Released: January 20. 2016

What do we see when we zoom out? Daniel gets at various long views – universal, historic, and personal, and once again dodges despair.

 

intro

Theme includes sample of Run For You by Buke & Gase. Check them out! Intro background music is a song by Múm.

cosmic thing

Michelle Thaller, NASA scientist and narrator of the beautiful and mind-blowing We Are Dead Stars, tells how the universe started and how it will end.  Dan, upset to learn the universe might not be eternal, goes to astrophysicist and author Sean Carrol for a little hope.

a window on all time

A lovely passage from Look Homeward Angel, by Thomas Wolfe, read by Dan.

history

Dan Carlin, host of the Hardcore History and Common Sense podcasts talks about the challenges and allure of going back in time.  Includes a reading of The Flitcraft Parable, from The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett.

data points

How do we get at the big picture when we can only see a tiny part of it?

always bet on black

Dan and Passenger 57 go to the casino.

the long game

Poker champ and author Annie Duke talks odds and how to make better decisions in life.

morning guy

Hal Hershfield, Marketing Prof at UCLA, explains how our brains consider our future selves separate people and ways we might bridge that divide.

WOOP

Gabriele Oettingen, Professor of Psychology at NYU and author of Rethinking Positive Thinking, explains how being positive can make things worse.  For more details on her science-based self-help techniques, go to woopmylife.org.

life is short

Dan breaks it down.

turn out the light!

Comedian Jimmy Dore relays a correspondence with a disgruntled audience member.

1%

Dan talks bad apples.

nihilism, take 2

Again? Dan seeks help with his dark thoughts from Annie, Sean, and Michelle.

lucky

The long view can make us feel small, but it should also make us feel very, very lucky.

thanks

Production assistance from Bryan Lotz and Alex Rubinstein. Thanks to Girlie Salgueiro for totally revamping this site.  Congrats to Tannaz Sassooni and David Worth for winning the song suggestion contest this episode!

discuss!

Join the conversation! Post on our Facebook page or email the show directly.

 

Written, performed, and edited by Daniel Kaufman. (Except where noted.)

 

creative commons songs

I Am Running Down the Long Hallway of Viewmont Elementary by Chris Zabriskie (Intro/Data Points)

Cosmic Tingles by Lee Rosevere (Cosmic Thing)

Backed Vibes Clean by Kevin MacLeod (The Flitcraft Parable)

Time and Distance by Telafonica (Nihilism, Take 2 intro)

The Temperature of the Air on the Bow of the Kaleetan by Chris Zabriskie (Lucky)

 

Photograph: (from Wikipedia:) The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image shows some of the most remote galaxies visible with present technology, each consisting of billions of stars. The image’s area of sky is very small – equivalent in size to one tenth of a full moon.[1]

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