Presenting Gone South Season 4

American healthcare is commonly known to be in a deplorable state, costing 18% of GDP while underperforming in quality among developed nations. Changing the situation systemically also seems intractable—passing new regulation is a political landmine, and costs continue to rise without a clear winning strategy.

American Sickness unpacks how US healthcare got to this state. It examines the competing interests of the major blocs in healthcare - hospitals and doctors, pharmaceuticals and devices, and insurers. Written by a Harvard-trained doctor and New York Times reporter, this book clarifies how deeply entrenched the interests are and why it’s so difficult to change anything.

Stealing Fire, co-written by Stephen Kotler and Jamie Wheal, tells the story of a modern revolution in our understanding of peak states of consciousness such as flow, mystical enlightenment, and psychedelic experience. According to the authors, these peak states—collectively, “ecstasis”—can catalyze personal transformation, expand your creativity, and connect you to a palpable sense of meaning and fulfillment.

Kotler and Wheal are best selling authors as well as the co-founders of the Flow Genome Project, where they train top organizations—ranging from Navy SEALS to Olympic Athletes and Fortune 500 CEOS—on the principles of flow and peak states.

In this guide, we’ll break down their argument that accessing peak states has become easier, safer, and more legitimate as various scientific advances have demystified what was once obscure and taboo. In our commentary, we’ll touch on additional research, the legality of psychedelics, and recent updates to some of the authors’ ideas.

Did magic mushrooms contribute to making us human? In How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan traces the long and complex history of humans’ relationship with psychedelics and examines their potential use for mental health treatment today. He delves into the complex legal and cultural issues surrounding psychedelics and considers what their re-emergence might mean for our society as a whole.

Michael Pollan is an author, journalist, and professor. He is best known for his books The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, which have helped shape the public’s understanding of the modern food system. But after learning about terminal cancer patients who were given psilocybin to help ease the fear of death, Pollan threw himself into research on psychedelics—which included personal experimentation.

In this guide, we’ll situate Pollan’s research within the current field of psychedelic trials and review some of the guidelines for mitigating the dangers of psychedelic research. We’ll also probe ancient history to provide further context for humans’ complex and enduring relationship with these substances.

Mass surveillance has become a daily part of life, as corporations and governments around the world openly collect data about who we are and how we live our lives. But has this always been the case? And if not, how did we get here?

In this New York Times bestseller, Michelle Alexander argues that the war on drugs has created a new racial caste system, disproportionately punishing black people. A powerfully interlocking system of laws and policies targets black people for drug crime, punishes them more severely than white criminals, and makes life as an ex-felon extremely difficult. The result is effectively racial subjugation and disenfranchisement.

In this summary, you’ll learn how the war on drugs followed a pattern of implementation consistent with slavery and Jim Crow, how financial incentives and legal protection allow selective targeting of black males for drug crimes, and why it’s so difficult for drug convicts to reintegrate into society.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis examines the spiritual and social decline of the Appalachian white working class through the life story of its author, JD Vance. Growing up in a post-industrial Ohio town, Vance encountered the symptoms of community and familial dysfunction—drug and alcohol abuse, unstable marriages, lack of education, and evasion of hard work—that underscore the failing values of the culture from which he came.

Although Vance eventually escapes the poverty and dysfunction of his roots, attending college and Yale Law School, he finds that even economic mobility can never permanently erase the social markers of his hillbilly upbringing.

The Other Wes Moore chronicles the lives of two men with the same name. Both Wes Moores are black men who grew up in the inner-city communities of Baltimore City and the Bronx. Both were raised by single mothers within the same era. So how did one end up a decorated military veteran and academic scholar, and the other a convicted murder with a life sentence?

The book, written by Wes Moore the Army veteran, searches for answers by parsing their histories. Part memoir, part biography, this book questions the influence of family and environment in young men’s lives and what's needed to ensure success, especially in the lives of those without privilege or resources.

The Other Wes Moore chronicles the lives of two men with the same name. Both Wes Moores are black men who grew up in the inner-city communities of Baltimore City and the Bronx. Both were raised by single mothers within the same era. So how did one end up a decorated military veteran and academic scholar, and the other a convicted murder with a life sentence?

The book, written by Wes Moore the Army veteran, searches for answers by parsing their histories. Part memoir, part biography, this book questions the influence of family and environment in young men’s lives and what's needed to ensure success, especially in the lives of those without privilege or resources.

In this New York Times bestseller, Michelle Alexander argues that the war on drugs has created a new racial caste system, disproportionately punishing black people. A powerfully interlocking system of laws and policies targets black people for drug crime, punishes them more severely than white criminals, and makes life as an ex-felon extremely difficult. The result is effectively racial subjugation and disenfranchisement.

In this summary, you’ll learn how the war on drugs followed a pattern of implementation consistent with slavery and Jim Crow, how financial incentives and legal protection allow selective targeting of black males for drug crimes, and why it’s so difficult for drug convicts to reintegrate into society.