Frank Brown Cloud
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On disillusionment and knock knock jokes.
Children’s trust is fragile, yet we often treat kids so cavalierly.
belief, belief in science, bullying, Celeste Kidd, child psychology, children, children as research subjects, children as scientific subjects, children as study subjects, delayed gratification, devious licks, experimentation on children, Facebook, faith in science, Holly Palmeri, Insta, jokes, kids, kids' jokes, knock knock joke, knock-knock jokes, marshmallow task, marshmallow test, parenting, patience, psychology, Rational Snacking, remote schooling, Richard Aslin, science, scientific experimentation, soap, social, social media, telling jokes, Tik Tok, trust
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On ‘We Do What We Do in the Dark.’
In Michelle Hart’s We Do What We Do in the Dark, a college freshman named Mallory has a tumultuous, clandestine, semester-long relationship with a professor. The novel explores infatuation, transgression, and pleasure. During their relationship, Mallory occasionally arrives at the professor’s office to talk. More often, Mallory arrives at the professor’s house to have sex.…
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On Narcan and the perception of care.
I was talking to someone recently about the availability of Narcan where we live (a college town in southern Indiana, population 80,000). Narcan is a medication that blocks opiate receptors. When given to someone who recently overdosed on heroin, fentanyl, or painkillers, Narcan can save their life. # In the lobby of the county jail,…
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On the case against God.
Before and after Dobbs, many pregnancies were terminated by God. Should we bring charges?
abortion, abortion access, access to abortion, choice, conception, Criminalizing a Constitutional Right, Dobbs, feminism, food access, genetic testing, God, health care access, healthcare, life, Madeleine Schwartz, miscarriage, murder charges, neglect, nutrition, personhood, politics, poverty, pregnancy, prenatal care, prenatal health, prenatal nutrition, pro-choice, pro-life, stillbirth, universal health care, universal healthcare, women's right, women's rights
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On eating plants.
In the mid-1800s, Claude Bernard – the “father of experimental physiology” – began a series of experiments to create carnivorous rabbits. Don’t worry: Bernard wasn’t cultivating predatory beasts like the angry rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At first he was simply starving animals until their acidic urine indicated that they’d begun to…
animal experimentation, animal models, animal research, animal testing, animal welfare, bacterial influence on our minds, carnivorous rabbits, Claude Bernard, diet, Evolution of Diet Across the Animal Tree of Life, first multicellular animals, gut microbiome, heterotroph, Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, meat-eating rabbits, microbiome, plant based, rabbits, Roman-Palaclos, Scholl, scientific research, vegan, vegetarian, we are not alone, Wiens
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On human babies and adult octopuses.
For a short time, as infants, we felt the world as octopuses do.
animal minds, babies, baby, baby cognition, baby perception, bat, bats, cephalopod, childhood, Christina MacSweeney, cognition, consciousness, decentralized minds, distributed minds, Gluck, how do babies experience the world, how do babies see the world, human babies, infant, infant cognition, infant experience, infant mind, infant perception, infants, Jazmina Barrera, Katie Schmid, Leslie Jamison, Linea Nigra, Louise Gluck, Marigold and Rose, medieval art, Megan O'Rouke, mental perception, mind, perception, The Bear's Kiss, The Boatman, the experience of babies, the lives of babies, the lives of infants, Thomas Nagel, What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
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On bravery and Uncle Max
Uncle Max was a good dog.
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On ‘Babel,’ ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ and violence.
Violence begets violence; to create a better world, we must act as though it could possibly exist.
Abel's sacrifice, Abraham, An Arcane History, authority figure, Babel, Bible, binding of Isaac, blessing, Cain and Abel, Cain's sacrifice, capitalism, curse, disease resistance, disruption, diversity of languages, Edenic language, electrical shock, Everything Everywhere All at Once, fantasy, fear, film critique, film review, folktales, Genesis 22, Genesis 4, germs, great floods, gun violence, guns, Guns Germs and Steel, Ham, hierarchy, hubris, human migration, immunology, inequality, language, leap of faith, love, Michael Bazzett, Milgram Experiment, Milgram shock experiment, Milgram test, multiverse, myths, Noah, Noah's curse, obedience, Old Testament, origin of Bible stories, origin of inequality, origin of languages, parallel worlds, quantum mechanics, R. F. Kuang, Rebecca Kuang, religion, slavery, spoken word, Stanley Milgram, Steel, The Matrix, The Necessity of Violence, The Popul Vuh, Tower of Babel, Translation, why did humans build the Tower of Babel, Yahweh
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On ‘Existential Physics’ and free will.
If a physicist says you can’t have free will, but you can lift your arm when you want, who should you believe?
brain chemistry, computability, consciousness, continuous space, digital mathematics, discontinuous space, Existential Physics, free will, Hossenfelder, is our universe pixelated, physics, physics of consciousness, physics of free will, physics of thought, pixelated space, Sabine, Sabine Hossenfelder
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On kink, advertising, and climate change.
To save our planet, we need to buy fewer things; how might we still be happy?
ad culture, adventure, advertising, advertising culture, affirmative consent, anti-capitalism, Aronowitz, Bad Sex, Bartolomeo Manfredi, BDSM, buy fewer things, buy less, capitalism, Catherine M Roach, Catherine Roach, Clayton Cubitt, climate change, climate crisis, climate destabilization, climate justice, commercial advertising, connection, consent, consumerism, culture, Cupid Chastised, environmentalism, erotic, erotic art, erotic massage, erotica, Escape Into Meaning, ethical nonmonogamy, ethical polyamory, ethics, Evan Puschak, exploration, fulfillment, global warming, Good Sex, happiness, hedonism, human connection, human sexuality, Hysterical Literature, I'll Read What She's Reading, If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal, Jerry Seinfeld, joy, Justin Gregg, kink, kinky, materialism, morality, Nona Willis Aronowitz, nonmonogamy, normal, normalize, pleasure, Pleasure Activism, polyamory, purchasing, reduce consumerism, reduce consumption, relationships, responsible hedonism, romance, sex, sexual desire, sexual exploration, sexual fulfillment, sexual relationships, sexuality, subverted sexual desire, Toni Bentley
Frank Brown Cloud 