The Rationally Ambiguous Podcast: Recent Episodes
Adrian & Houston
Welcome to the Rationally Ambiguous Podcast. Twice a month, hosts Houston and Adrian get together to talk, chat, and argue their latest question. Listen in for a laugh, a tear, and even the occasional serious note.
In the second part of their "media that shaped us" series, Houston and Adrian talk about anime.
Houston and Adrian discuss movies and books that have defined parts of their lives and have helped them understand the world.
Houston and Adrian relay their issues post-time change and discuss their realizations regarding the routines that organize their days.
We've done a fair bit of travel lately. It's about time we talked about travel. The best ways to travel, what about travel is so alluring, the feel of different cities, and what's best about our hometown.
Buying a house is one of the big steps towards adulthood. But should you buy one?
This week Houston and Adrian talk about housing. Why and when to buy a house.
"Everyone is three months away from being homeless"- Houston
This week, the hosts talk crises: what they are, when they happen, and tips on dealing with them.
Every year thousands of people fail their new year's resolutions. Why do those fail?
This week, Houston and Adrian dive into making foolproof plans and the pitfalls we often fall into
Do your stories fall flat? Why do certain people hold others' attention more than others?
This week, the hosts talk stories: How to use them in conversation and what not to do.
What keeps us interested in the things we do? Are we similar in why we do things or are there distinct differences in our behaviors and motivations?
This week, the hosts explore why we do the things we do.
It seems like, every day, people are looking for a new get rich quick scheme. But is that the best way to get wealth? Could there possibly be hidden benefits to building wealth gradually? And more, could there be hidden dangers to getting rich too quickly?
This week, hosts Houston and Adrian ask, "Who wants to be a millionaire... in 30 years?"
Every once in a while something happens that lets us know we've gotten more mature. It's about time we celebrated those for the glorious crispy niblets of flavor they bring to our lives.
Houston is nearly debt-free! What does the world look like to someone who is nearly debt-free?
Is school just a waste of time or are we doing it wrong? Would anyone know we launched a rocket to the moon if we didn't have computers anymore? Do we actually school? Why do we hate high school so much?
Topics include:
Arranged marriage vs Free Choice marriage
The family you marry into is just as important as the person you marry
Putting your best foot forward in dating creates more problems than it solves. #keepitreal
Being down is a part of life. Depression is becoming increasingly common. How do we keep moving when all we want to do is curl up into a ball?
This week hosts Houston and Adrian tackle depression, feeling down, and ways to work through it all.
Video games, and those that play them, are quickly becoming mainstream. Online gaming is the wild west: where heroes are born and legends are made. But is it really for the best? Is online gaming a toxic wasteland that corrupts and infects all it touches?
This week Houston and Adrian dive into gaming and what it's doing to us.
Q: How do we figure out what we want to do and who we want to be?
A: We watch others and imitate
Q: What happens when you want something but you don't have an example to copy?
This week hosts Houston and Adrian address the issue of striking out on and forging your own path.
The Dark Knight is a movie that has defined the millennial generation. What was it about and what has come from it? Was it a movie that's all it has been vaunted to be? This week the hosts dive into the movie and its themes, analyzing it in the context of our current culture.
The world is a dangerous place. How can you keep yourself safe? This fortnight, the hosts dive into their relationship with their personal safety, the news, and relate the main ways they've seen safety preserved
"Men don't show emotions"
Really? That's news to us. Increases in violence, depression, and addiction/obsession in men point to an increase in our inability as men to manage our emotions. What is a man to do to fight back against his rage and stress?
This week Houston and Adrian discuss Anger Management
What goes on in the mind of a kid who has all of his prom invitations rejected? What happens if it continues? Trouble, that's what.
The hosts finish up a series on relationships by talking about incels, an internet subculture of men who have had no luck with women and are quite bitter about it, relating it to their previous sections on marriage & manliness in the 21st century.
Looking for Ms. Right, great! What is your plan to get her?
....
This fortnight, the hosts try to find the blueprints to finding (and getting) the right girl.
Q: In a world where bitter divorces, single moms, and feminism are all the rage, how are men to respond?
A: The way men have always responded: with War!!!
This fortnight, hosts Houston and Adrian dive into one of America's fastest-growing subcultures, Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW).
How is it that people can hate school but memorize the stats from their favorite ballclub? Why is the thing that's supposed to make you a learner the place where people learn the least?
In this episode, Houston and Adrian dig into the U.S Education system: its origins, why it was made, and why it is failing.
Is there ever a good excuse for me to take money from one person and give it to another person? We say no. What if a government does it? Hmm... Maybe? It gets more complicated.
Tune in to listen to Houston and Adrian try to work through this conundrum.
Do we believe anarchy is the best policy? Hmmm... that might depend on how you define it. Tune in for one of our more passionate 'discussions,' read arguments, on this week's podcast
In this episode, Houston and Adrian take on the topic of gaming. Why do toddlers play games? Why do we continue gaming as we age? Is it possible to uncover the substructures of the human mind just by analyzing why humans game?
...
That's a tall task to accomplish in an hour, but they'll certainly give it their best shot.
Can someone be smart without being crazy? Do we not notice smarts in others unless they are crazy? Are smarts and crazy? Join us on this fortnight's episode when Houston and Adrian dive off the deep end while diagnosing the mind of smart people all over the world.
Houston is a reformed man money-wise, but his spender's money mindset is a galaxy far far away from Adrian's saver brain. What does that difference look like and what are the thought processes and experiences driving their behavior? Listen in to find out
We find chess fascinating. Originally for royalty, the game is now played everywhere. It can even be found on Twitch. It's tons of fun, but only geniuses are good at it... Right? Houston and Adrian dive in and then meander around that exact question, "Does being good at chess make you a genius?"
Enjoy this mini-conversation that had to be cut from one of our episodes. Houston and Adrian dive deep into movies and attempt to guess what they mean.
Usually, Japanese anime have fantastical stories that are far removed from our daily lives. However, every once in a while, an anime appears that strikes home, allowing us to process life's big questions unknowingly while entertaining us. One-Punch Man is one of those animes
Today on the pod, Houston and Adrian tackle season 1 of One Punch Man, the hit anime. They discuss a range of topics, but keep circling back to the question, "What if One-Punch Man is an allegory about dealing with reality?"
Solo hosted by Adrian. He takes a moment to give a quick update on the state of the podcast, state how grateful he is that you stroke their egos. . . I mean. . give your support, and announces some exciting new developments in their world.
Someone once said, "If social status was meaningless, we wouldn't have a bunch of movies about it."
On this podcast, the two hosts dive into the subject to suss out what status really is, what it costs, and whether the cost is worth the effort.
This week on the pod, Houston and I invite the better angels of our nature forth to speak on authority. The two of us are quite free-spirited and chafe at the thought, but we decided to take a more positive view on the question "What is 'authority' and why do we need it?"
The two hosts discuss how to communicate. They go through their experiences, failures, and common pitfalls they find out in society
This week the hosts start with the question, "Why is it so hard to meet new friends as you get older?" From there they launch into a discussion on friendship: how to find friends, what a friend is, and how to be a better friend.
The hosts discuss The Social Dilemma, a new Netflix documentary on the ills of the social media industry. The documentary highlights the negative effects social media has on our society and the increasing amount of power it gives the companies who control the apps.
The hosts dive into the subject of money. While there they address their flawed views of money and ask questions like, "Why is talking about money a taboo subject?" and "What are proper ways to view and handle money?"
The hosts explore the concept of work. Along the way, they explore questions like, "What is work?" "What is the purpose of work?" and "Is there such a thing as working too much or too little?"
The hosts discuss what we often mean when referring to something as a "job" or a "career." They attempt to explore what type of people are best suited for careers, why jobs have such a bad reputation, what skills and work ethic are needed in order to have a career, and whether the future bodes well for careers in general.
P.S If you listen closely, you might just hear the world's happiest dog giving you a special ASMR experience
The hosts finish off their discussion on manly skills this week. They dive into the topic of self-defense. Why do they choose self-defense? What does self-defense mean to them? What steps need to be taken in order to practice self-defense? The host discuss these questions and more this week
Houston and Adrian attempt to discuss the benefits of doing hard things. Whether they actually do is up for debate.
This week, the hosts revisit the question, "If you could go back in time and eliminate one person from history to make the world a more interesting place, not Hitler, who would you take out?"
Houston and Adrian answer the question, "If you could eliminate one historical figure as a child, Hitler not included, who would you pick?"
What makes a good movie? Who knows. All we know is that we like some movies and people didn't like them.