human evolution
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On perspective.
If we didn’t believe that the passage of time allows us to make a better world, then why would we try?
Book of Shem, Christianity, climate change, climate destabilization, club-winged manakins, cycles of time, cyclical time, David Kishik, death, direction of time, entropy, ents, evolution, evolutionary pressure, extinction, fall of man, global warming, good stewards of the Earth, hebrew, Hinduism, human evolution, improvement, Judaism, male nipples, manakins, mythology, optimism, originalism, perspective, progress, religion, Sapiens, the myth of progress, time, time’s arrow, tree communication, tree people, treents, trees, why do men have nipples, why does time move forward, Yuval Noah Harari
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On attentiveness and names.
Some kids are exceptionally attentive to their environment … but we tell them they have an attention deficit.
abuse, ADD, adderall, addiction, ADHD, amphetamine, attention deficit, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, chemical dependence, chemistry, childhood abuse, childhood development, childhood trauma, crystal meth, crystal structure, deficit, developmental biology, dirty drop, dirty urine, disease names, diversity, doctors, drug chemistry, drug test, drug testing, evolution, Fruitless, Fruity, gene names, genetics, hedgehog, human evolution, hyperawareness, hypervigilance, incarceration, jail, jail poetry, mass incarceration, medicine, methamphetamine, names, naming genes, neurodiversity, parole, Percy Jackson, pharmacology, poetry in jail, probation, protein structure, reading, self-medication, sensitivity, sensitivity to environment, SHH, Sonic Hedgehog, Sonic Hedgehog mutation, stimulants, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, The Lightning Thief, trauma, urine screen, War on Drugs
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On nature.
Nature heals, but we yank the world away from people in need.
boaters, boats, cell block, concrete, contraband, domestic violence, drug use, evolution, finding a way to survive, forest bathing, Greazy, Grow, growing a tree in jail, heroin, human evolution, human instincts, incarceration, instincts, instinctual behaviors, instinctual urges, jail block, jail boats, jail poetry, life inside jail, mass incarceration, medicine, methamphetamine, nature, nature bathing, nature walks, opiates, our man, Our Man Grows an Orange Tree, plants, poem, poetry, prison poetry, stress, teaching poetry, teaching poetry in jail, withdrawal
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On the dangers of reading.
When my kid reads stuff she can’t quite understand, she only hurts herself. Others cause more harm. Please, vaccinate your child.
45, altering children’s literature, anxiety, books, breast milk, breastfeeding, Calvin and Hobbes, censoring children’s books, censoring children’s literature, censorship, children in human evolution, comics, conspiracy theory, cultivating a child’s reading habits, curating a child’s reading habits, death of a child, disease, disease burden, do vaccines cause autism, do vaccines work, do you like my hat, Donald Trump, Eula Biss, evolution, fatherhood, flu, flu vaccine, Fox Is Famous, Fox on the Job, gender stereotypes, get your child vaccinated, Go Dog Go, growth mindset, H1N1, herd immunity, human evolution, independent reading, James Marshall, kids’ books, learning to read too early, measles, milk, Mutts, Olivia Dahl, On Immunity, open communication, parental censorship, parenting, Patrick McDonnell, preventable death, preventable illness, raising children, Raquel D’Apice, reading, reading too early, research journals, Roald Dahl, science, science deniers, scientific discourse, scientific literacy, scientists, stereotypes, teaching children to read, too young for independent reading, undervaccination, unvaccinated children, vaccination, vaccine efficacy, vaccines, vaccines don’t cause autism, when a child starts reading
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On ‘The Theft of Fire.’
Stories are powerful things. A world in which workers are brought into a country as farmhands is very different from one in which barbaric kidnappers torture their victims to extract labor. A world in which death panels ration healthcare is different from one in which taxpayers preferentially fund effective medical care. You’ll feel better about…
AI, angry gods, comparative mythology, death panels, description of slavery, discovery of fire, discovery of the atom bomb, essay about fire myths, essay about the origin of fire, evolution of fire use, Fire, fire myths, fire myths in human evolution, gratitude practice, history textbooks, human evolution, ideology, invention of fire, invention of the atom bomb, Jury S. Judge, medical rationing, modern mythology, mythology, mythology of the atom bomb, myths of the atom bomb, Palaver, poem, poetry, Robert Oppenheimer, Rosalind Franklin, stealing fire from the gods, storytelling, the discovery of fire, The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Theft of Fire, thermodynamics, ways we describe the world
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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 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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On animals that speak, including humans.
Tom Wolfe & Noam Chomsky both claim that no other animals are capable of anything like human speech … while scientists are finally learning to listen.
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On government intrusion and addiction.
To beat the opiate epidemic, we need strong communities. But prosecutors’ reliance on police informants destroys communities.
AA, addiction, Akhil Reed Amar, ants on the melon, Bill of Rights, constitution, Cor Urbis, creative writing, Daniel Dennett, death before dishonor, economics, emotion, evolution of emotion, exclusionary rule, FBI, Fourth Amendment, freedom of religion, game theory, Homo economicus, human evolution, jailhouse tattoos, Jeremy Waldron, mandatory minimums, mass incarceration, mosque, NA, opiate epidemic, poetry, poetry in jail, police, police informants, policing, prison, prisoners’ dilemma, privacy, protection, rats, recovery, repeated prisoners’ dilemma, rights, search, signaling, snooping, teaching writing in jail, tip, Virginia Adair, War on Drugs
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On fairness (and how we treat the utility monster).
How do you measure someone’s capacity for joy? And what does that say about our opiate epidemic?
animal welfare, Betham, competetive equilibrium, distribution of resources, distribution of wealth, economics, equality, evolution, fairness, heroin, heroin epidemic, human evolution, mass incarceration, Milton Friedman, moral philosophy, natural selection, negative externalities, opiate abuse, opiate epidemic, opportunity, Pareto optimal, Pareto optimality, political philosophy, survival of the fittest, tax policy, utilitarian, utilitarianism, utility monster, utility theory, War on Drugs
Frank Brown Cloud 