Merchants of Misery ∞

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Shoutout to "One Time for a Good Time!": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCheK4sFWZk (I highly recommend listening to this podcast)

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FULL TRANSCRIPT

Note: Merchants of Misery is produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using artificial intelligence, machine learning, human transcription by myself, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio and corrections at the end of this transcript before quoting in print.

Host: So, I want to talk about two things— discrimination and survivorship bias.

[MUSIC -- "MILITAIRE ELECTRONIC" BY KEVIN MACLEOD]

The goal here is to incorporate science in this podcast in a way that helps bridge that gap in communication between scientists and the public. There's two conditions that I want us to consider before we start:

The first condition is, let's just forget the idea that arguments have to be won. Thinking about things like that, it's just not productive.

The second condition is, try to think of this podcast as more of a tool, like a device used to reveal an answer consistent with the truth. I don't want people to just believe that these issues are important either. Believing doesn't reflect an understanding. I want people to understand these issues. We live in a time where misinformation spreads fast, and I think that's something everyone should be concerned about, regardless of their politics.

Part of the problem is that as we get older, we tend to share more misinformation. Dr. Nadia Brashier is a cognitive neuroscientist at Harvard University, who recently discussed this trend:

[MUSIC - "INSPIRED" BY KEVIN MACLEOD]

Dr. Nadia Brashier: So one of the strongest predictors of people engaging with and sharing fake news, typically political fake news, is advanced age. So older adults are more likely to see political fake news in their (news) feeds. And they're seven times more likely than the youngest users to share it. At this point, we don't have a lot of conclusive evidence for why that might be, but we do know that some of the sort of lay intuitions about why could be wrong. So I think it's easy to default to the perspective that older adults suffer from cognitive impairments, such as memory troubles, maybe attentional issues, and that that's a big reason why they're sharing so much fake news. I would push back against that perspective to say that the research doesn't exactly align with that, and that we should probably be considering other factors like social and motivational aspects and also digital literacy issues.

Host: So the point here isn't to play some kind of blame game. The point is that we all need to realize that the spread of misinformation is getting significantly worse each year, and the response to this rise and misinformation requires high quality information, delivered in a clear way, guided by science.

[MUSIC - "GRIPHOP" BY KEVIN MACLEOD"]

Unknown Voice: Merchants of Misery, a podcast examining the pulse of society.

Host: Act One-- "Height Privilege"

[MUSIC -- "LOCAL FORECAST -- SLOWER" BY KEVIN MACLEOD]

I'm six foot three. For men, height is usually considered a pr