Totally Unrelated: History, books & banter among friends

Totally Unrelated: History, books & banter among friends

by Totally Unrelated

Books History Politics

Season 2

The Chocolate of Our Growing Discontent - Kraft's Cadbury Takeover & Poiana

Diana and Adel discuss the role that Poiana chocolate - a popular local chocolate brand - played in Kraft's hostile takeover of Cadbury. They also reminisce about growing up amid Romania's turbulent transition to a market economy in the '90s and contemplate why, sooner or later, everything ends up becoming a Lidl store. Music: Lo-Fi Hip-Hop 03 by WinnieTheMoog Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7848-lo-fi-hip-hop-03 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Manosphere History - Old School Incels, Fragile Masculinity & Red Pills Galore

Diana and David talk about Otto Weininger, masculinity and the history of misogyny throughout the 19th and early 20th century. Highlights from Weininger's 'Sex and Character', the magnus opus of one of inceldom's least known Founding Fathers. Sources: Bram Dijkstra - Idols of Perversity Otto Weininger - Sex and Character Françoise Gaillard, Colette Windish - Naked, but Hairy: Women and Misogyny in Fin de Siècle Representations, South Central Review, Volume 29, Number 3, Fall 2012 Misha Kavka - The "Alluring Abyss of Nothingness": Misogyny and (Male) Hysteria in Otto Weininger, New German Critique, No. 66, Special Issue on the Nineteenth Century, Autumn,1995 Music: Lo-Fi Hip-Hop 03 by WinnieTheMoog Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7848-lo-fi-hip-hop-03 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

The Discreet Noise Suppression of the Bourgeoisie - Defining Noise Pollution Through The Lens of Class

What is noise, actually? How do we define noise pollution? And who is allowed to produce it and why? By the turn of the 20th century, those living in cities began to notice the high levels of noise pollution in their environments, and its impact on their well-being. It was especially the middle classes that would shape the ways in which people experienced public space and the noises that were permissible therein. Exploring the first anti-noise movements and their activism's legacy today. Heaps of classism and hating on lower-class women who play on second-hand pianos. Sources: Peter Payer - The Age of Noise. Early Reactions in Vienna 1870-1914 The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion, by Interboro The Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise, by Peter Andrey Smith, New Yorker, January 2013 New York's War on Noise, NY Times archives Music: Lo-Fi Hip-Hop 03 by WinnieTheMoog Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7848-lo-fi-hip-hop-03 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Welcome to Tech Hell - Burnout in the Tech Industry

Diana, Irina and Bogdan discuss why burnout is so common in the tech industry. What with crunch culture, unpaid overtime, and toxic work environments, it seems like it's not all tits and champagne in an industry that has been hailed by many to be the solution to personal and societal issues alike. There's talk of mental health, working conditions and peculiarities of the tech industries in Romania and Malta. Music: Lo-Fi Hip-Hop 03 by WinnieTheMoog Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7848-lo-fi-hip-hop-03 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Cancelling (Most) of Anne's Friends

What's all the hubbub about cancel culture? Diana and Irina discuss one of the many, many articles written on the subject in the past few years, and provide their 'very nuanced,' 'highly astute,' and 'definitely correct' ideas on whose head should be on the chopping block. ===TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of sexual harassment and rape === Article referenced in the episode: The New Puritans, by Anne Appelbaum (The Atlantic, August 31, 2021)

Workers Rights: Our Beef with Amazon (Past & Present Labor Exploitation)

Horrible labor practices brushed under the carpet of 'customer obsession' might sound like the pinnacle of soulless corporatese right from Jeff Bezos' mouth. However, many of the things companies such as Amazon are doing right now bear a striking resemblance to the 19th century horrors of the meatpacking industry in the U.S. and the British Empire. ==WARNING: Episode may contain hexes!== Books referenced in this episode: Joshua Specht - Red Meat Republic Lizzie Collingham - The Hungry Empire Neil Irvin Painter - Standing at Armageddon

Bad Reads in the Time of the Plague

Find out why Irina is the ultimate literary Karen, as she goes off on an hour-long rant about some of the top-rated books of fiction on Goodreads in 2020. Can you just shrug off news of alien contact just because it comes from your dad who is cringe? Are you interested in detailed descriptions of heavy curtains amid cannibalism, oppression and incest at the hacienda? And just what exactly happened to that twice-dead leper?

Classically Abby STILL Doesn't Understand The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Diana and Irina continue their discussion of Jonathan Haidt's book and Abby Shapiro's hilariously bad review of it. There's talk about what innateness really means in scientific terms, and moral foundations. Also, quite a bit about riders and futile attempts to steer their unruly elephants. P.S. No elephants were harmed during the making of this episode, regardless of their political convictions. References for this episode: Jonathan Haidt - The Righteous Mind Clasically Abby - 6 Tips to Get Through to Liberals Siddhartha Mukherjee - The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Classically Abby Doesn't Understand The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

We all have our disagreements, but why does it sometimes feel like the person on the other side sees the world in such a radically different way? Diana and Irina discuss Jonathan Haidt's take on this issue, in his book The Righteous Mind. They also reference a hilariously bad review of the book made by self-described 'Conservative influencer' Abigail Shapiro (more commonly known by all those bombarded with her ads on Youtube as Clasically Abby) and the many ways in which Haidt's and other researchers' insights are misconstrued in the public sphere. References for this episode: Jonathan Haidt - The Righteous Mind Clasically Abby - 6 Tips to Get Through to Liberals

Season 1

I Got it From EuGENE! Discussing The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee - Part 2

Diana and Irina continue their discussion about Mukherjee's book and talk about important questions such as: What does it mean - from a scientific point of view - when we say something is genetic? Why are gender and identity so complicated and, most importantly, why even men? :P

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