Smart Cookies Podcast

Smart Cookies

Zaza
Eastern European host Zaza talks to some of the SMARTEST PEOPLE on the planet, exploring as many different topics as he can get his greedy hands on.Long-form interviews for the eternally inquisitive, the restless, the curious... and for everyone else.
Badass Women of the Mongol Empire with dr. Tobias Jones
Dr. Tobias Jones is a researcher, historian and lecturer of Mongol history at Leiden University. Back by popular demand, he returns to Smart Cookies to talk about some of the most powerful women of the Mongol Empire. We also talk discuss upbringing and the role of Mongolian women, the ancient custom of bride kidnapping, levirate marriage, whispers of warrior women, and Marco Polo doing kung-fu in China.
Nov 13, 2023
1 hr 29 min
Is there Life after Death? Near-death experiences with dr. Bruce Greyson
Bruce Greyson is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neuro-behavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, who has studied near-death experiences for more than 45 years and is one of the world’s leading experts on their science and significance. He is the author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond, co-author of Irreducible Mind and co-editor of The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences. We talk about his research on near-death experiences, science defying survivor testimonies, the prospect of the afterlife and scepticism.
Oct 26, 2023
52 min
The Other Face of Winston Churchill, with Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali is a writer, filmmaker and a leading figure of the international left since the 60s. He is a long-standing editor of the New Left Review and a political commentator published on every continent. His books include The Clash of Fundamentalisms, The Obama Syndrome and the latest, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes, which we discuss in this episode.We also talk about Churchill's racist views, support of British Imperialism, World War 2, Class Warfare and his role in The Bengal Famine.
Oct 12, 2023
57 min
Funding our own Demise: Why do we keep pumping money into FOSSIL FUELS, with IISD's Tara Laan
During one of the most dramatic summers in recent memory, filled with record breaking temperatures, devastating wildfires and destructive floods, a bombshell report released by the IISD exposed the fact that our governments are pumping RECORD amounts of money into big oil...I talk to one of the reports' authors, Tara Laan, to figure out WHY.We also discuss climate anxiety, the relationship between pollution and health, climate summits, COP28 and climate activism.
Sep 28, 2023
54 min
The Search for EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE with Prof. Avi Loeb
Professor Avi Loeb is a former Chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University, founding director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is also the head of the Galileo Project - the Systematic Scientific Search for Evidence of Extraterrestrial Technological Artifacts. We talk about the US government's "secret retrieval program" testimony by David Grusch, UFO and UAP sightings, the search for Alien Civilisations, space trash from possible neighbours.... and Professor Loeb's hunt for interstellar objects in the Pacific Ocean.
Aug 29, 2023
1 hr 6 min
VAMPIRES and SLAVIC FOLKLORE with Prof. Stanley Stepanic
Stanley Stepanic is an Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. To date he has published three textbooks that have been released in recent editions - these are "Dracula or the Timeless Path of the Vampire," "Russian and East European Film", and "Russian Folklore". In addition to such publications, Professor Stepanic has been very active in the public sphere, giving a variety of presentations, primarily concerning the VAMPIRE.We talk about vampire origins, Count Dracula, the Blood Countess, Nosferatu, symbolism, vampire incarnations in pop culture and... Morbius.
Aug 17, 2023
1 hr 9 min
SUPERSTITION and IRRATIONAL BEHAVIOUR with Prof. Stuart Vyse
Stuart Vyse is a behavioral scientist and writer with a PhD in psychology and BA and MA degrees in English Literature. He's a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, as well as a contributing editor for the Skeptical Inquirer magazine. His first book, Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition won the William James Book Award of the American Psychological Association. In 2020 he wrote a book called Superstition, published by Oxford press - who also released his latest book, The Uses of Delusion: Why It’s Not Always Rational to be Rational. We talk about black cats, Friday the 13th, Zodiac, delusions, the futility of Twitter debates and my addiction to fortune telling.
Jul 29, 2023
1 hr 8 min
Dreams with Professor Patrick McNamara: Lucid and Demonic, Nightmares, REM Sleep, Sleep Paralysis and Dreams within Dreams
Professor Patrick McNamara has over 15 years of experience working directly on the problem of the nature and function of dreaming. He has been the recipient of grant awards from the National Institutes of Health, to further study sleep and was awarded the Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Boston University. He did a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Aphasia Research Center, Boston VA Medical Center. He has published over 50 scientific papers as well as several books on the neuroscience of dreams. We talk about the neuroscience and evolution of dreaming, but also about REM sleep, the function of nightmares, demonic possession dreams, sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming and dreams within dreams.
Jul 11, 2023
51 min
In the Eye of the Storm: QAnon and (other) conspiracy theories with Mike Rothschild
Mike Rothschild is a journalist and author, focused on the intersections between internet culture and politics as seen through the dark glass of conspiracy theories. Since 2018, he has specialized in examining the QAnon conspiracy cult and is one of the first journalists to reveal its connections to past conspiracy theories. He is the author of the seminal work on QAnon, "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything.""We talk about QAnon's humble beginnings, it's meteoric rise and it's status after the 2020 presidential election... We also discuss conspiracy theories in general, as well as Bill Gates, the Reptoids, JFK, the attempted coup in Germany, the pervasive underlying thread of anti-Semitism, and of course, the infamous "Mattress Conspiracy."
May 18, 2023
54 min
"Why We Believe?" with Professor Agustín Fuentes
Agustín Fuentes is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. His research focuses on the biosocial, delving into the entanglement of biological systems with the social and cultural lives of humans, our ancestors, and a few of the other animals with whom humanity shares close relations.He has written many books, but we mostly discuss his latest one, which is called "Why we believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being;" in it Professor Fuentes examines our capacity to believe.We also talk about the effects our minds have on our bodies and health, the genesis of our belief systems, the importance of travelling and education, and the enormous influence of figures, such as Joe Rogan, on public opinion.
May 3, 2023
51 min
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