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Considerations on Procreation
Not having kids – is it like drinking unicorn blood, in that you’ll lead a cursed life, a half-life?
How The Woman Got Her Period (“The endometrium seals off our main blood supply from the newly implanted embryo. The growing placenta literally burrows through this layer, rips into arterial walls and re-wires them to channel blood straight to the hungry embryo. It delves deep into the surrounding tissues, razes them and pumps the arteries full of hormones so they expand into the space created. It paralyzes these arteries so the mother cannot even constrict them. What this means is that the growing fetus now has direct, unrestricted access to its mother’s blood supply. It can manufacture hormones and use them to manipulate her.”)
Steven said something about people living today don’t have great lives compared to people of the past. He couldn’t find a link to this in particular, but it seems related to Antinatalism.
The monetary value of human life by US agency, and calculating the value of future lives.
Survey of what age of child-death makes people the most sad.
Robin Hanson on Lots of People Now vs Very Few People For A Long Time, in four parts: Us v Them, Allies, Genocide, and Personal.
Turkheimer’s Three Laws of Behavior Genetics
Eneasz was wrong – only 8% of asian men are descended from Genghis Khan
Bryan Caplan’s book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think
Paul Bloom book on kid’s life outcomes being most gene-driven, so don’t sweat parenting too much. He said this one of the times he was on the Sam Harris Podcast. (Here or here)
John Hodgman’s book of lies <3
We haven’t been able to track down the story on the mansion in California where single parents and their children live together, but it probably exists.
Related: A multi-generational intentional community supporting foster/adoptive families.
Hand-painted masterpieces, recreated by the thousands, in Dafen – China’s Oil Painting Village.
Steven said something about a survey of skeptics offered a hypothetical $10,000 to exchange your wedding ring for a duplicate. He couldn’t find the link, but he’s pretty sure Massimo Pigliucci was talking about it at TAM 8. (Here’s his powerpoint from the talk. Either I’m misremembering or he talked about it during QA).
RadioLab Episode on Triage (aka Killing Old Ladies)
Please don’t support tiger cub petting or their use in entertainment. Siegfried and Roy‘s tigers are dangerously inbred. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums statement against breeding white tigers. – Katrina
Do NOT firebomb you local RNC office (or any other place for that matter)
Good article on the annual Turing Test Competition. The Most Human Human is a book on the same. Official site of the Loebner Prize here.
Hey guys, I love the podcast ! Keep up the amazing work !! My question is, is there any chance at all of selling t shirts ?? I would gladly purchase and wear the hell out of one !!
Hey Andrew! Thanks for the kind words!
We do not have any merchandising planned for the immediate future, but anything is possible. If we ever do, we’ll be sure to announce it on the show. 🙂
– Steven
I’ve sold t-shirts before! Kind of. Mostly I just sent them to people without receiving any payment. It’s not that tough. Might be a fun project! Thank you for the suggestion.
-Katrina
I would gladly pay you guys in exchange for fine wares and apparel ! No worries there, I’ll be awaiting the announcement !
Dear all,
love your podcast, keep it up! I just think the relation between the podcast itself and the listener feedback is not right. Please more podcast, less feedback, or just more podcast 😀
Dear Katrina,
i’m currently pregnant for the first time (planning on having two) and luckily my best friend is pregnant too. Our Children are expected only a week apart, so we call them our twins, even though they are not related to each other. We recently signed the contract on a house we are going to share with our husbands. So we cant tell you about our experience yet, but at least you know another case of family-sharing now. There is no polyamory going on (yet?), we are just two close couples wanting to share the load of raising children on more then two shoulders. If your interested in getting an update on how its working out after the kids are born feel free to contact me.
On the point of being pregnant itself, i would gladly switch being pregnant with my husband if that was medically possible, even thought i’m blessed with only few symptoms yet and have no complications. From a curious perspective it is interesting to actually feel different, and after having a very emotional period ( i could not watch the news for a week without crying…) i do understand emotional people better now, but i could have also experienced that by watching my husband going through pregnancy. I would gladly give up the feeling of being tired all the time, everything being a bit more exhausting and not fitting in my trousers soon, but as long as it cant be changed i gladly endure it for getting a child. There are probably worst things to come… and hopefully a lot of great things too.
Ps: I’m german, so sorry if my grammar or spelling is wrong, and sorry for you new president…
Mahlzahn,
I’m sorry about the President-elect, too. So sorry. I’m apprehensive about the changes the Trump administration may bring in the US and elsewhere in the world.
I would love to hear about how it goes once the babies are born! The other co-housing person I mentioned is struggling with her new home life. She says that it is hectic and that, surprisingly, most of the issues are with scheduling. I wasn’t able to ask her for details, and I don’t know the number of kids except that it is more than two.
My pregnancy bravado is… tenuous. As interesting as it is, pain and sickness are 🙁
If you want to talk more privately, let me know. I appear to have access to the email address you used for the post.
-Katrina
Dear Katrina,
the kids will be born around May. If you have any questions before than or want to talk about it more you can sure use my email address.
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