Recommendation: The Cracked Podcast

If you like your assumptions about life to be regularly upended, you could do a lot worse than to listen to the Cracked Podcast. Many of its episodes explore things we accept as the-way-things-are-and-must-always-be that are actually social constructs, marketing strategies, or byproducts of some of the weird ways our brains work. I listened to the latest show today, Culture-Specific Things We Do That We Assume are Universal, which is self-explanatory, but besides shining light on our biases, it explores some mind-bending truths about human psychology.

If you're a science fiction or fact fan like I am, you're probably already familiar with swarm intelligence. If not, check out their episode Why We Can Improve Humanity With the Power of Bees, in which they discuss how a group of horse racing experts were able to use software that briefly turned them into a tiny hivemind which accurately predicted the superfecta at the Kentucky Derby (that's first, second, third, and fourth place, in order!).

And the social crusaders among you absolutely must listen to episode 94, Important Chunks of American History That Got Erased, about groups of people getting crushed by the system whom you very well may have never heard of.

There's much more over there that will expand your mind, but I'm going to bed. Go there and check it out!