20. The Non-Monogamy Episode: 50 Ways to Stay with Your Lover

Explicit content warning

11/06/19 • 60 min

Not only do you get to stay with your lover, you also get to have sex and romantic relationships with other people! Including your ex! In the last episode of this season, we talk about how restrictive the classic script on romance is and why we think breaking down those rigid barriers actually can create an even more stable and communicative relationship. In short, there's no one way your relationship has to be for it to be valid and healthy.

This episode has been a long time coming because it's the main way in which both co-hosts really go against the societal grain in true villain fashion. Even among millennials, rates of non-monogamy are below 10%, despite the fact that we are the most open to non-monogamy than any previous generation in American history. Overall, about 1 in 5 people report having been in a non-monogamous relationships at some point in their lives based on the US Census. So tune in if you want to hear how the other fifth lives!

Links:

Alain de Boton's video "On Romanticism": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOuIyEJnbE&t=2s

Bell Hooks' book "All About Love": https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060959470/all-about-love/

PDF Version of "All About Love": https://www.docdroid.net/goTB7E8/124493278-bell-hooks-all-about-love.pdf

A very cute, very long Wait But Why illustrated explainer on the issues with the traditional marriage script: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage-decision.html

Study showing rates of non-monogamy and openness to non-monogamy by generation: https://ifstudies.org/blog/national-survey-reveals-generational-differences-in-consensual-nonmonogamy-

1 in 5 people have been in non-monogamous relationships: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-polyamorists-next-door/201905/updated-estimate-number-non-monogamous-people-in-us

The song this episode title is referencing (50 Ways to Leave Your Lover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXtWqmArUU

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

Links:

Alain de Boton's video "On Romanticism": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPOuIyEJnbE&t=2s

Bell Hooks' book "All About Love": https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060959470/all-about-love/

PDF Version of "All About Love": https://www.docdroid.net/goTB7E8/124493278-bell-hooks-all-about-love.pdf

A very cute, very long Wait But Why illustrated explainer on the issues with the traditional marriage script: https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/09/marriage-decision.html

Study showing rates of non-monogamy and openness to non-monogamy by generation: https://ifstudies.org/blog/national-survey-reveals-generational-differences-in-consensual-nonmonogamy-

1 in 5 people have been in non-monogamous relationships: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-polyamorists-next-door/201905/updated-estimate-number-non-monogamous-people-in-us

The song this episode title is referencing (50 Ways to Leave Your Lover): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABXtWqmArUU

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

Previous Episode

19. The Science Episode: P-Hacking, the Banality of Replication Studies, and other Perverse Incentives in the Scientific Community

If you are a scientist, you know that the frenzy for funding can be fierce, which is why, as with any system where people are competing for a pool of money, there can be perverse incentives to fudge the numbers, or select your variables to give you the most significant result. This practice, known as "p-hacking," is rampant, as argued by a mathematician known as Jordan Ellenberg, whose book Deondre' read recently, and whose talk on the subject is linked below. (There's a great explanatory interactive that explains p-hacking made by 538 linked below as well.)

In this episode, we talk with Tayeb Zaidi, a biomedical physicist at the FDA, about the various way in which science isn't always the well oiled machine of truth that some people think it is. Replication studies, which are the mechanism of 'checking' other scientist's work by doing the same experiment again to see if you got the same results, aren't sexy, especially when scientists usually got into the field to discover new things in the first place, and it's hard to build a reputation for yourself as a scientist by re-doing other people's work. On top of that, they often aren't well-funded, because funding organizations would also like to spend time and money discovering new things over replicating other studies.

Links:

The 538 Guide to P-Hacking: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

How Not to Be Wrong Book: https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Wrong-Mathematical/dp/0143127535
Debunking the power pose study: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170911095932.htm
xkcd comic around jelly beans and p-values: https://xkcd.com/882/
Birth control drug trials: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/05/09/guinea-pigs-or-pioneers-how-puerto-rican-women-were-used-to-test-the-birth-control-pill/

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

Next Episode

21. The Politics Episode: Hate Doesn't Have a Political Affiliation

This season is about to get political.

We hadn't planned it this way: it just sort of happened. Almost all the guests we invited this season wanted to talk about socialism, local politics, call-out culture, etc.

So with the media inundating us with political headlines for the next 11 months, we figured it was a good time to record an episode on our political stances as a backdrop for this season. Being generally liberal (though less liberal than some of the guests you'll see this season), we talk about why Trump won in 2016, what we think Democrats and society at large needs to do to stop the "pendulum" that has been pushing us farther and farther to the political poles, and how the increasingly public nature of our lives raises the stakes for both politicians and average people to tiptoe around sensitive issues without being able to say what they really mean.

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.