Serious Inquiries Only

Here's Part 2 of our deep dive into neural implants with Dr. Jenessa Seymour! The brain is still completely amazing, and so are the folks who are creating innovative technology to help people do things that have been otherwise out of reach. And then there's Elon.

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We've got an expert to take us through it! Dr. Jenessa Seymour is a former neuroscientist currently working in disability rights and she has looked through the history of neural implant efforts to investigate Elon's Neuralink claims. Just how full of it is he? And how in the world does any of this even work? What is clear is that the brain is insanely amazing.

There's so much to talk about that this ended up being a two-parter!

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Author and journalist Katherine Stewart joins us today to discuss her reporting on religious nationalism, as well as the organization and structure behind these efforts, and what we can do in the face of it all.

Be sure to check out the recent film God and Country which is based on her 2020 book, The Power Worshippers!

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I'm joined by Trace and Julian from the podcast, That's Absurd Please Elaborate! It's an incredibly fun and cool science show where they take questions that might seem weird or crazy but answer them using science! They're here to talk science communication, and what some of their favorite questions they've answered have been. Could vampires evolve through natural processes? Could x-rays cook soup? Could we teach aliens left and right?

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Elon Musk accidentally buying Twitter and then ruining it is a story so absurd and wild that someone should write a book about it. Lucky for us, Zoë Schiffer has! It's called Extremely Hardcore, and it's extremely good! She joins us to discuss the book.

Be sure to buy Zoë's book, Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk's Twitter! You can also follow Zoë's reporting on Platformer.

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Radley Balko is the guest today as we discuss the Right's efforts to retcon George Floyd's murder and Derek Chauvin's responsibility in a "documentary" from Alpha News, The Fall of Minneapolis. We walk through some of the debunks together, and chat about the broader systemic circumstances that lead for calls of police reform. Radley has done an absolutely incredible series covering this in meticulous detail on his Substack (linked below as well). Be sure to check it out and subscribe; supporting independent journalism is critical!

The retconning of George Floyd

Part 1 - Part 2 - Interim Update/Response to Coleman Hughes - Part 3

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Senator Bernie Sanders introduced Senate Bill 3947 to change the standard 40-hour workweek to 32 hours with no loss in pay and held a hearing on March 14th. Naturally the right doesn't love this. But what do the studies say? And where did the 40-hour week even come from? SeriousPod colleague Lydia Smith explains how this particular issue highlights ways in which we can combat rhetoric from the right and move towards something that is, on every metric, better than what we have now.

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It feels like this comes up precisely every 4 years, but once again I find myself having to point out that the way to make things better isn't to make them worse. That math just doesn't work. But what should we do? A campaign to vote "Uncommitted" for the Democratic Primary Election went viral. Lydia Smith from Where There's Woke joins as we discuss what this movement is, what kind of impact it could have, and whether or not a vote can be a "message".

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We're focusing in on some sci-fi with Dr. Bryan Gillis, astrophysicist to the stars! We take you through one of Ted Chiang's incredible short stories, Exhalation, and Dr. Gillis teaches us about entropy and the Laws of Thermodynamics. What is the heat death of the universe? Can we avoid it by turning up the AC a bit or are we just plain effed? Find out!

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CW: Discussion of suicide; please skip this episode if it's better for your mental health

After a long hiatus, Dr. Alan Smerbeck AKA Stormy Decisis is back to cover a topic we've been talking about discussing for a while. What does the research tell us is the responsible way to cover death by suicide? What kind of impact can the media have on the greater population if they get it wrong? And how many different ways did 13 Reasons Why completely screw up?

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