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On food and willing sacrifice.
Perhaps nothing really wants to be eaten, but in our world, nothing can survive without sacrifice from its parts.
Agni, apoptosis, autotrophs, cancer, consumption, David Shulman, ejaculate, ejaculation, Fire, food, fruit, Ganges, Genesis, gestation, gift, gift economics, God, heterotrophs, Hindu mythology, Hinduism, immolation, King James, libertarian, libertarianism, masturbation, mythology, Onan, Onanism, paterogenesis, reproduction, Robert Goldman, sacrifice, Sally Sutherland Goldman, Sati, semen, sexuality, Shiva, Sita, suicide, tragedy of the commons, unilateral reproduction, Valmiki, Vedic mythology
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On artificial intelligence and solitary confinement.
Just like us, an AI will sometimes make mistakes. But at least we can offer explanations. An algorithm might inscrutably destroy somebody’s life.
administrative detention, AI, algorithm, Anscombe, artificial intelligence, automated image analysis, babies, California, color, confirmation bias, corrections, criminal justice, Department of Corrections, gang, gang crime, Google Researchers Are Learning How Machines, how we learn language, identifying gang activity, image analysis, In a Dark Dark Room, Indiana Prisoners’ Writing Workshop, isolation, jail poetry, language, Learn, learning to speak, learning to talk, linguistics, lockdown, Ludwig Wittgenstein, neural networks, newborns, paradox, Philosophical Investigations, philosophy, poetry, Pouncho, prison poetry, shape, SHU, solitary, solitary confinement, solitary watch, teaching poetry in jail, the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein
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On parenting and short-term memory loss.
Caring for young children wrecks havoc on your brain. I’ve heard it’s temporary. And, to make a better world, more men need to do it.
Abdel Haleem, Abrahamic faiths, Anthropology of Childhood, attention span, banishment, banishment of Sita, Beverly Strassmann, childhood, Christian, Christianity, contract law, David Lancy, developing brains, Dogon, Dorothy Dinnerstein, Draupadi, Draupadi in the gambling hall, early development, Emily Wilson, emotional development, family, fatherhood, feminism, feminist, gambling, Garry Wills, gender equality, gender parity, gossip, inequality, Islam, Jewish, Judaism, Mahabharata, Mary Beard, memory, Mermaid and the Minotaur, misogyny, Muslim, parenting, patriarchy, Penelope, philosophy, polygamy, polygyny, preschool development, Quran, shirking responsibility, Sita, Telemachus, The Odyssey, value, what matters in life, What the Qur’an Meant, What the Quran Meant and Why It Matters, who should parent, Women and Power, women’s work
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On Buddhism, suffering, and Deadpool.
Buddha teaches freedom from suffering. Deadpool teaches us to love who we’ll love and simply endure the suffering that comes with it.
advocacy, attachment, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist mythology, comics, Deadpool, Deadpool’s daughter, depression, endurance, endure, equality, forebearance, freedom from suffering, helping others, If This Is a Man, mass incarceration, meditation, mental health, Mucalinda, mythology, non-attachment, Old Testament, pain, Primo Levi, privilege, regeneration, religion, running, Satan, Siddhartha, snake, snakes, Stuart Woolf, suffering, suicide, teaching in jail, thole, tree of knowledge of good and evil, volunteering
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On smell (again!).
In our polluted world, animals can’t always find their own kind to mate with. Not that all species barriers are good.
assortive mating, CAFO, CAFOs, chimera, choosing mates, choosing romantic partners, continuing evolution, cultural barriers, evolution, fish, heredity, history of violence in the U.S., human evolution, inequality, Loving, Loving v. Virginia, mating, mating based on smell, melanin, miscegenation, parental education, perfume, persistence of inequality, pollution, poverty, racism, romance, scent, skin color, slavery, smell, speciation, species, stick insects, wealth, wealth inequality, Wedekind
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On the death of Thor.
If Thor could meet the white supremacists who praise him now, he’d surely die again of shame.
Aryan, Asatru, Christianity, Else Christensen, fate, feminism, Fenris Wolf, free will, Freya, Freya’s wedding, hate, heathen religions, Icelandic, Jeramy Dodds, Job, KKK, Loki, Midgard Serpent, misogyny, Noah, Norse, Norse gods, Norse mythology, Norse myths, Norse religion, Odin, odinism, Odinist, paganism, poetic devices, Poetic Edda, Prose Edda, racism, Ragnarok, religion, shame, slavery, Thor, Thor’s wedding, Viking, wedding of Thor, white supremacist, white supremacists, white supremacy, Yahweh, ZOG
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On weird spelling.
Conquest, graft, and mispronunciation gave rise to the weird we know and love today.
Alexander Smart, archaic English, Beowulf, Bible, Chaucer, divination, Dutch h, dyslexia, English, English spelling, etymology, ghost, Gutenberg, history of spelling, i before e, King James, monks, Norman conquest, Norman Invasion, OED, Old English, Oxford English Dictionary, professional scribes, reading tea leaves, Shakespeare, spelling, spelling bee, tasseography, tea leaves, typesetters, weird, wierd, William Morris, written language, wurd, wyrd, wyrde
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On loneliness.
It’s well known that loneliness wrecks brains … so why are we imposing it on the people we expect better behavior from?
addiction, animal welfare, biomedical research, coke, cooperation, crime, crime deterrence, Daniel Weary, David Grimm, dendritic growth, evolution, evolution of cooperation, health risks of incarceration, heroin, imposed loneliness, incarceration, isolation, jail, John-Michael Bloomquist, lab animals, lab mouse, laboratory animals, loneliness, loneliness epidemic, mass incarceration, meth, mice, mouse, neuron growth, parole, parole officer, parole violation, pot, probation, punishing defectors, punishment, rehab, rehabilitation, research animals, science, Surgeon General, The Prodigal’s Return, Vivek Murthy, War on Drugs
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On bread.
Bread is pretty amazing. But it shouldn’t be anybody’s *only* therapeutic resource.
A Note of Caution Regarding Sentencing Reform, Adam, Attica, Blood in the Water, bread, bread craft, bread sculpture, cardboard piano, chess set made of bread, cooked food, Demetrius Cunningham, depression, deprivation, ear gauge, Eden, Emily Wilson, Eve, expulsion from Eden, Fire, Freedom Riders, Heather Ann Thompson, Hell is a Very Small Place, history of incarceration, Homer, How to Create Madness in Prison, human mortality, incarceration, jail, jail food, jail meals, jail poetry, Laestrygonia, mass incarceration, netsuke, nothing works, Odysseus, poetry, prison, prison education, prison poetry, prison reform, rehab, rehabilitation, Robert Martinson, Solidarity under Close Confinement, suicide, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, Terry Kupers, The Odyssey, therapy, tree of knowledge of good and evil, tree of life, vegan, veganism, vegetarian, wasted ingenuity, What Works, Yahweh, yeast, yeasted bread
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On automation, William Gaddis, and addiction.
An inefficient world might be a much better place to live.
Agape Agape, AI, artificial intelligence, automation, Brian Alexander, Capital, capitalism, corporate managers, corporate takeover, death of small towns, delivery drone, drug prices, economics, evolutionary inefficiencies, Glass House, greed, heroin, human evolution, inequality, investors, J R, Jeff Bezos, jobs that robots can do, JR, labor economics, labor vs. capital, machine learning, Mark Binelli, meth, people want jobs, people want to work, piano roll, player piano, robot doctors, robot lawyers, robot writers, robotics, robots, robots designed by robots, The Michigan Experiment, unemployment, wealth, who should the stakeholders of a school be, William Gaddis
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Frank Brown Cloud 