We have a clear narrative about the 2016 and 2020 election hacking: It’s social media’s fault. But Russia has used the same strategy against America for 100 years (and that’s just the start). If we treat this like it’s only a Facebook problem, then we’ll never truly protect our elections. This is the history of election hacking in America, and the repercussions of calling something “unprecedented” when it’s not. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram:...
Sep 24, 2020•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast The fork isn’t just a tool for eating. It’s also one of the greatest symbols of individualism — a utensil that people opposed for thousands of years, and that only gained acceptance once we started thinking differently about ourselves. This is the story of how the fork shaped us. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Newsletter: https://jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Aug 27, 2020•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast People said radio was too addictive... then TV was too addictive... and now smartphones are too addictive! Why does every generation say the same things about its new technology (and why do our fears rarely come true?) In this episode, we dive into the fascinating research that explains our cycles of panic — and explain how to finally end it. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Newsletter: https://jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Learn more abo...
Jul 30, 2020•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does it take for two different people to find common ground? To answer that, we dig into a nine-year-old mystery. In 2011, two very different guys shared a pair of earbuds on the New York City subway. A photo of them went viral multiple times … but who were they, and what were they really doing? All is revealed. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email: jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Newsletter: https://jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
Jun 25, 2020•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast People are refusing to wear masks during a pandemic. Why? To understand, we rewind to the “Anti-Mask League” of 1919 and to the opposition to seatbelt laws in the 1990s. Then we answer the big question: If people won’t listen to mandates, what *will* they listen to? Thanks to our sponsors: Plume.com/pessimists Betterhelp.com/archive Hullopillow.com/pessimistsarchive Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. V...
May 28, 2020•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Covid-19 has interrupted our world, but it's also likely to improve it. After all, history shows that massive disruption is followed by massive opportunity. So what’s in store for us now? In this episode, we learn the surprising consequences of past crises, explore the innovations that may come from Covid-19, and try to understand why disasters are so productive. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Apr 30, 2020•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast People love natural foods and natural products... but what is "natural," really? In this episode, we explore that question by going back to one of the very first times anyone claimed a natural product was better than a man-made one: It's the great war between the "natural" ice industry and the brand-new refrigerator industry. And it can teach us a lot about the decisions we make today. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more abou...
Mar 26, 2020•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, people complain about self-obsessed millennials. Yesterday, they complained about children celebrating their birthdays. When the birthday party became popular in the 19th century, people worried that it would corrupt community, spoil children, and contradict the bible. But the truth -- about why we celebrate our birthdays and ourselves -- is far more complicated. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choice...
Feb 27, 2020•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you suffer from automobile face? What about airplane face? Or moving-picture face? These are just some examples from a strange historical pattern: For more than a century, people have claimed that new technologies are physically deforming our faces -- and we still say it today. (No, you don't have "tech neck"!) On this episode, we explore where this fear comes from, what it means, and what happens when the fear really does come true. Time to put on your podcast face! Get in touch! Web: jasonf...
Jan 23, 2020•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast The teddy bear: Is it cute and cuddly, or a “horrible monstrosity” that’ll destroy humanity? In 1907, many people feared the worst — that this new toy would ruin young girls’ developing maternal instincts, and lead us to a terrible fate. This is the story of how the teddy bear changed us all… and how we then changed the bear. Get in touch! Newsletter: jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Website: jasonfeifer.com Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices...
Dec 05, 2019•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Vanity was born when the mirror was discovered. That’s what the Chicago Record wrote in 1895, around the time when mirrors became a household item. People (and especially women) were condemned for looking in the mirror, and accused of being sinful. But then the mirror altered the way we think about vanity altogether — and forever changed the way we look at ourselves. In this episode, we explore the history of the mirror, the history of vanity, and what it can teach us about today’s obsession ove...
Oct 24, 2019•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Roads weren't always for cars. In fact, highways were originally built for bikes! And now, as modern cities freak out over e-scooters, it’s worth looking back at when the roads were full of all kinds of things on wheels. How did early scooters, roller skates, and other new devices shape what we think of as the road today? And is it time to rethink how we design our cities now? Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad...
Sep 12, 2019•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the 1950s, America declared war on the comic book. People feared that they’d turn children into hardened criminals, and so opponents burned them in large piles, states banned them, and the U.S. Senate investigated their dangers. The man leading the charge was a psychologist named Fredric Wertham, whose research fueled people’s fears. In this episode, we take a close look at Wertham to ask: How does someone come to yield so much cultural influence? And how should the rest of us react? Get in t...
Jul 25, 2019•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast The elevator has had a lot of ups and downs. (Sorry, sorry.) As the innovation gained popularity in the late 1800s, it had a profound effect on the way we organize our cities and ourselves. It was also blamed for a rise in crime, for causing something called brain fever, for destroying civil society, and more. On this episode of Pessimists Archive, we look at how the elevator shaped our world, why not everyone loved that, and what it has to teach us about the next big change. Because while the e...
Jun 20, 2019•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kids! They’re lazy, narcissistic, and disrespectful -- or so says the older generation. But when you look back through history, you’ll discover that older generations have been saying a version of the same thing for thousands of years. Our question is: Why? And we found an answer. Get in touch! Web: jasonfeifer.com Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter / Instagram: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
May 15, 2019•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why are new dances always so scandalous? Grinding, freak dancing, swing dancing, rock-n-roll -- each had their opponents. But at the beginning of it all was the waltz. We may think of the waltz as classy and performative today, but as it gained popularity in the early 1800s, the dance was called disgusting, dangerous, an “obscene display … confined to prostitutes and adulteresses”, and worse. Why? In this episode, we explore how the waltz got people so riled up, how everyone finally got over it,...
Apr 22, 2019•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today's internet can be a noisy and complicated place, but humanity has seen it all before. In the 1800s, the telegraph triggered many of the same questions and concerns that social media does today — about privacy, information overload, moral corruption, and more. In this episode, travel back to see the origin of our internet-based fears... and whether those fears ever came true. Get in touch! Email. jasonfeifer@gmail.com Web: jasonfeifer.com Twitter: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices...
Mar 07, 2019•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast When chain stores were new, the reaction against them was fierce. Chain stores were accused of destroying democracy, of limiting freedom, of corrupting young people, and of being evil, evil, evil. But in reality, chain stores were innovating the way we shop -- and replacing a very bad kind of local business. Even if you love shopping local, this episode might just change the way you think about business. Get in touch! Email: jasonfeifer@gmail.com Twitter: @heyfeifer Web: jasonfeifer.com Learn mo...
Feb 08, 2019•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today, novels are a wholesome alternative to modern vices. But long before television and video games, novels were the new and scary form of entertainment. They were accused of corrupting the youth, of planting dangerous ideas into the heads of housewives, and of distracting everyone from more serious, important books. In this episode, we explore the roots of anti-novel hysteria, and explore what impact it really did have on us. (And if you're looking for a good novel, check out my novel, Mr. Ni...
Oct 15, 2018•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast “A big humbug” -- that’s how one critic described America’s first subway system. Other opponents were more extreme. It would release dangerous underground air, some said. It would disturb the dead, others said. A religious leader in Boston declared it a project of Lucifer himself. Why were people so opposed to this new form of transportation? To understand it, we have to rewind centuries -- to a time when people thought that Earth was hollow, and that hell was directly under their feet. Get in t...
Aug 06, 2018•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a story about when a big industry stops competing, and starts trying to pass laws to protect itself instead. Whatever you think you know of margarine, put that aside. When the spread was first invented in the mid-1800s, it was made very differently — and solved very real problems for the nutrient-starved people of the time. That sent the dairy industry into a full-blown panic, leading to margarine’s demonization (and then taxation and strange discoloration). In this episode, we explore h...
Jun 18, 2018•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast As electricity began to light our world, resistance came from curious corners. “God had decreed that darkness should follow light, and mortals had no right to turn night into day,” wrote one German newspaper. “A lamp for a nightmare,” declared a Scottish poet. And Thomas Edison, the inventor who gave us the first commercial light bulb, tried his hardest to make people fear a competitor’s form of electricity. But here’s the strangest thing of all: Edison and his ilk failed quickly; their fearmong...
Apr 09, 2018•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pinball was banned from the 1940s to 1970s in many cities across America. New York City’s mayor made a show of bashing pinball machines with a hammer. Church ladies in suburban Chicago went on vigilante raids, ripping games out of stores. In this episode, we go through history to understand how a simple game became demonized. The answer, like pinball itself, requires us to bounce from one object to another, but ultimately falls into one big question: Is pinball a game of skill, or a game of chan...
Jan 27, 2018•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast For 500 years, a succession of kings, sultans, and businessmen have tried to ban or destroy the world’s favorite morning pick-me-up. Among their claims: Coffee makes you impotent! It destroys brain tissue! It attacks the nervous system! And most critically of all, it makes you want to take up arms against your government. In this episode, we explore exactly what coffee does to us,,, and how did it overcame the controversy to become the best part of waking up. Get in touch! Instagram: @heyfeifer ...
Nov 20, 2017•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast “One might suppose that the popular prejudice against vaccination had died out by this time,” one writer complains. It sounds like a lament from today, but in fact, it’s from 1875. Anti-vaxxers may seem like a product of our fake-news, health-hysteria modern times, but the fear that propels these skeptics is as old as the vaccine itself. How has modern medicine not shaken generations’ worth of suspicion and fear? We go back to look at two pivotal moments -- the birth of the vaccine and a 1905 Su...
Sep 09, 2017•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast For as long as chess has been around — and we’re talking 1,500-plus years — someone has tried to ban it. But why? The answer is complicated, but it begins here: For ages, global and moralistic leaders have viewed games as a threat worth quashing. Get in touch! Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Web: jasonfeifer.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jul 20, 2017•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the bicycle debuted in the 1800s, it was blamed for all sorts of problems--from turning people insane to devastating local economies to destroying women's morals. We explore why the bicycle scared so many people, and what happens when the opposite of our fears turn out to be true. Get in touch! Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Web: jasonfeifer.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 08, 2017•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast National pride can be good... but it can also make you foolish and wet. In the 1750s, a London man took to the streets holding an umbrella—and braved jeers, rock-throwing haters, and even a cab that tried to run him over. We explore why rainy England was once so anti-umbrella, and whether that fight was really ever settled. Get in touch! Newsletter: jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Website: jasonfeifer.com Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.c...
Apr 11, 2017•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the car began replacing the horse in the early 1900s, pessimists didn't celebrate. They called it "the devil wagon," and said its mission was to destroy the world. We explore why the horseless carriage was so scary, how it was eventually accepted, and what it can teach us about the future of self-driving cars. Get in touch! Newsletter: jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Website: jasonfeifer.com Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoi...
Mar 02, 2017•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the early 1900s, recorded music was accused of muddling our minds, destroying art, and even harming babies. What was everyone so afraid of? In this episode, we dig into the early days of music and see what the hysterics properly predicted—and the benefits they never saw coming. Get in touch! Newsletter: jasonfeifer.bulletin.com Website: jasonfeifer.com Instagram: @heyfeifer Twitter: @heyfeifer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jan 09, 2017•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
