Ohan Hominis

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 4 | Can anything ever really be fair?

From the Archive: On Fairness

We sit down with Angarika Deb to chat about the fundamentally relative nature of fairness.

This takes us to notions of equality, equity, and justice, and then to political movements, access to information, and outside options.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=soj-...

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 42 | Who deserves human rights?

Lena Riemer joins the podcast to talk about the legal basis for granting every human being the same fundamental rights, how this applies to cases of migration, and the deliberate erosion of human rights and obfuscation of violations by governments.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=52xE...

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 41 | Gangs providing services

David Cerero Guerra joins to talk about the equilibrium local gangs have reached with the government of Colombia in the city of Medellin.

While the gangs primarily sell drugs, they also step in to provide services like water and electricity to underserved communities. 

youtu.be/JXabli-DJ_Q?...

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 40 | Where does morality come from?

Emese Havadtői joins to talk about the structure and emergence of moral frameworks and whether morality can be understood in terms of behavior. We also chat about how evolution might play a role and what it means to be "good".
Plus @mariafedor.bsky.social joins to co-host.

youtu.be/dYaOz0ILr_M?...

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 39 | How to make a curious mind

@francescopoli.bsky.social joins to talk about the brain, the mind, and the individual differences in curiosity.

We talk about adaptivity, how our experiences shape our relationship to information, dealing with uncertainty, and the importance of a good learning environment.

youtu.be/eVUE-fwRyqg

We're biased not only in our interpretation of information, but also in our gathering of information.

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 38 | How do we change norms?

How do we choose which norms to follow, and how do we change them to build a more equitable society?

Camilo Martinez joins to talk about the coherence of beliefs and the evolution, function, and overturning of norms.

cohost: @pelinkasar.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWXq...

The Authoritarian Stack How Tech Billionaires Are Building a Post-Democratic America — And Why Europe Is Next

"The 'Authoritarian Stack'—a network of firms, funds, and political actors turning core state functions into private platforms. Based on an open-source dataset of over 250 actors, thousands of verified connections, and $45 billion in documented financial flows."

www.authoritarian-stack.info

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 37 | Why do people disagree?

How can we make sense of the variety of beliefs that are prevalent in society?

Peter Steiglechner talks to us modeling belief networks: the importance of including biases related to one's social identity and the groups they belong to, and how to reach consensus.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuyD...

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 36 | What makes us engage with content?

Hannah Metzler joins the podcast to talk about the role of emotions and personal identity when investigating the spread of misinformation, what makes certain beliefs appealing to people, and why negative content seems to be more engaging than positive content.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cE_...

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance 35 | Why do some conflicts become violent?

Barbora Valik came on to talk about the factors that lead to the violent mobilization of resistance movements, particularly as a strategy to call attention to their cause, and what needs to change for the violence to end.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJO7...

For podcast links
www.monkeydancepod.com

So the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were each 15,000 tons
And the largest atomic bomb ever tested was,
And this is crazy,
I mean I'm going to tell you, but
I want you to think about it first. Like,
how much bigger do you think bombs can get?

The USSR was responsible for one third of those.
The United States was responsible for over one half of them.
The rest of the world was responsible for the remaining 15%.
Though that's just 7 countries.
The rest of the 178 signatories have never tested an atomic bomb.
Nor do they have them.

Funny thing,
the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15,000 tons.
Now we can detect ones as small as 500 tons anywhere in the world
which is important because from '45 to '63
over 2,000 atomic bombs were tested.

They all agreed to lookout for anyone breaking the promise to not test.
Thanks to the Test-Ban treaty,
we have one of the largest global collaborations working to monitor nuclear explosions.
Stations all around the world
looking out for the impact of tons of explosive material going off at once.

In 1996 nations all around the world got together and wrote a treaty to not test nuclear weapons anymore.
187 signed the treaty, the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty,
178 of those signatories ratified it into their national law.

And I wonder,
can any of them detect enough people hugging at once?
It seems easier to detect bodies hitting the ground.
Especially hundreds of thousands at a time.

There are also 3 large gravitational wave observatories, looking out for things like the merger of black holes and supernovae.
Two different sets of instruments,
looking for explosions all around the earth
and, somehow, all around the universe.
Both are achievements
but not in the same way.

All around the world there are stations keeping a lookout for the testing of nuclear weapons.
There are 170 seismic monitoring stations, 80 radioactivity stations, 11 hydroaccoustic stations, and 60 infrasound monitoring stations.

I'm not sure if that means our neighbors get a discount on their rent.
Though two things people often tell me about myself
is that I laugh loudly and that I give good hugs.
I hope the laughter is at least pleasant for my neighbors,
I'm not sure if you can hear a hug.

‘We're just tired of playing by the rules:’ Newsom bets 2028 chips on redistricting power play California's governor is tapping into Democrats’ longing for a fight.

Power grab to increase his 2028 chances.
www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

We are going to see the Democratic party increasingly make the case that democracy is flawed. Instead of having a party that we can votes for purely because they are against authoritarianism, we are going to have two authoritarian choices before eventually having no choice at all.

The Democrats saw that democracy wasn't a popular enough idea to win them an election, and so they're ready to give up on it. The two parties have made sure that our democracy has been broken from the beginning, ensuring that they are the only two parties in the game.

Democracy is a way to hedge our bets while engaging in society: we give up some autonomy in governance to be free to do what we want with their own lives. Democracy is pragmatic. To suspend it with the hopes of strengthening it is absurd.

This is not an argument about morality or ethics. Democracy was not created as a system so everybody would feel good about themselves. Democracy was created as a pragmatic means of deciding leaders in a way where everyone had equal stake in the decisions.

The Democrats prefer to increase their own power while holding onto their donors, rather than put forward candidates and policies that are more popular with their constituents. The Democratic establishment, like the Republican establishment, has sold out their own constituency.

We are seeing that the self proclaimed party of democracy is only a party that is interested in maintaining its own power. Democracy is not a system that will survive escalatory authoritarianism by both sides. They make analogies to assert that to not act autocratically in this moment is naive.

Newsom, who already has so much power, will not voluntarily give up a shred of power that has been given to him. Once he has been given the power to choose his own electorate through a gerrymander, he will use it as precedent to do it again the moment he has the opportunity.

We are seeing that democracy itself was never valued. Instead, people seem to want a dictator that believes what they believe. Both parties are gambling on the fact that most people just want to not have to pay attention to politics and would rather have someone they agree with make decisions.

The current political moment is difficult, but the idea that we ought to give either of these people even more power is completely delusional. These are two people who are actively hungry for power and are willing to do whatever they can to secure their chances at gaining as much power as possible.