#6: Higher Education ft. Botong Cheng

The men’s rights movement is concerned with social issues affecting men and policies that specifically target men. This may be surprising to some, but many men in modern society are struggling across a wide range of metrics.Iain and I go over men’s issues, feminism, polarizing male figures and then buzzword topics such as redpill, incels, mgtow (men going their own way) privilege and more.

I go over who I am and what this podcast is about. Welcome.

Martha Rampton, a professor of social history and director for gender equity at Pacific University and I discuss the topic of modern feminism. In the modern day, feminism has become a polarizing topic, the goals are more fractured and more complex.Women would not be where they are today without feminism. The ability to vote, own property, have bodily autonomy and more were gained from the unified social movement towards progress in the form of gender equity. We talk about the waves of feminism, the core issues affecting women today, concepts such as patriarchy and privilege, global feminism and touch on how men come into play in all this.

Political polarization is tearing at the seams of democracies around the world, from Brazil and India to Poland and Turkey. It isn’t just an American illness; it’s a global one.It is very natural for humans to tie their associate their identity with their convictions, and thus, political polarization is a reflection of the division of humans. In this episode I go through three main factors contributing to political polarization, popular figures, past and present such as Donald Trump and Andrew Tate. Lastly, I discuss how division is a natural human tendency.

Dr David Thomas is a Black American who was a police officer for more than 20 years, was the author of an award winning book: The State of American policing, is also a professor of forensic studies at Florida Gulf University and even runs his own Police Counseling services. In this episode we talk about his theory of the cyclical nature of police brutality, his time as a police officer in different agencies, the Black Lives Matter movement, the effectiveness of community policing and the relationship between policing in America to broader Black American issues and much much more.

Abhijit Naskar said “In the unification of two minds, orientation of sexuality is irrelevant.” Homophobia has existed since the Middle Ages, and following that there has been a long history of discrimination against queer people that still stands today.In this episode, Rye Tran and I discuss the holistic experience of a gay man, trying to fit in, trying to find love, struggling to grapple with conventional ideas of masculinity and more.

Horace Mann said education is the great equalizer of the conditions of men. It has the immense power to change the way we think, the core of what makes us human. In this episode, Botong Cheng and I discuss higher education systems, the deficiencies, the role of technology, MOOCs and innovation.

Sports has an immensely powerful ability to unite people, whether that is the athletes themselves or spectators. In this episode Andre Calloway and I look at what competing has taught us, the consumerism of sports, what Aussie sports looks like, esports and some great sporting icons such as Muhammad Ali and Kobe Bryant.

"We buy things we don't need, with money we don't have, to impress people we don't like" - George Carlin. It seems like everything is trying to get a sale out of you these days...that's actually pretty accurate. The idea of hyperconsumerism is more relevant than ever and hyperconsumption is almost encouraged. Even content as potentially toxic as pornography is deemed as standard material to consume.

Love is a fundamental human desire, and dating is conventionally the means of getting there. This episode, we dive deep into modern dating; the shift in dynamics and relationship roles, perspectives on sex, the effect digital communication has had and naturally, online dating.