After Things Podcast

The episode opens with a pre-show anecdote about Brian repeatedly trolling a coffee drive-thru, culminating in him theatrically dropping a penny into a hot chocolate in front of a very young worker. From there the hosts move into a discussion of a Florida spider monkey born with a Batman-shaped face marking, joking about whether it looks painted or stenciled and using it as a springboard into questions about the ethics of cosmetic changes to animals. That animal-marking discussion expands into a broader moral debate about human genetic modification, concierge IVF, and whether adding a cosmetic corporate-style mark would be acceptable if paired with advantages like health or intelligence. The conversation then shifts into sponsorships, scholarships, and controversial naming, and later into a long segment on cryptocurrency, money, inflation, proof-of-work versus proof-of-stake, fusion power, climate optimism, and the social and political resistance that can shape how new technologies are judged. In the back hal