The Wholesome Show The Wholesome Show

Besides unnecessary wars, assassinations and scandalous affairs, what comes to mind when you think about American presidents? The Oval Office, the Star-Spangled Banner, Air Force One, the official military salute… and of course golf.

 

With the exception of three presidents (Hoover, Truman and Carter), golf has been the presidential sport of choice throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. While Hoover avoided golf during the great depression (a bit rude while everyone was starving), others like Woodrow Wilson were fanatics, playing over 1600 rounds during his presidency. 

 

But when it comes to golf, there’s one President who brings a flair of colour to the green - and we’re not talking about the colour of his polo shirt. This president is renowned less for his golfing prowess and more for his boastful claims of golf accolades and notorious cheating habits. None other than Donald Trump.

 

SOURCES:


Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, by Rick Reilly
Does Trump lie about how good he is at golf? 5 cheating stories about the ex-president
Hand-in-cap
How Donald Trump Cheats at Golf, According to a Sportswriter: 'He Will Do Anything'
How golf explains Trump. Seriously.
Obama Golf Counter
The President’s club: How golf took over the White House
The Serial Golf Cheat in the White House
Trump Golf Count
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We all have our idiosyncrasies, those automatic things we do each day that form the way we are in the world. Whether we scrunch or fold, or leave the toilet seat up or down, these are things we do (or don’t do) automatically. Much like the urgent need to crap your dacks in a Japanese bookstore. 

 

That’s right, there is a significant portion of Japanese people who feel overcome by a heaving sensation in the rectal passage whilst browsing books. 

 

In 1985, 29-year-old Japanese woman, Mariko Aoki, contributed an article in the Hon no Zasshi or “Book Magazine” about her strong urge to defecate whenever she visited a bookstore. Surprisingly, a significant number of readers wrote to the editorial department to share their similar experiences. Who would have thought so many people had been fending back faeces in the fiction section?! Turns out a lot. 

 

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Idiosyncratic & Biological Habits

02:21 The Aoki Mariko Phenomenon 

08:07 Feature Article explains Book Bowel Tendency

12:13 Japanese Survey to Revitalise Bookstores

14:28 Millions suffer with Aoki Mariko Phenomenon 

21:11 Symptoms: Body Shivers & Unusual Urges

26:13 Psychiatrist Speculation: Hyper Response to Stress

33:27 The Wholesome Verdict: Psychological or Sociological Phenomenon?

37:49 What’s Next on The Wholesome Show

 

SOURCES:


What is “key in lock” syndrome? - Hands on Healthcare
A Doctor Explains Why Bookstores Make Some People Feel the Need to Poop
Bathrooms and Noble - The Current
https://web.archive.org/web/20120509063936/http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/national/news/CK2012042902000077.html
Mariko Aoki phenomenon - Wikipedia
Let’s Talk About Poop. Specifically: bookstore poop | by Judey Kalchik | Artisanal Article Machine | Medium
Mariko Aoki Phenomenon | The Daily Omnivore
The Mariko Aoki Phenomenon: When You Need To Poop After Entering A Book Store | Faculty of Medicine
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Have you ever seen someone in public and you swear you know them from somewhere, you just can’t pick where? Are they an old school friend? The guy who delivers bread to your local cafe? You feel like you know them but it would probably be weird if you started a conversation. Well, that’s a glimpse into the life of a small percentage of the population who recognise with freakish accuracy every face they’ve ever seen. People with this extraordinary gift can find themselves in awkward social interactions due to their detailed memories of people they’ve actually never met. Yes, it can look a tad stalker-ish...

 

Yenny Seo is one of these unique people (not a stalker). From a young age, she demonstrated an uncanny ability to remember faces - strangers on the street she had seen weeks ago, extras in movies, every person in her university lectures and people in photos on her social media feed. She even caught a serial shoplifter by recognising his face on CCTV.

 

In 2017, Seo got curious about her skills and stumbled upon the University of New South Wales (UNSW) face test online quiz. Her exceptional performance put her in the top 0.05 per cent of all participants, confirming she was a Super Recogniser. That’s right. Yenny officially has superpowers. And she’s not alone either.

 

SOURCES:


The super-recognisers of Scotland Yard - New Statesman
‘I’d keep it on the down low’: the secret life of a super-recogniser | Science | The Guardian
Could super recognisers be the latest weapon in the war on terror? 2016 David James Robertson
Super-Recognisers in the Metropolitan Police
DJ Robertson et. al. February 2016 Face Recognition by Metropolitan Police Super-Recognisers PLOS ONE 11(2):e0150036 DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0150036
What is it like to remember all the faces you’ve ever seen? | Psyche Ideas
QPS Super Recogniser Network helps crack 1,000 cases - Queensland Police News
It is widely believed that humans are rather good at recognising faces
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Over the millions of years of evolution, we humans have developed into a highly intelligent species. We’ve developed the ability to communicate, we’ve created social order, and established norms and protocols that facilitate a (mostly) harmonious coexistence. Take, for example, the fact that we all know how to stand in line to order a beverage.

 

But now, after millennia of humans lining up and waiting their turn, it seems all of a sudden there’s an entire generation that doesn’t know how to queue. They loiter in the vicinity of the line, they leave long gaps between them and the person in front, making the queue, if there even is one, ambiguous at best. Are they in the queue? Are they out of the queue? It’s all very unclear and to be honest, when all you want is your coffee, it’s wildly frustrating for us olds.

 

Now this is making a huge generalisation about a large group of people in society, but someone needs to say it. Sorry Generation Z, we love you, but it seems like you don't know how to queue properly. What’s going on?



CHAPTERS:


00:00 Why can’t Gen Z queue properly
03:33 Queue research: Cultural, Social and Psychology studies
05:33 Cultural Differences in Queuing 
08:50 Gen Z Don’t Care About Queue Jumpers
10:11 Is Social Media to Blame?
13:06 The Legendary AFL Queue of 1965
16:16 Why Queue Fitness Has Dropped
20:42 The Art of Queue Jumping
24:18 Generational Differences and Social Norms
25:45 The Magic of the Seventh Son
30:17 What’s Next on The Wholesome Show

 

SOURCES:


A global guide to queuing philosophies, from Wimbledon to São Paulo, Quartz
Generation Z more likely to queue-jump and let others do the same, poll claims
No, Argentina's president did not adopt a Jewish child to stop him turning into a werewolf by Uki Goni in The Guardian
Queue Culture: The Waiting Line as a Social System, by Leon Mann in the American Journal of Sociology
The Psychology of Queuing, in Psychology, by A Furnham, L Treglown, G & Horne, G.
What’s Up Doc? Seventh Sons in Victorian and Edwardian Lancashire, by Simon Young in Folklore
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Humans love their independence. Wars have been fought for it, songs have been written about it, and history is filled with examples of individuals and communities seeking to raise a flag towards more liberating ideals. And some have taken the flag very literally. 

 

Project Minerva was an ambitious endeavour led by Michael Oliver in the 1970s to create a libertarian utopia on the coral reefs of the South Pacific. They got some coral, wrapped it in chicken wire, covered it in cement, and dumped it on the existing coral reefs which lay just a few metres beneath the water line. High above their man-made island, the flag for the Republic of Minerva flew proudly.

 

But do these libertarians think about the impact on indigenous populations? 

 

And would you really want to live in a country (or a planet) that is bankrolled and governed by the wealthy elite? Surely they have their own agenda, and it’s likely not the health and well-being of their citizens…

 


00:00 Shipwrecked on Invisible Reefs
01:27 Michael Oliver Escapes from Nazi Rule
03:28 Constructing a Libertarian Utopia: The Republic of Minerva
05:02 Exploring Libertarian Escapes with Professor Raymond B. Craib
09:09 Post World War II Market Libertarianism
13:27 Sealand: A Libertarian Exit with Longevity
18:15 Ethical Dilemmas of Libertarian Exits
21:42 Grand Schemes of Billionaires: Dreams vs. Reality
22:24 The Labor Dilemma in Utopian Projects
24:52 The Contrast Between Organic and Engineered Libertarian Projects
31:04 Ethical Quandaries of Libertarian Experiments
35:23 Reimagining Power and Governance in Libertarian Exits
42:43 The Cautionary Tale of the Republic of Minerva
45:58 Concluding Thoughts on Libertarian Utopias

 

SOURCES:


A Narrative of the Wreck of the Minerva, by Peter Bays 
Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital  Age, by Raymond Craib
Escape Therapy: On Douglas Rushkoff’s “Survival of the Richest”, by Raymond Craib, in LA  Review of Books 
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When you think of the word ‘cult’, what immediately comes to mind for most of us are things like hooded velvet robes, secretive gatherings and doomsday prophesies. Then there’s the charismatic yet nefarious leader brainwashing followers, maybe a forced orgie or two, a spot of mass suicide. Generally not good stuff.

 

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton outlines three primary characteristics of destructive cults: a charismatic leader, coercive persuasion tactics, and exploitation of members. Well, that pretty much sums up NXIVM and the Order of the Solar Temple.

 

It’s pretty well established that there are a lot of bad cults. But are there any good ones? 

 

CHAPTERS:


00:00 Management cult at Rod’s first job
07:01 Scientology: A Cult or Not?
10:23 10 warning signs of being in a cult
14:14 Order of the Solar Temple 
18:51 NXIVM: Were you a Nazi in a former life?
24:16 Cognitive dissonance and why do people join cults? 
31:23 Female Empowerment in New Religious Movements  
34:55 Ma Anand Sheela and Osho
40:04 Defining Cults: Destructive or Benign
44:17 The Wholesome Verdict on Cults
48:26 What’s next on The Wholesome Show

 

SOURCES:


Benign Cults vs Negative Cults
Rajneesh movement - Wikipedia
How Scientologists Founded the Pancake Parlour
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