Full Goon
A new understanding of "wilderness retreats," the original essayist, enjoy a little self help in the new year, and more podcasts and links to make you think.
Welcome to Hurt Your Brain #195, the place to get podcasts and links that will make you think, and which USUALLY hits your inbox every other Sunday.
Nobody wants to read (or more importantly, write) a newsletter on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve (the previous two Sundays), so here we are a month later!
My main podcast resolution this year is to get nerdy with it. I want to listen to more science, history, philosophy, etc type stuff. Any ideas? Also, I’d like to reformat the newsletter with a fresh coat of paint at some point. If you see that happen, then you know I really have my shit together for 2024.
Let’s jump into some fresh recommendations for the new year.
PODCAST RECOMMENDATIONS
The Big Idea: “Gooned is a podcast about the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI), a network of profit-incentivized behavior modification facilities for youth, ranging from wilderness programs to therapeutic boarding schools, whose predatory tactics capitalize on families in crisis and victimize hundreds of thousands of children and teens every year.”
This is a new indie show from Emma Lehman.
The first and second episode were eye-opening and I look forward to checking out the rest of this series. It’s a great investigational show and is pretty wild.
Being “gooned” is basically being kidnapped from your home to be brought to something like a wilderness program.
Each episode has original artwork by Sam Doe, who is a survivor and interviewed on the show.
Past Present Future: History of Ideas 1 – Montaigne
The Big Idea: Montaigne invented the essay, and it turns out he was really good at this thing he invented. I quite enjoyed the presentation and format of this show.
With this episode, Past Present Future kicked off their own version of the 12 days of Christmas with their 12 days of ideas (12 essay writers). The full slate looks great and my goal is to get to all of them.
This whole series is exactly what I needed to kick off the year and help with my above mentioned podcast goal for 2024.
Found via Podcast Review.
The Chase Jarvis Live Show: 10x Your Life – A Strategy for Impossible Goals with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
The Big Idea: Think about who you want your future self to be and use that as a guide on how to view your present self. Also, your past isn’t really fixed, but also changes based on how you view your present and future self (because of the nature of how our memory works).
I’m not ashamed to admit that I love injecting self helpy type interviews into my podcast queue every so often. I find they can be motivating in general, even if you don’t jive with the specifics. This is one of those episodes that felt really good to start the new year with. Makes you want to change things up!
Found via Janis Ozolins ideas newsletter that is full of visuals.
The Economics of Everyday Things: Used Hotel Soaps
The Big Idea: Believe it or not, used hotel soap doesn’t just go straight to the landfill. It sometimes finds a second life from a non-profit that help turn them into a multi-colored amalgamation of all different brands melted together.
FROM THE ARCHIVE (Appeared in Hurt Your Brain #134)
Gastropod: You’re Wrong About Prohibition
At first I assumed this was a collaboration with the You’re Wrong About podcast, but it is not. Really good though!
A fascinating walk-through of why the Russian prohibition, as well as the US prohibition that followed shortly after, were anything but a simple dynamic between straight-laced people in power and people who like to party.
Both movements were much more progressive in their roots than you would assume.
PODCAST LINKS
What’s the most unique podcast you’ve listened to, that you would recommend people try? A Reddit thread with some great recommendations.
OTHER LINKS TO MAKE YOU THINK
100 Things That Made Austin Kleon’s Year. I started to simply skim this and then ended up going back and reading all of it. I like the low pressure way this allows putting thoughts together. I’m working on a similar list for podcasting.
The moral injury of having your work enshittified. Enshittification is something that once you know what it is, you see everyone on the internet.
Tetris Rabbit Hole. Follow me down my rabbit hole path about a flurry of Tetris news (for real lol it’s worth it). John Green posted this to Threads about two people fully “beating” Tetris within a week of each other (had never been done). Which links to this video of the second guy (I time stamped about 30 seconds before the “win.”). Then I wanted to see how the first person was able to do it (a 13 year old kid it turns out), and I found this great video explaining the context (first couple minutes does the trick). Then I wanted to know more about the weird NES controller technique they invented and found this explainer. Who knew the world of Tetris has been busy innovating!
FOR FUN
Start your year properly with some disappointing affirmations.
When your cat finds the genie.
Alright that’s all for today. Please like or comment (or reply) if you want to share any comments. See you next time.
Thanks for sharing about Gooned -- I'm going to check it out.