Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Great Life Hacks & The Nasty Political Discussion Fix
Episode Date: September 14, 2019Here’s something interesting – as sunscreen use has increased over the last several years, so has the rate of skin cancer. So what is going on? I’ll discuss that and what we know DOES work to he...lp prevent skin cancer. https://www.cancernetwork.com/skin-cancer-nonmelanoma/dietary-changes-may-help-prevent-skin-cancer-expert-says Who couldn’t use some great life hacks? I love them! And no one is better at finding them than David Pogue author of Pogue’s Basics: Life (https://amzn.to/2LvzFZu). This is a fun and informative conversation worth listening to that will leave you with great hacks to improve your life. David is the founder of Yahoo Tech, was the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times. He’s also a monthly columnist for Scientific American and host of science shows on PBS’s “NOVA.” He’s been a correspondent for “CBS Sunday Morning” since 2002. Also, what has happened to make political and other controversial discussions so nasty? James Hoggan author of I’m Right & You’re an Idiot (https://amzn.to/2ZYwDWE) explores what’s going on and how to fix it so we can agree to disagree without demonizing each other. You know the wasabi you get with your sushi? Chances are it isn’t real wasabi. What is it? And what is real wasabi anyway? Listen and find out. https://www.businessinsider.com/most-wasabi-served-in-the-us-is-fake-2017-1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things
and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life.
I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about.
And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily.
Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks.
Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk
every weekday in less than 15 minutes.
Join host Elise Hu.
She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future.
Learn about things like sustainable fashion,
embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said,
if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like
TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, great life hacks that
you will use from getting more ink out of your printer, getting in and out of the airport quicker,
what you can do with butter and ketchup, to scoring a cheaper hotel room. It's quite amazing if you
use an app or a website on your smartphone, you will save a ton of money for the identical hotel room
than if you used your laptop or your desktop.
Plus, staying safe from cancer in the sun.
It isn't as simple as just using sunscreen.
In fact, some people think sunscreen is part of the problem
and why political debates and discussions have gotten so nasty.
I think one of the reasons is it's more effective.
You know, if you can't win an argument, shriek.
Call people names.
And that wasabi you get with your sushi
may not be real wasabi at all.
So what is it?
And what is real wasabi?
All this coming up on Something You Should Know.
People who listen to Something You Should Know
are curious about the world,
looking to hear new ideas and perspectives.
So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives,
and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.
It's the podcast where great minds meet.
Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.
A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.
That's pretty cool.
And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly
about the important conversations going on today.
Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for.
Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts.
Something you should know.
Fascinating intel.
The world's top experts.
And practical advice you can use in your life.
Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
Hi, and welcome to another Something You Should Know Choice Weekend episode.
And there are a lot of things we're going to learn together in this
episode. You may even want to get a pen and paper because you're going to discover some pretty cool
facts and life hacks that I can guarantee you will come in handy and will also make you appear
to be much more brilliant than perhaps you even are to all the people who know you when you share some of these life hacks and practical advice.
Also today, wasabi.
You know that green stuff you get when you order sushi in a Japanese restaurant?
Do you know what it really is?
What wasabi, where it comes from?
And did you know that in fact, in the United States,
many times the wasabi you get with your sushi isn't really wasabi at all.
It's something else entirely.
We're going to take a look at that.
It's actually a very interesting topic.
Plus, if you watch the cable news channels, you don't have to watch very long before some political discussion just turns into a fight.
People screaming and yelling and calling each other names.
What's happened?
Why is that?
Why has anytime anybody talks about any controversial topic, does it so often deteriorate into a yelling match and demonizing the other person?
So what's going on? We're going to talk with someone who's looked into this and has some ideas as to why this is,
and maybe what we could do to maybe tone it down a little bit.
And first up today, your skin and the sun.
Now, that hardly sounds controversial. I mean, most moms and most dermatologists agree that you should always put on sunscreen when you go outside. But actually, this topic is controversial because there are plenty of people who cite research
that shows that sunscreen does very little to prevent skin cancer.
In fact, in the last 35 years, as people have increased sunscreen use
and avoided being out in the sun, the rate of melanoma,
the deadly skin cancer that people get,
has actually tripled. Now, this has led some people to believe that sunscreen may actually
be contributing to the problem. Well, let the scientists hash all this out, but one thing the
research is pretty clear on is that your diet can help prevent skin cancer, and that is for
sure. A diet that includes a lot of fruits and vegetables, fish, herbs, that seems to have a very
protective effect against melanoma. And we know this because in regions of the world where people
eat this way, the rate of skin cancer is substantially lower than it is here in the
United States. And that is something you should know. My first guest today is about to make your
life so much easier. He's David Pogue. You've probably seen him around. He's been profiled
on 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, and he's a correspondent for CBS's Sunday Morning Show and a host of science shows
for PBS's Nova. And he's also written some books, and one book he wrote is called Pogue's Basics
Life, and it is all these life hacks and tips that he has found and researched, and these things are
great. I mean, they can really save you time and money.
And so, David, explain how you collected all these life hacks.
Part of it is that it's a personal failure of mine. I have no tolerance for steps. I have no
tolerance for inefficiently designed mechanisms. So my entire life, I'm looking for shorter,
more efficient ways to do things. So
they come from my brain. They came from my followers on Twitter. They came from everybody
I spoke to for a year telling them I was working on this book. And almost everybody's got one or two
of their own. So it's an amalgamation. So since there's so many, let's just have you dive in,
first of all, with some of your favorites.
Well, I love the ones where some designer put in some feature that's really cool, but the word just never got out.
So the classic case is the American Highway sign, those green highway signs.
It's a big sign that says, you know, Poughkeepsie, five miles.
But then above that is a small sign that has the exit number,
exit 23. The side of the big sign that the small sign appears on tells you which side of the
highway the exit will be on. So if it says exit 23 on the left of the big sign, that's the side
of the highway to be in when you exit. And I mean, it's always been there, but whoever communicated that to us?
Well, but most exits are on the right anyway,
so, you know, it's only the occasional one that's on the left.
But it's good to know when it is on the left that that's on the left.
Exactly right.
And a similar example is in the car.
Maybe about half of everybody knows this one.
On your fuel gauge where it says E to F,
there's a tiny picture of a gas pump with an arrow pointing either to the left or the right.
And that arrow tells you which side of the car your gas tank is on.
And you probably know which side your own car's gas tank is on,
but if you're in a rental or a borrowed car, it tells you which way to pull into the gas station.
So pick one or describe one that has impacted you the most or that you found really fascinating.
Sure. This is the one that's changed my life the most.
Someday most of us will be over 40 and start to need reading glasses or contacts.
Turns out if you're caught without them, you can't find them, you don't have them in, or you're in the shower or something, you can use the pinhole camera effect. You take your hand and curl your index finger very tightly until there's just a pinhole left. Hold it up to your
eye and look through it. And incredibly, you can suddenly read again without glasses. So it's great for menus and restaurants or the little bottles in
the shower and hotel. It works by, as a photographer would say, decreasing the aperture
so that it keeps everything in focus. It's quite amazing.
Talk about, well, here's one, getting the last of the ketchup out of the bottle.
My mom suggested this one. People trying to get the last ketchup out of the bottle? My mom suggested this one. People trying to get the
last ketchup out of the bottle will pound on it, they'll bang it, but there's a much easier,
more efficient way. Hold the bottle from the bottom and swing it around your body like
centrifugal force. And amazingly, that forces the ketchup instantly down into the neck of the bottle where you can just open the cap and pour it out.
It works with mustard and children's toothpaste and all kinds of jelly substances.
So how many times have people, you know, been printing out some important thing
and the printer cartridge runs out of ink and you have a way to save it?
Yeah, you can coax more ink out of inkjet cartridges by blow-drying them.
Take them out, heat it up with a blow-dryer, and put the cartridge back into the printer. You'll
get another 5% or so out of the ink that was there. So it'll save that print job that was
about to end. And why have I been tying my shoes all wrong? It turns out that the way they taught us to tie our shoes actually creates a granny knot.
It's a slip knot, and that's why children's shoes come untied, for example.
In the first step of tying your shoes, you're holding one lace in each hand,
and most people have the left lace in front of the right lace before they duck it under and tighten it.
Switch that.
Put the right lace in front of the left lace as you do that first crossover, and then proceed as usual with the loop.
That knot will not come undone until you want to undo it. Now, you have a way to re-record a voicemail message,
but I thought it kind of depended on the system people had.
No, it doesn't.
I mean, many of the commands are determined by whether you have Verizon AT&T or whatever,
but this one happens to work on all four of the American carriers.
So if you're leaving a message for somebody and you press the pound key,
it doesn't matter what carrier the person uses, a voice prompt gives you three options.
And number three, press number three, always gives you the chance to delete the voicemail you've just left
and try it again.
So if you change your mind or if you think a more
conservative wording would be better, press pound and then three. Works for all the carriers.
Why is renting a hotel room from my phone cheaper than my computer?
Turns out that every hotel wants to sell their unsold hotel rooms, of course. So as the day of
the lodging approaches, they make the price lower on smartphones than on computers because they're
trying to appeal to business travelers and millennials and people who make last-minute
hotel arrangements. But it's quite amazing. If you use an app or a website on your smartphone,
you will save a ton of money for the identical hotel room
using the identical booking service
than if you use your laptop or your desktop.
There's a way to get a customer service phone number
for just about anybody, right?
Google it.
Google knows every customer
service number. You don't have to wade through people's websites trying to find it. Just type,
you know, Burger King 800 number and you'll get it. But isn't, you've also got a website too,
called, what was it? Contact Help? Oh, right. That's right. I forgot about that one. Yeah.
Contacthelp.com.
They have a database of the world's companies, email, phone, web, the whole thing.
You know which one I found really interesting in the book was about butter.
Sure.
Everyone thinks they have to refrigerate butter because it's a dairy product and it'll go bad.
No, it won't.
Even the USDA website says it's okay to leave butter out of the refrigerator for many weeks.
And the advantage of that, of course, is that it's always soft and therefore more spreadable.
And the reason it works is because bacteria can't grow in food without moisture, without water.
And butter is almost entirely fat.
What water there is is sealed into tiny little cells.
So it's true.
You do not need to refrigerate butter.
And in Europe, nobody does.
I like to think I'm up on these kind of things because I do all these interviews with people,
but that one I'd never heard.
I always thought you had to refrigerate butter.
I just changed your life, sir.
You have. You've changed profoundly.
It's just amazing.
So this one about finding your lost dog,
has anybody ever, you know, by putting this stuff down
and hope that they come back,
has anybody ever studied that to see if it really works
or you're just kind of hoping it does?
Oh, no, this is something that is proven.
So if you can't find your dog, you leave out things that smell
like him. You put out the blanket, the toy, some water, and by the way, a note to let other people
know not to disturb that stuff. And, you know, in many cases, the dog will come back to you.
That's, you know, veterinary science at work. And the dog comes back. Yeah, in many cases.
I mean, you're much better off doing that than not doing that. Yeah. Well, you're right. What
could it hurt while you're trying other things? Yeah. All right. Last one. You pick one more,
hit it out of the park for me and we're done. All right. I'm going to change your listeners' lives.
When you're picking up somebody at the airport,
pick them up at the departures level, even though they're arriving.
Meet them at departures.
And the reason is they don't have security guys chasing cars away
at the departures level, because most people just arrive, drop off, and leave.
Nobody's hanging out.
So you'll have the opportunity to sit there in your car at the curb, not be chased away. departures level because most people just arrive, drop off, and leave. Nobody's hanging out.
So you'll have the opportunity to sit there in your car at the curb, not be chased away, and greet the person coming out.
It works much better if they don't have luggage.
But even if they do, it's sometimes better for them to go up a level
so that you can wait for them.
Well, you have some things in the back of the book about some things that don't work,
that people think work. That's true. The internet is wishful thinking land, and people send these
things around like crazy. They're called life hacks, and most of them don't work.
Some of them are just silly. Like, if you're ever caught out in the woods camping without kindling, you can light Doritos as kindling. Well,
okay, but who's camping when they have Doritos but not wood? Or a great example is you can make
a piece of leftover pizza crisp again by microwaving it next to a cup of water. It's like,
no, it doesn't work at all. You're just going to make
it mushier that way. So every one of these book tips in the book has been, uh, pogue tested and
certified. I like this one. Cause I've always thought it was true was you tap on the top of
a soda can, uh, if it's been shaken and that will prevent it from spewing when you open it.
Yeah, it does not work. Um, if it seems to work, it's only because you're waiting longer.
You're taking time with the tapping for the bubbles to settle down.
But it does not, in fact, make any difference whether you tap the can or not.
And time is the only thing that will settle it down.
That is correct.
Great. Thanks, David.
It's always good to have you on.
You have so much stuff that just makes my life complete, makes me smarter, and I appreciate it. Thank you.
Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.
David Pogue is the author of the book Pogue's Basics Life, and he is correspondent for the CBS Sunday Morning Show.
There's a link to his book and to his website on the show notes page for this podcast episode at somethingyoushouldknow.net.
In a moment, why has discussing politics, or really any controversial topic, gotten
so nasty? And what can we do about it? Plus, if you like Japanese food, well, you know
about wasabi. But what is it exactly? Where does it come from? And why very often is the wasabi you get
fake? All that's coming up on Something You Should Know.
Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at
the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new
show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining,
a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla
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Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Since I host a podcast,
it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast.
And I tell people, if you
like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is
a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests,
but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS
and went to prison for three years.
She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation.
And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy,
it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.
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and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker.
Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast.
The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It seems to have gotten to the point today where
talking politics can be dangerous. I mean, if you watch politicians on television, or really
anybody who's talking or debating a controversial issue, gun control, abortion, any topic, it so quickly deteriorates into name-calling and yelling.
And the idea of agree to disagree just isn't what it used to be.
So what's going on here?
Why is the goal now not necessarily to discuss the topic, but to demonize the other side.
To take a look at that is James Hogan.
He has been a public relations executive for many years, and he has a book which is titled I'm Right and You're an Idiot, which which pretty much sums up the problem.
So, James, why have things deteriorated to this level? Why, every time people, it seems, talk
controversial topics or politics, it can get so nasty? One of the things I've noticed, I've been
in the public relations business for 25 years, and I used to be in the persuasion business.
Now people in my business are in the polarizing business. And our job is basically to take even science or evidence and infuse a kind
of partisan meaning into it so that it's not something that my team believes. And if you do
believe it, then you must be part of their team. Yeah. So why did it change? When did it change? I think there's,
I think one of the reasons is it's more effective. And I think it's one of the things
Noam Chomsky said to me was, you know, if you can't win an argument, shriek,
call people names, you know, do anything to not, to avoid having to try to make an argument.
So that, and that's what people are doing.
That's right. Some of these issues are impossible.
And so in order to kind of prevail, whether it's in politics or in business or in policy,
you need to resort to this kind of highly polarizing methodology.
And yet, most of us would think that, or I would think that that didn't work,
because, you know, if people treat me like I'm an idiot, I'm not going to cooperate.
No, it works for the status quo.
So if you're fighting change, say you're in the oil business,
it works for you to confuse things to such a level that nothing happens.
People just throw their hands up and walk away. So I think we give the whole, the role of reason too much credit in democracy. I mean,
ad hominem attacks have been around since democracy began. But now they, with the growth
of social science, maybe 100 years of it, right, there is, it's become much more sophisticated. And so really what's happening is you don't have to get involved in the actual argument.
You just have to make the case that that other person is kind of not worthy of even participating in the debate.
You know, call them names. But I think people like to think that I can see through that,
that I'm smart enough to be able to see that for what it is,
and what's really important to me are the issues at hand.
Right. Big mistake.
We tend to look for people who think like us
before we decide what to believe. And so it's
very easy for people like us who have belonged to our tribe to manipulate us. And that is the way
this works. So what are you suggesting? Are you suggesting we be more civil, or are you suggesting we take advantage of this new snippy, nasty tone and use it to our advantage?
The first step is assuming that people who disagree with you don't have bad intentions,
and that they're not idiots, and being open to their views.
And I think that kind of a process can, and it's not always going to work, it's not like a silver bullet,
but it can start a different kind of conversation where people start to listen more to each other.
Because it's the listening that's missing.
So can you give me an example to kind of fill in the blanks here of how that explain what you mean? I guess a good example would be climate change.
When you look at how polarized it is, it's kind of like a fight between good and evil.
And I think the fact of the matter is, people who run oil companies are not evil.
Even though we need to do something about climate change, they have a lot to say.
And so you could have a conversation about that.
And I have had those conversations, even though I'm a climate change advocate.
I think we need to do something about it.
It's a very serious problem. That said, just because
someone doesn't agree with me doesn't mean that they're a wrongdoer or they're sort of evil and
that this should be like a David and Goliath battle. The fact is, these kinds of issues are
so big and so difficult that if you don't get people who are on the other side of the issue to work with you to move towards a solution, even when you have to compromise, there won't be solutions.
And so that's a very good example, I think, oil companies and environmental advocates.
Yeah. Does this apply, do you think, just in day-to-day life, the way we just deal with people in our lives? Do the same rules apply?
Yeah, it's funny because that's not what I was writing the book about. I was writing the book about the public square and this idea that just like you can pollute the natural environment, you can pollute the public square with this kind of unyielding one-sidedness.
But over and over again, people have come up to me and said,
yeah, that's exactly what I just broke up with so-and-so.
And they tell this story that it might as well be magnified into a political debate.
There's very similar types of skills that are used.
And we don't tend to be good listeners.
Certainly, in my case,
it's something I have to work at. And I think there's a lot of people like me.
And we tend not to, we tend to sort of jump to defending our side too quickly rather than kind
of looking for common ground. I mean, there are people who are gifted. They're not like that, but a lot of us are.
And, you know, I think people tend to respond better
when you acknowledge that they may have a point
and that you keep in mind that it's not just they
who could be unknowingly under the influence of bias,
but you could have that problem as well.
I'm speaking with James Hogan.
His book is called I'm Right and You're an Idiot.
Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks.
And me, Melissa Demonts, for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong?
Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows.
In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice.
Then we have But Am I Wrong,
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Then tune in to see you next Tuesday
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Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown.
I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial.
And I'm the Dapper Danielle.
On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover.
We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed,
but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic,
check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. So James, there are so many conversations where people are not just disagreeing or agreeing to disagree.
They truly believe the other person is wrong.
There is no common ground.
Abortion is a good example of that.
There is no compromise in abortion.
You either have it or you don't. There's no middle
ground. Some of the issues are like that. That's true. See, I think the thing that's different
today is that this has become professionalized. And people in my business, in the public relations
business, are no longer really in the persuasion business. They're in the polarizing business.
And when you have these kinds of highly polarized issues and you never get to the point where
solutions can be implemented or there's a discussion about how you fix it, it's always
just these kinds of this kind of butting heads,
and it doesn't move forward. So there are some issues that I agree with you that are like that,
they're win-lose. But there are a lot of other issues where you could find common ground. I mean,
no one can convince me that a Republican or a Conservative in my country, Canada,
isn't just as concerned about clean water and clean air as I
am. But they're often painted that way. That's right. And it's, you know, the bias is on both
sides. And we all think we're right, right? We all have this attitude, like, I'm right,
you're wrong, let me tell you what you should think. That is not a good communication strategy.
I can tell you after 30 years of being in the public relations business, it doesn't work.
Well, it depends on what work means to you.
I mean, it depends on what the goal is, I guess.
Don't you think the goal has changed?
It's not so much to come to an agreement or find common ground.
It's to demonize the other side.
That's right. That's exactly my point. But that leaves you, you know, one of, Carol Tavris was
one of the people I interviewed for my book, and she said, you know, if you hear a ruckus outside
your house, you know, you open the windows to see what's going on. But if there's a ruckus every
night, you sort of close the shutters and kind of batten down the
hatches and try to ignore it. And that is a very dangerous thing when you have the kinds of
problems that are stalking us today, the problems with terrorism and immigration problems, financial
problems that are causing so much concern around the world, the inequity in income,
the climate change problem.
These are problems that you and your friends that you have dinner with who all agree are
not going to solve on their own.
We need to figure out ways to be able to work with people who disagree with us.
And it's not like there's no historical example of that. This happened lots of times throughout history, where the right and the
left have stood together. Second World War. First World War. In the United States, it was Republicans who founded the EPA, who set up the national park system.
There's plenty of times that people have, you know, I have a friend who used to be an MP in Canada,
and he was like a, you know, very left-of-center guy.
The first time I went to Parliament was with him. And we're walking through the halls of Parliament,
and he's this big, gregacious guy, just hugging everybody.
And nearly all the people he was hugging were, like,
way on the other side of the floor, ultra-conservatives
in the Mulroney government, like finance ministers.
But there was a collegiality, even though there was differences.
There was an ability to be able to, and work things out to whatever degree is possible.
Well, in this country, Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill were often, you know,
they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but were good friends.
Yes.
And so I think we need, for me, I understand why we have to polarize.
And I think that it's, you know, advocacy on a whole range of issues
have made the world a better place.
You know, thank God for Martin Luther King and for many other advocates.
But we need to also be good at finding common ground.
You can't just have one without the other, or you end up in this kind of perpetual,
everything just becomes more and more unreasonable and more and more polarized, and nothing happens.
And there are some problems that you can't just leave that way.
Well, it is interesting what you said in the beginning, that it's gotten this way because it's more effective. You know, it's easier to get people's attention, I guess, when you scream and yell as opposed to try to
gently persuade. Or if you're trying to stop change. So if you're trying to, if you don't
want a solution, if the status quo is fine, and for a lot of people, the status quo is fantastic.
So the strategy is a really good strategy, but ultimately for democracy and for the public square,
you need a process where there's a to and fro. I mean, that's the whole idea.
You know, democracy's work, the public square is healthy if there's a reasonableness there.
And reasonableness in the sense of inclusiveness,
and in the sense of being able to not just express your side of the story, but listen to somebody else's.
Yeah, well, like you say, that seems to be what's missing.
When people think they're right, they don't see a need to listen to the other side of the story,
because that person doesn't know what they're talking about.
That's right.
And this is just as much of a problem on the left as it is on the right.
You know, immunization, there's just as many people who have crazy ideas about immunization
as there are about people who have crazy ideas about climate change.
So finally, knowing what you know and having looked at this, so what's the advice?
What's the ABC here?
Well, there was one moment that really kind of stuck with me, And I spoke to about 70 people.
And I spent an afternoon with someone named Thich Nhat Hanh,
who is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk
and who's famous on environmental work that he does.
And I was asking him about environmental advocacy.
And I'm saying, because he was saying,
you know, we should meditate.
We should bring meditation into this.
People, calm people down.
So I said, you're not saying people shouldn't be advocates, are you?
And he looked at me and he said,
speak the truth, but not to punish.
And I think that there's a huge amount of wisdom in that,
this idea that we need to bring a bit of warm-heartedness into the debate
and not be so convinced that the other side is ill-intentioned
or an idiot on the issue,
but that we should be more open to their views and realize that there may in fact not be that much of a difference.
You know, we probably agree on 80%, and being able to kind of move to the 80% sometimes is a helpful way to start to deal with the tougher 20%. Well, I'm not terribly optimistic that things are going to change,
but it certainly would be nice if we could get back to the, you know,
agree to disagree idea and not have to resort to calling people names
and screaming and yelling because it just doesn't seem to accomplish anything.
Good insight, Jim. Thanks for your time.
Well, thank you so much.
That's James Hogan. His
book is I'm Right and You're an Idiot. And there's a link to his book on the show notes page for this
podcast. So, you know, when you order sushi at a restaurant, it usually comes with, you know,
usually get some sliced ginger and you get wasabi, that green paste that's pretty spicy. So what is it? Well,
it's a pretty interesting question. The wasabi plant itself grows naturally in the bends in
rivers in Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and New Zealand. And wasabi is almost impossible to grow
naturally. So almost all the wasabi is basically grown in the
wild. Now, real wasabi, until it's grated from the root, is not spicy, but when it's grated in a
circular clockwise motion, it forms a paste and releases these hot vapors. Now, real wasabi loses
its strength after about 15 to 20 minutes, so it has to be served immediately after it's turned into a paste.
And real wasabi is expensive, like $100 a pound expensive.
That's why the wasabi that we consume in the United States is very often an imposter.
It's a dyed blend of horseradish powder and mustard, which are two similar roots that are far, far cheaper.
Now, you can tell the difference because actual wasabi has a smoother taste than the horseradish
mustard stuff that we commonly consume here. And instead of creating a sensation on the tongue and
in the mouth, real wasabi you sense more in your nose and your nasal passages. And that is something you should know.
And that is the podcast today.
I'm Mike Carruthers.
Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know.
Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.
In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community.
Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager.
But local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.
She suspects connections to a powerful religious group.
Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.
The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer,
unearthing secrets that
leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family.
But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth.
Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. We have seen, of course, every episode many times. We figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again.
And we can't do that alone.
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We've got writers, producers, composers, directors,
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including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers.
It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice
in the best way possible.
The note from Kripke was,
he's great, we love him,
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With 15 seasons to explore,
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