#cultural-bias
44 episodes
#2736: Why AI Flagged Your Em Dash
Punctuation isn't a fixed system handed down by grammarians. It's a two-thousand-year story of contraction, invention, and now AI suspicion.
#2735: What Talmud Study Actually Trains Your Mind To Do
Why the Talmud preserves arguments you’ll never follow — and what that reveals about learning itself.
#2661: Half a Million Nuns Vanished: Who's Left?
Catholic monastic life collapsed in the West but is growing fast in Africa and Asia. Here's the surprising global picture.
#2658: Off-Broadway vs Broadway: Seat Counts & Show Economics
Off-Broadway isn't just smaller Broadway—it's a different legal, economic, and artistic universe defined by seat counts.
#2629: Frankincense to Attar: Ancient Perfume Oils Today
How a frankincense obsession led to discovering perfume oils — a 4,000-year-old tradition that's being rediscovered today.
#2581: Did Ancient Jews Have Leisure?
Did ancient Jews ever relax, or was every moment supposed to be Torah study? The surprising history of leisure in Jewish tradition.
#2580: Bench Beer, Spotlight Effect, and Open Container Laws
Why do open container laws exist, and do they actually reduce antisocial behavior?
#2561: What BMI Actually Tells You (And What It Hides)
BMI is useful but flawed. Here's when to trust it, when to ignore it, and what to measure instead.
#2560: Can You Actually Measure Happiness?
What does "happiness" really mean — and can you scientifically measure it? A deep dive into the data, flaws, and surprises.
#2557: Fake It at Dinner Parties: Philosophy Cheat Codes
Eight key terms and three insider nuggets to survive any philosophy conversation without actually doing the reading.
#2539: Can 400 Photos Rebuild a City or Just Its Vibe?
What happens when you feed hundreds of photos into an AI world generator — do you capture reality or just a convincing dream?
#2531: Worst-Rated Tourism: Seeking Out Terrible Hotels & Restaurants
Exploring the subculture of travelers who deliberately seek out the lowest-rated hotels and restaurants for authentic, entertaining experiences.
#2424: What Feminists Actually Mean by "The Patriarchy
Unpacking the structural concept, the popular shorthand, and where the line gets blurry between critiquing systems and demonizing individuals.
#2411: Are Political Bias Benchmarks Actually Measuring Anything?
Why the Political Compass Test fails, and what researchers are building instead to actually measure model bias.
#2410: How Researchers Actually Measure Censorship in Chinese LLMs
Beyond headlines: the actual benchmarks, methodologies, and pitfalls in detecting political refusal in Chinese language models.
#2409: How AI Benchmarks Measure Cultural Bias
Five benchmarks that reveal how AI systems fail at cultural knowledge — and what their methodologies tell us.
#2318: From Berries to Brew: The Unexpected Journey of Coffee
How did a wild berry transform into the world’s favorite beverage? Dive into coffee’s fascinating evolution from food to ritual to global phenomenon.
#2306: Can LLM Councils Truly Capture Diverse Worldviews?
Exploring whether LLM councils can achieve genuine worldview diversity or if alignment processes erase meaningful differences.
#2291: How K-Dramas Conquered Global Streaming
Discover how K-dramas went from niche viewing to 15% of global streaming hours—and which audiences are driving their explosive growth.
#2266: Hunter-Gatherers with Smartphones
The last hunter-gatherers aren't living in the Stone Age. They're using GPS and phones to coordinate hunts while fiercely protecting their ancient ...
#2265: Parenting's Cultural Operating Systems
Why does "good parenting" look so different around the world? We explore how culture, history, and resources create distinct "operating systems" fo...
#2262: Documentaries About Parking Lots and Drying Paint
A tour of the most baffling documentaries ever made, from a 10-hour film of paint drying to a feature-length portrait of a single parking lot.
#2260: The Papier-Mâché Crab and the Cult Film
How did a bizarre, technically disastrous 1972 Israeli film flop, vanish, and then become a beloved midnight movie phenomenon? We dissect the legen...
#2258: How Maya, Inuit, and Hadza Parents Sleep at Night
How do Maya, Inuit, and Hadza cultures handle infant night wakings? The answer isn't a single trick, but a complete "sleep ecology" that redefines ...
#2092: Why AI Thinks You're American (Even When You're Not)
Even when we tell Gemini we're in Jerusalem, it defaults to US-centric assumptions. We explore the root causes of this persistent AI bias.
#2090: Who Decides What Generation You Are?
We trace the history of generational labels from the Lost Generation to Gen Alpha, exploring who invents these names and why.
#1980: Why Ancient History Is So Violent: The "Juicy Bits" Bias
We think the ancient world was a non-stop slasher flick, but is that because the boring, peaceful parts just didn’t survive?
#1950: The Maya Secret to Calm, Helpful Kids
Discover how a 3,000-year-old Maya village upbringing can replace modern parenting stress with calm, cooperative kids.
#1917: Herman's Music Hour Vol. 2: Seder Remixes for Passover 5786
Herman presents AI-generated covers of classic Passover Seder songs, produced in Suno — the second installment of Herman's Music Hour.
#1825: A Slow-Motion Liberation for Passover 2026
Why does this Passover feel so heavy? We explore the seder as a "metabolic discipline" for a world at war.
#1757: The Art of the Never-Ending Story
From Reacher's elbow to SVU's 42-minute blocks, we explore why great series become content factories.
#1756: The Ferrari in the Mud: Prestige Flops
We count down the five worst serious movies of the last five years, starting with a sci-fi disaster that wasted $80 million.
#1515: Is Your Algorithm Training You to Be Violent?
Exploring the widening gap between our enlightened public values and the increasingly violent, stereotypical world of private digital consumption.
#1352: Beyond the Sneer: The Resilience of Modern Conservatism
Explore the shift from political debate to moral exclusion and the rising counter-cultural resilience of modern conservative identity.
#1298: The Wikipedia Wars: Who Controls the Digital Truth?
Is Wikipedia still a neutral gold standard, or has it become a battlefield for ideologues? We dive into the systemic collapse of digital truth.
#1052: Coding the Cosmos: The Hebrew Calendar vs. Unix Epoch
Discover why the Unix Epoch fails when it meets the Hebrew calendar and how developers solve the "Sunset Problem" in modern software.
#998: The Evolution of Woke: From Survival to Slur
Trace the journey of "woke" from its AAVE roots to a global political shorthand and learn why its meaning is so contested today.
#750: The Architecture of the Other: Why We Divide
Explore the ancient roots of human prejudice, from Sumerian steles to the digital echo chambers of the modern "global village."
#666: Why It Costs More to Talk to AI in Your Native Tongue
Is AI truly universal, or are we trapped in an English-speaking bubble? Discover how the "tokenization tax" impacts global AI equity.
#664: AI’s Cultural Fingerprints: Training Data vs. Reinforcement
Is AI a neutral oracle or a mirror of our biases? Explore how training data and human feedback shape the cultural "soul" of modern models.
#574: The Outlook Shift: 5 Destinations to Change Your Life
Forget vacations. Herman and Corn explore five destinations where a month-long stay will fundamentally shift your perspective on how to live.
#525: Faith or Delusion? Navigating the Clinical Divide
How do doctors distinguish deep faith from mental illness? Explore the line between magical thinking and clinical psychosis in Jerusalem.
#72: AI's Hidden Cultural Code: East vs. West
Do AIs think differently East vs. West? Uncover the hidden cultural code embedded in large language models.
#21: Is Your AI Secretly American?
Ever wonder if your AI is secretly American? We're unpacking the invisible, US-centric worldview embedded in leading Western AI models.