive failures. What did they mess up on? What is their heartbreak? And what did they learn from it? I got judged horribly. The judges were like, you're trash.

I don't know how you got on the show. Boo, somebody had tomatoes. I'm kidding. But if they had tomatoes, they would have. throwing the tomatoes. Let's be honest. We've all had those moments we'd rather forget. We bumped our head. We made a mistake. The deal fell through. We're embarrassed. We failed. But this podcast is about that and how we made it through. So when they sat me down, they were kind of like, we got into the small talk and they were just like, so what do you got? What? What ideas? And I was like,

oh, no. What? Check out not my best moment with me, Kevin on stage on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers? And what is this? How was that not a story we all know? What's this? Where is that? Why is it wet? Boy, do we have a show for you?

From Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players comes Crimeless. Join me, Josh Dean, investigative journalists. And me, Roy Scoval, comedian. as we celebrate the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. We'll look into some of the silliest ways folks have broken the laws. Honestly, it feels more like a high-level prank than a crime. Who catfishes a city? And meets some memorable anti-heroes.

There are thousands of angry, horny monkeys. Clap if you think she's a witch, and it freaks you out. He has X-ray vision. How could I not follow him? Honestly, I got to follow him. He can see right through me. Listen to Crimless on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

Visit Gentleman'scut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. So in broad terms, pro-natalism or just natalism, is the belief that reproduction is a societal good,

or even the society needs more children. Now, this movement is getting louder and louder these days. It's shaping policy debates in the U.S., in Europe, in Asia, and beyond, Because, as I mentioned, in the previous episode, fertility rates are falling almost everywhere. Countries like South Korea, Italy, Japan, and the US are seeing fewer births than needed to sustain their current populations. So you're going to be seeing pronatalism in various forms showing up in politics and even in tech circles, especially in those where tech circles. Now, pronatalism is a broad umbrella. You know, you can have the mild position of supporting families with policies, and most people are not supposed to.

to that. But you also have the strong pro-natalist stance, which is actually urgent or incentivizing or mandating birth for cultural, economic, or ideological reasons. A pronatalism was motivated by a few different reasons. You know, there's the economic anxiety of a shrinking population, meaning fewer workers, more retirees, and streamed pension systems. There's a nationalistic argument of worries about cultural continuity, which tend to teeter into the reactionary directions. And the pro-natalism today is very much political as a result. In the U.S., Republicans have been leaning into it, framing the low booth rates as a national crisis. And in Europe, you have countries like Hungary under Victor Orban, which have made pro-natalism a signature

policy to varying effectiveness. The religious motivations of pro-natalism are also pretty interesting. You know, you have the being fruitful and multiply directive in the Bible. which some take as far as the quiverful movement, which is a whole thing about having children by like the dozen or more. Yeah. Then you have the tech elite circles pushing pronatalism because it connects with the ideas of human progress. One of the pronatalists who most famously practices what he preaches,

mostly for worse, is he on Musk. Yep. Right? He's a big Nazi about it for one because of his whole. worry about white facility rates, but he also thinks that low booth rates as a whole are a bigger threat than climate change. So, I mean, it seems like he's single-handly trying to fix that with his seed is spreading. Yeah. His assembly line of children with, you know, the accompanying product barcodes for names.

And I just feel bad for them, honestly, to have that as a father. No, it, it sucks. Yeah, it's not great. It's not good. And so he and his billionaire buddies are of the belief that civilization will collapse if we don't make more babies. Silicon Valley circles are funding pro-natalist think tanks and embryo-optimization projects. A lot of policies are also coming out of the pro-natalist camp, unlike the anti-natalists. Historically, countries like the Soviet Union handed out medals like mother heroin for women with large families, and the Russia of today has revived similar awards recently, alongside, like I mentioned, in the previous episode,

banning anti-natalist propaganda. Now, some countries are offering tax incentives for births and even proposing baby bonuses of thousands of dollars paid for each birth. Thousands of dollars per birth is kind of a spit in the face because that's not even going to last the first couple months of a child being born. Let's be real. Children are extremely expensive. Yeah, yeah.

Pronatalists also tend to push things like expanded family benefits, child allowances, or housing subsidies for parents. These, I would say, are the more liberal-minded or progressive-minded pronatalists, as much as you can be a progressive and a prorneous list, because they're actually considering the ways that they can make actually bearing children and raising children a bit easier for the people who have to do it. That sort of support also includes things like expanding IVF, access, subsidizing fertility treatments, you know, improving embryo screening, that sort of thing.

Places like Scandinavia also have generous leave policies, which are often cited as a model of soft pronatalism because it makes it easier for people to balance work and child rare. But you don't tend to hear these policies coming out of the much louder pronatalist conservative cap, right? What do you get from them and from their pronatalism tends to be restrictions on women, restrictions and abortion and bodily autonomy, policies that conflict with the goals of reproductive justice and gender equality, sometimes putting women's health at risk. And also conservatives push lots of narratives with their pronatalism. Large families, sense of valorize, they frame childbearing as a civic duty, you know, the appeal to legacy and culture and identity when you get

into that white supremacist camp. And you also get the whole eugenics of it. You know, the tech elite prenatalist wing, they're pushing for things like gene editing, embryo selection, the sort of stuff that Musk is talking about with his racial replacement anxieties. In any case, the effectiveness of even the few positive policies has been pretty mixed. Countries have tried pumping billions into subsidies and often fertility rates have barely budged. Deep structural issues like the cost of living, cultural norms around general. career paths, health concerns, all of these often outweigh the incentives

of a couple of thousands and dollars or extended paternity leaves. You know, if people don't want to have babies, they're not going to have babies. If they're not confident in their ability to have children, raise an environment that they feel is best for them, they're not going to have children.

You know, people more than ever have that choice. And unfortunately, a lot of the pro-natalist policies don't care about making child bear and easier, you know, easing the path to make that choice. They just want to pressure people to have children. Yep. You know, they lose right back to misogyny,

a reaction against women's freedom, pushing them back into the kitchen, pushing them back into that subservient position in society. So after looking at both sides, right, you have the anti-natalists and the pro-natalists. Don't create life to avoid suffering, or you must create life to preserve society. I guess you could call me a centrist.

The anti-natalists repulse me and the pro-natalists equally repulsed me. You know, I'm wary of anyone claiming that you must have children or you must not have children. I'm wary of a world where these kinds of choices are coerced by others. You know, as an anarchist, I'm a firm believer in autonomy, in personal freedom, and the ability to decide one's own life. That's what matters to me.

You know, I don't intend to have children. myself. I do like children a lot. I was once a child myself and I look forward to being an uncle, a godfather and all that. But that's my choice. You know, let your choice be your choice and my choice be my choice. Make choices, free-be. Resist the pressure from either camp and keep the agency intact. That's all I have to say on it, honestly. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that covers the stuff I was going to say. So, yeah. I mean, with that, with Beacon Rapid, Yeah. All power to all the people. This has been It Could Happen here. Peace. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsible.

I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me. In season two of RipCurrent, we asked who tried to kill Judy Berry and why. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of RipCurrent Season 2 are available now.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michael Lewis here. My best-selling book, The Big Short, tells the story of the build-up and burst of the U.S. housing market back in 2008. A decade ago, the Big Short was made into an Academy Award-winning movie,

and now I'm bringing it to you for the first time as an audiobook narrated by yours truly. The Big Short's story, what it means to bet against the market, and who really pays for an unchecked financial system, is as relevant today as it's ever been. Get the big short now at pushkin.fm slash audio books or wherever audio books are sold.

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