This week, Dan and Michael investigate suburban car psychosis and the anthropology of asphalt.

Why do normal people turn feral over parking spaces?
What makes ride-sharing feel both convenient and morally icky?
And how exactly did Elon Musk turn the Hyperloop into the most expensive metaphor for magical thinking?

Plus, Michael explains why gifts are actually acts of aggression, Dan redesigns public drinking laws, and both agree that walking remains America’s most banned activity.

📍Topics include:
– The anthropology of parking rage
– Ride-sharing and privatized public goods
– Elon Musk as modern taboo
– Gift-giving as social warfare
– Beer gardens and failed freedom

🎙️ People Stuff — where anthropologists answer your dumb, beautiful, deeply human questions.

In this episode of People Stuff, Dan and Michael discuss and/or are informed by:

“The Speed of Human Thought Lags Far Behind Your Internet Connection, Study Finds” in the NYTimes by Carl Zimmer https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/science/speed-of-thought.html

The Gift by Marcel Mauss

Taboo by Franz Steiner

That’s it for this week’s People Stuff — the show where two anthropologists try (and sometimes fail) to make sense of people.

If you’ve got a question, a dilemma, or just something deeply weird about humanity you’d like us to unpack, send it our way at people-stuff.com

Credits

Produced by Gabe Bullard
Music by The Endless Bummer
Art by Siobhan Henegan
Marketing by Bryan Haut
Legal support by The Law Office of Matthew Shayefar, the one true business uncle.

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So go to people-stuff.com