Pineal Express

In the two years since Pineal Express has been running, we, its operators, have sought to raise awareness about the major problems facing our species. Such problems include climate change, the risk of technological dystopia, and the latest rise of the authoritarian far-right worldwide. These problems have been worsened by the United States. But the United States also has the potential to ameliorate them, provided that its government is functional enough to do so. For that reason, among others, it is important that the United States government not fall into chronic stagnation, dysfunction, or in the extreme case: collapse or despotism. Presently, there are numerous structural weaknesses which threaten the efficacy and long term health of the United States government. Among these weaknesses is the electoral college, which has contradicted the popular vote in the election of two out of the last three presidents in their first terms. For demographic reasons and electoral vote apportionments over time, that kind

Blockchain is a kind of tamper resistant digital ledger. The ledger stores data in groupings called "blocks." What data gets stored in the blocks depends on what the blockchain is being used for (whether it's to transfer digital currency, or to store and distribute other transaction information like real estate or medical records, and so on). Also stored in the blocks is an encrypted digital fingerprint, or hash, that identifies the block and what data is inside it. Each newly generated block also contains the previously generated block's digital fingerprint such that the blocks can be sequentially linked or "chained" together, hence the term "blockchain." Tampering with the data inside any block within the chain is therefore difficult, in part because such tampering would constitute an alteration of the block's digital fingerprint, thereby risking the unlinking of the block and the breaking of the chain. One major benefit of blockchain is that the generation, or "mining" of such blocks and their distribu

In Episode 10 of Pineal Express, we spoke with Binghamton University Philosopher Eric Dietrich about consciousness, skeptic philosophy, and paradoxes. If you haven't already listened to it, we recommend you go back and listen to Episode 10 before listening to this one. In this episode, we invited Eric Dietrich back to discuss his book Excellent Beauty: The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of the World. In the book, Dietrich argues that religious belief is widespread across the human species because it has an evolutionary origin. He also argues that religious belief is false and largely destructive in modern times. Dietrich suggests that people could satisfy their need for wonder and awe not through religion, but rather by embracing the beautifully perplexing scientific mysteries. Dietrich calls these mysteries "Excellent Beauties"; they include consciousness, infinity, true-contradictions, and quantum mechanics, among others.

This is a preview of a full discussion episode, available for our patrons on patreon.com/pinealexpress : Jim and I (Julian) argue about the dystopian applications of CRISPR, where we use the term "CRISPR" as a shorthand for "Next Generation Gene Editing built upon current CRISPR technology." We also draw some comparisons to Star Trek, including Star Trek's genetically augmented villain "Kahn". We also mention Star Trek series DS9 and TNG.

Hey listeners, Julian here. Jim and I, along with two friends of the show, produced a 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Draft episode for our Patrons on patreon.com/PinealExpress This is a preview of that draft, during which the four of us took the opportunity to rag on former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine, after I drafted him for my team in the fourth round. Special thanks to friends of the show Delia Blackman of the podcast Blow Jam and Carinne Vizvary for their participation in the draft. Get the full draft episode by becoming a Patron of Pineal Express.

Get the Full Episode on our Patreon Page: www.patreon.com/pinealexpress Full Episode Description: Hey, everybody, Julian here: In the discussion episode I talk about how my work as a disability analyst for the Social Security Administration and as a technician in an acute psychiatric hospital informed my views about social welfare programs like Social Security Disability Insurance, and a possible Medicare-for-all type system. Also, Jim and I discuss the perniciousness of disability stigma and how that stigma serves capitalism by denigrating people who aren't selling their labor.