215 – The food bug and the social media bug

Lee Hopkins, Michael Shanahan, and Steve Davis, discuss whether social media’s promise of bringing us together and enriching the engagement in our lives has been delivered or whether it is taking us down a different course altogether.

1. What was the original lure of social networking/social media to you?

2. How is that allure standing up in 2017?

3. Do you think that social networking has been able to get deeper into our psyches because of smart phones? Might it have been a little more benign if only active when we were on desktops?

The Sam Harris episode Steve mentioned

As part of this discussion, we hear a snippet from a recent episode of one of Steve’s favourite podcasts, Note To Self, in which host, Manoush Zomorodi, raises a question about how relationships have become seemingly more disposable in this day and age during her discussion with Esther Perel, renowned psychotherapist and author. Instagram is named as a culprit for inflating what we EXPECT as a baseline of happiness. (Manoush has a book called Bored And Brilliant, in which she calls us to listen to the science about how our “switched on” lives are draining us of creativity and energy, and Steve heartily recommends it.)

4. Finally, what might you prescribe as the essence of healthy, useful social media and social networking rituals, habits, uses, for people in 2017.

Michael Shanahan challenges the panel to pick the fake story from three stories from South Australia’s past.

News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 – 1954), Friday 21 December 1951, page 2
Canned Fried Worms Exempt
Washington, Wed.: Canned fried worms were exempted from price control today. The Office of Price Stabilisation said it took the action because the worms-which a spokesman described as tasting delicious with cocktails had “but a trifling effect on the cost of living.”

News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 – 1954), Friday 1 July 1938, page 7
HONEYPOT ANTS
Specimens Brought From North
Honeypot ants which the natives eat like grapes were collected by a party of naturalists led by Mr Peter Barret who returned to Adelaide last night after several weeks in the north. It was an aboriginal who secured the party’s colony of ants.  These ants have their bodies distended with honey to about the size of a sweet water grape. The natives simply pick them up by their heads and eat them as one eats grapes. Mr Barret (who hopes to breed them), will have them on display this week at the South Australian Institute Museum.

Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 – 1922), Saturday 22 June 1901, page 5
INSECTS AS FOOD
A French entomologist, M. Dagin, recommends insects as an article of food. He speaks with authority… having himself tasted several hundreds of species raw, boiled, fried, broiled, roasted, and hashed. He has even eaten spiders prepared according to the following recipe:—”Take a plump spider, remove the legs and skin. Rub over with butter, and swallow.”‘ However, he does not recommend them, but this may be prejudice on his part. … Cockroaches are a foundation for a delicious soup. … “Pound your cockroaches in a mortar; put in a sieve, and pour in boiling water or beef stock.”‘ Connoisseurs prefer this to real bisque. … The perfect insect may be shelled and eaten” like a shrimp.

And our song this week is Oxygen by Roman Silver, selected by our musical curator, Todd Fischer.

I keep being amazed by how diverse Adelaide’s music scene is and this week’s featured song by Roman Silver sounds like something straight out of the Stranger Things soundtrack. Oxygen is a cruisy, synth-wave jam from the upcoming Lightyears II EP that draws influences from artists like Kavinsky, Com Truise and Lazerhawk.

Roman Silver fuses a retro, 80’s style with impressive future-focused production that leaves you feeling like you’re flying through space. His bandcamp page sets the scene perfectly with a description that reads “Following a successful touchdown, the astronaut steps up to the microphone.”

If you like what you hear, you can listen to his previous EP Lightyears 1 on all the usual platforms including Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify and iTunes. Also jump on his Facebook page to stay updated with the upcoming release.