Critical Nonsense – Details, episodes & analysis

What's the best way to get sick as an adult? 

This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about historically un-sick parents, hyper-individualistic cultures, COVID, community health, personal comfort vs. social responsibility, and rest. They don’t talk about Mudhoney. 

references 

• Los Angeles Disaster Support Masterlist 
• Mother Jones: Wildfire Smog Is Deadly—But LA’s Covid Mask Organizers Have It Covered 
• Reddit: How Sick Day Culture Differs Around the World 
• Parenting in an Individualistic Culture with a Collectivistic Cultural Background: The Case of Turkish Immigrant Families with Toddlers in the Netherlands 
• Eisenhower Matrix 
• If I send you this, it means I'm not going. 

What's to come in 2025? 

This week, Wild Prognostications returns! Jess, Aaron, and Joey make their predictions for the new year, discussing micro-social media [3:30], platform madness [6:52], nihilistic design [13:10], weaponized compliance [18:32], graphic realism pivoting to novel gameplay [24:05], dressing up [30:38], blockbuster novels [33:15], and a runaway AI crisis [36:56]. They don’t talk about supervillain Daniel Dumile. 

references 

• The Atlantic: We’re All in ‘Dark Mode’ Now 
• Unreal Engine 
• Hazelight Studios 
• Techradar: Nintendo Switch 2: what we know about the next-generation system so far 
• The New York Times: Rebecca Yarros’s ‘Onyx Storm’ Is the Fastest-Selling Adult Novel in 20 Years 
• A Good Day To Die Hard 
• The Mitchells vs. The Machines 
• The 2024 CrowdStruke outages 
• Vulture: The Brutalist Is Half of a Great Movie 
• "Missing" by Everything But the Girl 

What varietal of mind wine are your grapes lately? 

This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about pattern breaking, the restorative power of boredom, bird brains, pajama day, the productivity mindset, and seizing rest. They don’t talk about when Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. 

references 

• Feng Shui Modern by Cliff Tan 
• Boggle 
• Five Senses Exercise 
• How to use 4-7-8 breathing for anxiety 
• Yahtzee 

Why are we so obsessed with trying to live forever? 

This week, special guest Chandler Saunders joins Jess and Joey to talk about adult superlatives, aging, the soul, compounding experience, afterlife FOMO, and aging reversal. They don’t talk about Irene Cara. 

references 

• Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained 
• Ray Kurzweil 
• Ship of Theseus 
• Fermi paradox 
• Spin by Robert Charles Wilson 
• Kardashev scale 
• Telomere 
• Dr. David Sinclair 

What is it about certain settings that just piss us off? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about Maggie Rogers, live concerts, the unflustered mom, road rage, cycling, and liminality. They don’t talk about mosh pits. 

references 

• Maggie Rogers 
• The Unflustered Mom: How Understanding the Five Anxiety Styles Transforms the Way We Parent, Partner, Live, and Love by Amber Trueblood 
• This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace 
• liminality 
• Boom 

Bonus episode: A takeover! Kristy shares a recent edition from SYLVAIN’s Progress Report newsletter: The State of Youth: A New Paradigm for Growing Up, written by Chief Strategy Officer Chris Konya.

For more from SYLVAIN's Progress Report, see progressbysylvain.co.

What's the best way to unlock a sense of financial security in all of us? 

This week, Aaron, Joey, and Jess talk about voting, the economy, financial insecurity, the post-scarcity world, unequal distribution, and intergenerational trauma. They don’t talk about A$AP Rocky. 

references 

• Werewolf Bar Mitzvah 
• The Ballad of the Witches' Road (Agatha Through Time Version) 
• Pascal's wager 
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 
• Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE): How It Works 
• r/Fire 
• Run's House 

What happens when your mind changes? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about nuclear power, Three Mile Island, solar power, the Overton window, abortion, and tokamaks. They don’t talk about Eddie Kendricks. 

references 

• Hemingway on bankruptcy 
• The Three Mile Island accident 
• Overton window 
• Tokamaks 

What do we do about power distance? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about organizational hierarchy, Geert Hofstede, authoratative leadership, omakase, decision-making, and Mr. Oizo. They don’t talk about Flat Stanley. 

references 

• IF 
• This is 40 
• Mark Menjívar's "Refrigerators" 
• Geert Hofstede's 6-D model of national culture 
• Mr. Oizo's "Flat Beat" 
• Mr. Oizo aka Quentin Dupieux 

How many things are we surrounded by that have use cases that we're not thinking about? 

This week, Joey and Jess talk about Ozempic, Cialis, blockchain, invention, solar panels, and pessimism vs. optimism. They don’t talk about chainsaws. 

references 

• Semaglutide (Ozempic) 
• Tadalafil (Cialis)