Stay ConnectedHistory, anatomy and physiology, philosophy, psychology, anthropology. The podcast that attempts to resurrect sense and meaning from the dust of a billion factoids.
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Copyright: © Noel Armstrong 2018
In which we begin our "Adapt or Die" Series. The Byzantine empire was under attack, and tens of thousands of people in Constantinople were dying every week. It wasn't the Vandals or the Ostragoths, it was a disease that brought terror and death on a massive scale. Even the Great Justinian himself is not spared from the illness. Corpse halls, ghost ships, headless sailors, plague-ridden serpents, fever dreams and apocalyptic visions, and the wrath of God. We begin the episode with an intro to our complex relationship to one of the most ancient of all life forms. If you want to skip all bacteria stuff, The Plague of Justinian begins at 14:30
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The conclusion to the worst people ever series winds up falling to Godwin's Law. This is one of those rare cases where cliche, popular opinion, and received knowledge happen to be absolutely right: Hitler was as bad as human beings get. Aggressor and instigator of world's most deadly war. Instigator of thuggery and riots. Murderer of former friends. Head of the coldest, most clinical and industrial, act of mass murder in history. Prancing ranting provocateur. Mama's boy.
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The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 and The Holocaust What do these events have in common? They were both seminal events that challenged two different eras relationship to, and understanding of, evil. Today I speak with Dr. Susan Neiman, director of The Einstein Forum, devotee of the enlightenment, moral crusader (well, sort of?), and author of "Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy." Link: https://www.amazon.com/Evil-Modern-Thought-Alternative-Philosophy/dp/0691168504 We speak about the way evil shapes human actions and understanding of the world. Pre-order her new book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/learning-from-the-germans-susan-neiman/1129556836?ean=9780374184469 Image: Oz by Ian Armstrong
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The Real Life Big Brother that brought fear, suspicion, and distrust to the lives of 200 million people. A man who believed you should kill your enemies, but kill your friends first. He demanded suppression, repression, execution, deportation, and propaganda on an empiric scale. A man so vain that showing a picture of him with his blemishes could put you on his list of enemies. He sent squads to ice-axe murder a rival. His final activity as leader was to plan another glorious show-trial terror campaign against, get ready for it, Jewish doctors. This one couldn't die soon enough.
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The first English settlement in the New World was *ahem* less than successful. You've seen the Disney version. Now hear the real story, which is so much better. Greed, incompetence, flayings, drownings, salted wife, thumb screws and executions, boiled saddles, cracked skulls, gunpowder burns, shipwrecks and mutiny, rats and cats and serpents, and many other "things which seame incredible." High drama, now recovered in the long lost kickoff to the cannibalism series. Graphic: Oz by Ian Armstrong
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A man in whom there is much to admire. Except for his pioneering studies in mass genocide, I guess. And all the gratuitous violence, of course. And the fact that he killed and displaced so many humans that the earth's climate changed. How many, you ask? I'll see you Iron Man's 5% and raise you 5% more. Enough to make him the most prolific killer of humans the world has ever seen. Why not number 1 all time worst, you ask? It's because we have to make allowance for the fact that, after all, these people did make him angry.
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Can science tell us right from wrong? Can it serve as a foundation for morality? Sam Harris believes it can. David Hume said it can’t almost 300 years ago Note!!! This is a break from "The Worst People Ever" Series. Sam Harris is not, to my knowledge, anywhere close to one of the worst people in history. Instead, his ideas on morality, such as they are, are critiqued.
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Dissolute, drunken, perverted and depraved. A man who went on "violence binges" every time he got wasted, which was all the time; and whose actions were considered beyond the pale by almost all other Nazis. Meet the 4th Worst Homo sapiens sapiens of all time, a man you might not have ever heard of, but who you will now find hard to forget. Although I do not catalog his atrocities in explicit detail (there are plenty of places you can find that) the subject matter is mature. And revolting. Cover Art: Oz by Ian Armstrong
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This festering bubo in the armpit of humanity was the "medical director" of the infamous Japanese Unit 731. In pursuit of the deadliest possible biological warfare agent, and with a hearty dose of sheer sadistic curiosity, he performed his experiments in the spirit of true egalitarianism: on prisoners of war; on Chinese, Soviet, Indian, British and American troops; on civilians in the surrounding countryside. On anyone he could get his hands on. Caveat Auditor: This man's deeds are so odious that it's painful to research them and difficult to hear them. Not kidding. Cover Art: Oz by Ian Armstrong
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Meet the one-man plague, the skull-stacker, the maker of incendiary camels, a man whose coffin curse is worse than any mummy because it actually panned out. In the annals of history, there have been very few people who accomplished what this man did. Too bad this genius was also an all-around dismal excuse for a human being.
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