Hard Knox with Amanda Knox

Jon Ronson is a journalist who has spent decades walking into the strangest corners of human behavior to understand what’s really going on (Men Who Stare at Goats, and his current book, The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men). Amanda and Jon dig into the purpose crisis, exploring why men tend to fold in on themselves while women reach out to each other. Then they get into why rage pays online and nuance doesn’t, and why Jon calls ChatGPT a psychopath. For an antidote, they turn to the Great British Bake Off, Bluey, and the moment a gay pastor with AIDS went on Tammy Faye Bakker’s show.

Content note: this episode includes discussion of suicide.

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Dr. Ethan Russo is a neurologist and psychopharmacology researcher, who in the medical community, is a self-described “salmon upstream against the current.” After a transformative experience with natural medicine in the Peruvian rainforest, the pharmacologist now spearheads cannabis and psychedelic research in an effort to treat the untreatable.

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What happens when who you are becomes the evidence against you? Valena Beety says that three-quarters of exonerated women were convicted of crimes that never happened, and that the same machinery now targets pregnant women, mothers, and queer families. Valena digs into junk science, false confessions, the "bad woman" trial, and the uncomfortable question of who gets to be considered a worthy innocent.

Find out more about her book, Pink Crime, at valenabeetyjd.com

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Despite the best efforts of healthcare professionals, medical errors are responsible for tens of thousands of annual deaths. Today, Richard Pallardy, a freelance writer from Chicago, tells us the story of the medical odyssey his mother went through in the fall of 2015. 

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Amanda met comedian Jamie Kilstein at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and found an unlikely kindred spirit. Both arrived at Fringe to prove themselves, battle misconceptions, and reclaim their narratives through art. Both know what it's like to have the world decide who you are before you get a chance to speak.

Kilstein was a prominent progressive stand-up comedian and co-host of the political podcast Citizen Radio, with a rising career and appearances at major comedy festivals. In 2015 he was publicly accused of emotional manipulation and infidelity, losing his audience, career, and platform almost overnight.

In this conversation recorded between fringe festival shows, Amanda and Jamie dig into cancellation, community, betrayal, and the terrifying vulnerability of performing your worst moments on stage.

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The emergency room and the ICU are not just emotionally draining and traumatic environments for patients, but for healthcare workers as well. ER doctor Kat Moore tells us how Zen Buddhism is working its way into emergency rooms to improve the wellbeing of both patients and doctors. Learn more about the Contemplative Medicine Fellowship at: https://zencare.org/contemplative-medicine-fellowship/

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When you finally deliver a creative project you've been working on for a long time, how do you cope with the emotional hangover, how do you make space to reflect, and how do you give yourself grace to not have the answers or know what's next? Amanda and Chris reflect the day after the final performance of her sold out run of Cartwheel, her one-woman show, at the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

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What happens when fighting for your life becomes a crime? Why are thousands of women and girls who defend themselves against violence prosecuted as offenders, sometimes for life.

Amanda sits down with journalist Justine van der Leun to discuss her new book Unreasonable Women which investigates "criminalized survival". They dig into the "reasonable man" standard, the believability problem facing survivors, and why the legal system seems built to disbelieve women even when the evidence is overwhelming.

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"Trauma" has become a controversial word in the current culture wars. It's a point of pride for some, an excuse for others. But trauma is undoubtedly real, and it effects the body. Dr. Christy Gibson, author of The Modern Trauma Toolkit, has studied the neurophysiological effects of trauma and how we can alter the body's reflexive responses to find post-traumatic growth.

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What if a quiz show could fix America's political divide? Amanda talks with Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene about the neuroscience behind moral decision-making, why people don't donate to the charities that do the most good even when they want to, and how a simple cooperative quiz game is measurably reducing animosity between Republicans and Democrats.

Amanda and Joshua also dig into effective altruism without the guilt trip, why dialogue alone often fails to bridge divides, and Joshua's own surprising evolution on religion and meditation.

Added bonus: Listeners can try Joshua's donation-matching platform at givingmultiplier.org/knox to give to a cause you love (Amanda's is The Innocence Center) and a highly effective charity at the same time, with bonus matching funds for Hard Knox listeners.

https://givingmultiplier.org/invite/KNOX

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