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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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The teen years can be tough. Let’s be real, it was an awkward time for the best of us. During those tender years, we all did our best to navigate the tumultuous world between childhood and adulthood amidst raging hormones, love triangles and knife fights... the usual teenage stuff.

 

Ok, perhaps not every teenager gets in a knife fight, but this particular case has all the drama you would expect to find in a daytime soap opera.

 

The story involves a 15-year-old girl who was employed in a local bar (well that’s the first red flag right there). She was admitted to hospital after a knife fight outside the bar involving her former lover and a new boyfriend. Exactly who stabbed who was not quite clear, but all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries.

 

Precisely 278 days later… The girl was admitted to hospital once again. This time with acute intermittent abdominal pain. Upon examination, the doctors found something very surprising indeed... A fully grown baby. 

 

But she couldn’t possibly be pregnant… she didn’t have a vagina!!



CHAPTERS:


00:00 Knife fight admits teenagers to hospital
01:50 Mysterious abdominal pain
02:14 Pregnancy without a vagina
03:35 Medical investigations: How did this happen?
05:55 Lessons from oral pregnancy



PREVIOUS EPISODES MENTIONED:


So did you get a root? Tales, definitions and loopholes for defining sex

 

SOURCES:


Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic  distal vagina. Case report, by Douwe A A Verkuyl, in BJOG
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What’s the deal with redheads? It sounds like the beginning of a Seinfeld bit but in all fairness (pun intended), for a group of people who make up only 2% of the population, our flame-haired ginger guys and gals have attracted much attention throughout history. Some of that attention is due to the obvious: redheads are babes.

 

But the fascination with redheads over the centuries hasn’t all been positive. They’ve also received far more hostile attention like being labelled barbarians by the ancient Greeks and Romans. In Ancient Egypt, redheaded men were burnt as human sacrifices at the grave of Osiris (god of the deceased) and their ashes were scattered to the four winds in the name of a bountiful harvest; red hair symbolised the golden wealth of the corn after all, so… makes sense.

 

In medieval times, people with green eyes and red hair were considered either witches, werewolves or vampires. There were even alchemical recipes requiring the blood of a redhead to turn copper into gold. Just mix the blood up with the ashes of a basilisk, easy as pie. 

 

Scientific or not, redheads do seem to carry the reputation of having a somewhat spicy temperament and the people from Charles University in Prague wanted to know if this translated into the bedroom… The science says yes but not in the way you think!



CHAPTERS:


00:00 Why do redheads fascinate us?
03:42 Barbarians and human sacrificing
05:40 Alchemical recipe with the blood of a redhead
07:30 19th century study: Most criminals were redheads
09:31 Ayurvedic medicine and genetics
13:42 Opiate response, Vitamin D and adrenaline 
17:48 Redheads smell like ambergris
19:12 Pain studies: Stabbing and electric currents
21:50 Sexism in redhead stereotypes
24:21 Study on Redheads and Sexuality 
27:08 What’s next on The Wholesome Show

 

PREVIOUS EPISODES MENTIONED:


What The Hell Happened To The Left-Handers?

 

SOURCES:


Myths about red hair are rooted in fear of difference | Aeon Ideas
The Truth About Redheads


Ginger hair: 13 fascinating facts about redheads


World Redhead Day: 16 fun facts about red hair - Indianapolis


Redheaded women are more sexually active than other women, but it is probably due to their suitors


Science Confirms Redheads Are Equipped With Some Weird Genetic Superpowers - GQ Australia


Red hair - Wikipedia

 
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When you think about the Cold War, you immediately think about whale songs right? Okay, maybe not everyone makes that connection, but in a delightfully random way, the political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s had a lot to do with the discovery of the beautiful whale song, and ultimately, the collapse of the commercial whaling industry altogether. 

 

Back in the 1950s, the United States had gone gangbusters with submarines. Travelling under the Arctic Ocean, they were set on going the longest, the deepest, the hardest. But they were worried about other countries doing it too… particularly the Soviets.  

 

They knew they couldn’t stop them, but they at least wanted to know where the Red subs were. That’s when Frank Watlington was tasked by the US Navy to develop hydrophones (microphones they could stick in the ocean) to listen for submarine sounds. 

 

So Watlington set off to Bermuda and got to work. One day he dropped his hydrophone 1,500 feet into the ocean and heard strange, eerie sounds coming from the deep. For the Navy, these sounds were just annoying distractions from detecting submarine activity but for Watlington, well, they were captivating. Ditching his original task of detecting Soviet submarines, Watlington became obsessed with the ethereal sounds he had recorded and he played them to anyone who would listen...



CHAPTERS:


00:00 Everyone knows the whale song
02:08 A dog’s breakfast: 20th century whaling
03:32 The Cold War and the end of whaling
05:21 Frank Watlington and hydrophones
07:22 Roger Payne: From science to viral sensation
10:35 Patterns and rhythm in the whale song 
12:19 Humpback Whale record goes viral
14:58 Rock stars, Greenpeace and whaling ban
16:49 What next on The Wholesome Show

 

SOURCES:


Francis W. Watlington; Recorded Whale Songs, NY Times  
'It always hits me hard': how a haunting album helped save the whales, The Guardian  
It Took A Musician's Ear To Decode The Complex Song In Whale Calls, NPR  
Listening to Whales by Douglas Allchin in The American Biology Teacher  
Number of whales killed, World, Our World In Data  
Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic  distal vagina. Case report, by Douwe A A Verkuyl, in BJOG 
Whale song: A grandfather's legacy, CBS News  
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.