Treat 'Em Mean, Keep 'Em Scrolling | Meta on trial, named storms and the weekend at 100

Peter opens with the Concept of the Week and it turns out to explain almost everything else in the episode. Variable ratio reinforcement is why the fox keeps coming back to Peter's garden, why the fruit machine keeps taking your pound, and why you keep scrolling. Reward someone every time and they stop caring. Reward them never and they leave. Reward them roughly one time in three and they cannot put it down. The people building these systems know this. Then three stories that all turn out to be about the same thing: who gets to decide what holds your attention. The Met Office is running a competition with Aardman to name a storm after Shaun the Sheep or his cousin Timmy. Peter explains why a silly name is doing serious work, and makes the case for naming heatwaves after the companies that caused them. The two day weekend turns a hundred. Henry Ford gave it to his workers in 1926, having already doubled their pay, and not entirely out of kindness. Bertrand Russell thought we should have gone much further. Peter, a socialist with a lathe and a beehive, agrees. And in a courtroom in Oakland, twenty nine US states are taking Meta to trial over exactly the mechanism Peter described in the first five minutes. **Timestamps** - 00:45 Concept of the Week: variable ratio reinforcement, the fox, the fruit machine and the feed - 05:20 A look at the News: why the Met Office names storms, and why it should name heatwaves too - 12:15 A look at the News: a hundred years of the weekend, Henry Ford and Bertrand Russell on doing better things than work - 29:35 A look at the News: twenty nine states versus Meta, and what psychologists are telling the court - 43:20 The Triple T: set limits, and Peter admits he needs them as much as anyone **Mentioned in this episode** - Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness, 1932 - The Met Office and Aardman storm naming vote, which closed on 21 August. The full 2026/27 list is published on 1 September - Seville has been naming and ranking heatwaves since 2022 - Arturo Bejar, the former Meta engineer giving evidence in Oakland - West, Mogilner and DeVoe, Happiness From Treating the Weekend Like a Vacation, 2021 Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com.