Crazy Town

Chillin’ and Killin’: How Air Conditioning Has Altered Human Behavior and the Environment (Episode 60 of Crazy Town)

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For such tame technology, air conditioning really packs a punch when it comes to enabling environmental obscenities, indefensible infrastructure, and shortsighted settlement patterns.

Throwing Superman through a Cigarette Truck: The Insidious Manipulation of Advertising (Episode 59 of Crazy Town)

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Take a tour through the history of advertising, and explore the escalation of mind games and marketing mania that has fueled consumerism and the capitalist conflagration, leaving us on the brink of a climate meltdown. B

Hippos in the Bayou: Human Hubris and the Ecological Mayhem of Introduced Species (Episode 57 of Crazy Town)

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What kind of thinking leads to the unleashing of exotic species on unsuspecting ecosystems? Hint: it’s certainly not systems thinking or critical thinking – in fact, thinking may not be involved at all!

The Stopwatch of Doom: How the Cult of Productivity Torpedoes Sustainability and Equity (Episode 56 of Crazy Town)

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Welcome to the dehumanizing world of scientific management, where business gurus and middle managers view workers as resources, and where a cult-like devotion to productivity has invaded almost all facets of daily life.

It’s the End of the World’s Fair as We Know It: Why Technology Won’t Save Us (Episode 55 of Crazy Town)

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Explore the diminishing marginal returns of both World’s Fairs and technology in general, and consider what’s next as dreams of a high-tech utopia go the way of the animatronic dinosaurs.

The Bright Side Through Rose-Tinted Glasses: How Positive Thinking Undermines Sustainability (Episode 53 of Crazy Town)

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Welcome to the seductive, but regrettable world of unquestioned positive thinking, where faith healers, BS slingers, pseudoscientists, and get-rich-quick schemers all peddle the same basic message: think positively, and it’ll all work out.

Lord of the Swans: The Tragedy of the Enclosure of the Commons (Episode 52 of Crazy Town}

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The “tragedy of the commons” is an idea that has so thoroughly seeped into culture and law that it seems normal for people and corporations to own land, water, and even whole ecosystems. But there’s a BIG problem: the “tragedy” part of it has been debunked – it really should be the triumph of the commons.

A Load of Papal Bull: Greenlighting Colonization and the Mindset of Extraction (Episode 51 of Crazy Town)

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As seafaring colonizers divvied up the world and justified their actions using the Doctrine of Discovery, the era of land-grabbing imperialism led to outrageous exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecosystems.