The Meandering Pod

SOUTH KOREA - How 5 Billionaire Families Control The Korean Economy, Society and Politics

Did you know 5 families control more than half of the Korean economy and ALL of its politicians? Meet the Chaebol - the driving force behind Koreas economic miracle but also the root of many of the countries present day issues from corruption and inequality to a hyper competitive social structure and declining birth rate. In this episode, for the first time in Meandering history, Cam and Dom jump on the mic and dive deep into terrifying control Korea’s oligarchs have over the people - as well as the terrifying control the global tech oligarchs have over all of us, as the world transitions from Capitalism to ‘Techno Feudalism’ as outlined in Economist Yanis Varoufakis’s book by the same name.

JAPAN, KOREA + CHINA – Boogying in Beijing and Shaz Shenanigans

Welcome to another group episode of The Meandering Pod! Not much time has passed but a lot has happened – strap in while we update you on the shenanigans our group got into while travelling from Japan to China via Korea. This episode also features superfan SHAZ, who joined Lotta + Dom, then Bec + Cam on our meandering (mis)adventures. Stick around to hear about our East Asian foods, and for another Brick #1 sparring session, judged impartially by Shaz :) RECOMMENDATIONS: Books: (Japan) - The Shut Ins by Katherine - Cold Enough For Snow by Jessica Au (Korea) - Pachinko by Min Jin Lee - I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee - The Vegetarian by Han Kang - Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) (China) - Beijing Comrades by Bei Tong (East Asia) - Three Tigers One Mountain by Michael Booth Movies: (Korea) - The Taxi Driver by Jang Hoon

JAPAN - This Protist Is Smarter Than You

How much do you know about protists? How much do you know about their behaviour and intelligence? I’m gonna guess very little, as that’s where I was not that long ago. The world of these obscure creatures is incredibly complex and fascinating, as they interact with their environment and make decisions and weigh up risks.  In this episode, I interview researcher Alid Al-Asmar about slime moulds (the “blob”) ciliates (unicellular beings with eyelashes) and his personal favourite - nematodes (little round worms). Dom joins me for the end for a comparison of his intelligence to that of protists. Brutal, but demonstrates my point.  Below are the articles I cite in the show. Does being multi-headed make you better at solving problems? ScienceDirect.comhttps://www.sciencedirect.comDoes being multi-headed make you better at solving problems? A survey of ... [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064518300605] A ciliate memorises the geometry of a swimming area royalsocietypublishing.orghttps://royalsocietypublishing.orgA ciliate memorizes the geometry of a swimming arena | The Royal Society [https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/13/118/20160155/64658/A-ciliate-memorizes-the-geometry-of-a-swimming] C. Elegant transfers across a gap under an electric field as dispersal behaviour National Institutes of Health (.gov)https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.govCaenorhabditis elegans transfers across a gap under an electric field as ... [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37348502/] Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism Naturehttps://www.nature.comMaze-solving by an amoeboid organism [https://www.nature.com/articles/35035159] Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design Science | AAAShttps://www.science.orgRules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1177894] Geometrical preference of anchoring sites in the unicellular organism Stentor coeruleus PNAShttps://www.pnas.orgGeometrical preference of anchoring sites in the unicellular organism ... [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2518816123]

JAPAN - All About Snow and Where it’s Gonna Go

Join Dom, Lotta and special guest Sharran as they talk all about snow and how it’s changing. How is changing snow affecting the skiing world? The Winter Olympics? Plants, animals, and humans who reply on snow and snowmelt? And what can we do about all this scary change?  Join along for this important discussion and learn how winters are changing, and how we can protect them.  And definitely check out Jonica Newby’s BEYOND CLIMATE GRIEF for all the feels and how to deals.

JAPAN - Halfway Hakuba Happenings

Wowee, it’s been a hot second! And it’s HALF WAY THROUGH OUR TRIP! Another group episode for all your travel ramblings and, of course, the reveal of who topped the brick rankings for the past three months. The four of us are finally reunited (however briefly) for meandering shenanigans - involving saunas, cherry blossom festivals and hitting the spring snow slopes in the Japanese Alps. Also, we have a guest on the show: our friend Drea, whose contributions are the highlights of the show. We’d listen to them all day any day, make a podcast Drea (ironic seeing as they don’t listen to podcasts, this is the first one of ours they’ve heard!). Anyway, some of the pertinent info we promised in the show: The Chinese spirit is called Baijo. It is insane. We also had a lot of shochu, sake, umeshu, and lots of Asahi, seeing as we travelled through the town Asahi. Our book recommendations are:  The Membranes, a novel by Chi Ta-Wei Discipline by Randa Abdel-Fattah The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman Water, Wood and Wild Things: Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain Town by Hannah Kirschner Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis We hope you enjoy the show! Click the bell, leave a comment, subscribe, it boosts our serotonin if not our outreach. Lots of love, all us beans.