We experience our emotions as instantaneous reactions to the world around us, but what if fear, happiness, & anxiety aren’t the result of dedicated, hardwired circuits in our brains? The Theory of Constructed Emotion suggests an alternate explanation. https://youtu.be/AZrqJiHg38M

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201. Theory of Constructed Emotion

7 years, 200 episodes - it's been a hell of a ride.

200. Retrospective

If you're currently worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong: welcome to the club! Thankfully, engineers have been fretting about catastrophe for a long time, & have a useful tool to do it productively: FMEA.

199. FMEA – Dodging Disaster

Many struggle with the seemingly inconsistent & slippery nature of morality - do moral facts exist? What are they? How can we verify them? Pragmatists sidestep many of these issues by bailing on the whole "truth" thing and asking instead: what *works?*

198. Pragmatic Ethics

"Humans evolved big brains to be better problem-solvers." is a popular notion, but it has some conspicuous holes. Evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich has an alternate hypothesis: what if we're evolved to be culture machines?

197. Cultural Evolution Theory

Medical residents & interns work absurd hours in high-stress environments with little time off for comparatively low wages. When they have nothing left to give, it's called "burnout." We should call it what it is: abuse.

196. “Burnout” is Abuse

“Strong Opinions, Weakly Held” is a well-known mantra in tech, intended to quickly guide teams to reasonable predictions. But many have beef with SOWH - might there be a better method?

195. Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

Why is your door's latch right next to the handle? Why do you push on someone's back to help them swing, rather than on the swing's chains? Engineers & architects have an answer: load paths!

194. Load Path Analysis

Occam's Razor urges us not to multiply entities beyond necessity - it seems like a decent rule, but *why* does it work? And what should we do when it doesn't?

193. Honing Occam’s Razor

How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? Philosophers: "Well...it depends."

186. Natural Kinds

People are preparing for the worst of COVID-19, & it's certainly yet to come, but when so much is uncertain, what's the proper amount of prepping one should do? (Hint: It involves washing your hands a bit more than usual.)

184. Disaster Preparedness

Research, Experimentation, Analysis. It's a simple rhythm, but it's amazing how often someone will forget one of the beats & waste time instead of making progress on solving the problem.

192. Three Modes of Inquiry

Programmers routinely "refactor" code, clarifying its purpose & reorganizing its structure without changing how it works. What else can be refactored, I wonder? -Links for the Curious- http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~wgg/Abstracts/gristhesis.pdf http://www.laputan.org/pub/papers/opdyke-thesis.pdf http://wiki.c2.com/?WhatIsRefactoring http://wiki.c2.com/?DocumentRefactoring http://wiki.c2.com/?RefactorMercilessly https://proxy.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiRefactoringSummary http://wiki.c2.com/?CircularRefactoring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-CTkbHnpNQ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/05/31/the-art-of-refactored-perception/

191. Refactoring the Real World

2 out of 10 people who read this will watch this episode. 1 in 20 subscribers will watch it. ...I wonder how many subscribers who read it will watch?

189. The Reference Class Problem

Calling for more nuance in sociological theories *seems* unambiguously good, but what if - hear me out here - f@#$ it.

187. F@#$ Nuance

A show about things that tickle your brain.

hubhopper

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