Hitler was a failure who achieved the opposite of nearly all of his stated intentions. 

But was he insane as well?  

His life and legacy might argue he was, but what do the experts say?

If he was insane, what was the diagnosis? And if he was not insane, how do you account for his actions?

Was he a meth head, dragon chaser, narcissist, psychopath, schizophrenic, oedipal conflicted anal regressive, or what?  

In this episode we explore the body of literature devoted to explaining the motivations and actions of Adolf Hitler, and ask the question of whether he should be explained at all.

He's one of the most reviled people in Western history -- a man whose cruelty, jealousy, and violence are proverbial. And yet his legacy is much more nuanced, his person more complicated than most of us know.

One thing that is not in question is that he died a miserable death; in pain, angry, and resentful. Was it, as Josephus said, divine justice? Was it foul play?

Spoiler: as bad as it was, it appears to have been neither, and can be easily explained.

I have released my first TouTube video and this is the audio -- see the episode here:

https://youtu.be/uVfn5Ar1rmg?si=e3TE_6tCWEuQxf7h

Schrodinger's Cat Quick and Easy

Yes, this is based on a longer podcast episode -- but hey, you've got to start somwhere!

The OG, greatest generation of Human ever! At least if your metric is a dogged determination to keep existing.

For 2 million years these prehistoric hominins wandered far and wide, high and low, filling every available lakeshore and riverbed.

What can we know about them? Their looks, abilities, traits? Did they use fire? Language? Clothing? Where did they come from and get to?

And why, after such a successful run, did they exit the world stage?

Today on the History of Being Human, the essential guide to all things Erectus.

This week I wander off the topic of Life Extension (more next episode) to take advantage of an opportunity to interview an anthropologist about the White Sands footprints.

Not since the Laetoli Australopithecus prints has a set of human footprints rocked the world of paleontology like those found in White Sands, New Mexico. Studies have dated these prints to 21-23,000 year ago, more than 6000 years older than humans were known to have arrived in the Americas!

Many scientist are convinced the date is accurate; but if it is, it means a reshaping of an entire paradigm.

In this episode I speak with Dr. Edward Jolie about his work, and about those prints.

Dr. Jolie is the Clara Lee Tanner Associate Professor of Anthropology (School of Anthropology) and Associate Curator of Ethnology (Arizona State Museum) at the University of Arizona.

In this wide-ranging discussion we cover:

0: 00 Intro to Dr. Jolie and his work
12:10 Were the Anasazi (Ancestral Pueblo people) cannibals? (Sorry, I couldn't resist the Man Corn debate!)
14:40 The White Sands footprints
16:40 The "Clovis First" paradigm (ie., the "Standard Model" of peopling of Americas
20:50. Why the White Sands prints are potential paradigm changers
28:40 The reliability of oral cultural transmission
30:40 Two objections to the 21-23K year old dating

Thank you to Dr. Jolie for sharing his insights with us. See him here: https://www.nps.gov/media/video/view.htm%3Fid%3DA09EF77D-2A1B-47FD-A9B9-B9F1EC9BD00E



Graphic by Ian Armstrong

It is time to take a trip to that Undiscovered Country and visit our greatest teacher. How long do we live, how long did we live, and why don't we just keep on going?

Never mind that we do the world and our gene pool a great service by only taking up space for a finite time, what are the chances we can extend our time for a while? Indefinitely?

In this episode we cover the underpinnings of the either/or, cause-then-effect, deterministic, distance-separates-things, no-info-travels-faster-than-light, orderly world of classical physics. It is the world inhabited by such luminaries as Newton and Einstein.

Then we descend into the merely probabilistic, action-at-a-distance, neither/both world of Quantum Physics to cover the most bafflng and counter intuituve (nay, SPOOKY in the words of Einstein) phenomenon in nature -- Quantum Entanglement.

If you have not listened to the episode on Schrodinger's Cat (HBH 50) it is recommended you do so first. Superposition is a necessary precursor to this topic also.

For more info:

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/proving-that-quantum-entanglement-is-real#:~:text=The%20Freedman–Clauser%20experiment%20was,2010%20Wolf%20Prize%20in%20physics.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-entanglement-isnt-all-that-spooky-after-all1/

Art by Ian Armstrong

To paraphrase Richard Feynman: If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.

Along the same lines, if you have made sense of Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment, you don't understand it.

But that's not to say it can't be explained. Which is exactly what we do in this episode of the history of being human - present one of the most enduring, and most popularly recognizable, legacies of early quantum theory.

At Long Last - Pilate's Old Question Will Get an Answer!

In this episode, the massive, rapacious king power lizards of the Cretaceous are finally taken off the board by an asteroid. We trace the origins and progress of the skulking night vermin that are unleashed in their absence. These night vermin, with their whiskers and fur and fancy new brains, become the superpowers of the Cenozoic (our current era).

This is the story of the mammals, from a time long before their origin until the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees.

Although this is a re-release of a previous episode, it contains never-before released material about the latest estimates of warm-bloodedness ariiving on the stage.

Illustration by Ian Armstrong

Continuing with the origins of everything that is, I present the history of planet Earth, from its birth to the age of mammals.

Included:

• How old is the earth?
• What are the oldest rocks ever found?
• How old is life itself?
• When did multicellular organisms arise?
• When did life leave the sea for land?
• What percentage of species has survived until the current time?
• What were the 5 biggest mass extrinction events in history?

And much more...information that sounds, admittedly, tedious, but only because it is. But! Can you truly know about yourself without knowing about the universe, solar system, and planet that are a part of you?