iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

46 | Are we thinking about stress the wrong way? Nida Ali joins to talk about autonomic and endocrine stress responses, their relationship to the subjective experience of stress, gender differences, and long term impacts of both psychological and physiological stress. youtu.be/Z78iZeWNq-8

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46 | Are we thinking about stress the wrong way?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Ola Ali joins the podcast to chat about modeling the legal journey of persons who migrate across borders. We unpack the dynamics of migration, how long it takes to gain legal stability in a new country, and the differences in the legal journey based on nationality. www.youtube.com/watch?v=P50R...

youtube.com

45 | Human migration as a complex system

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Corruption is difficult to track, but there are also plenty of folks working hard to build better tools for exposing it. Irene Tello Arista joins to chat about the systemic pressures that facilitate corruption and what is being done about it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZU...

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10 | Anticipating systemic corruption

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

On the evolution of cooperation: in 2024 Nikhil Chaudhary joined to chat about everything from the formation of the self, to collaboration between human beings throughout history, societal structures, cultural narratives, and a whole bunch of other fun tangents. www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGte...

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5 | How did cooperation evolve?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Was so much fun having @neilcohn.bsky.social on the podcast last year and diving into his work. Excited to check out the book! youtu.be/ibfyl1VtNFM?...

youtu.be

26 | How does the brain understand comic books?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Should democrats vote in autocratic elections? Zoltan Miklosi discusses the political obligations of democrats who live under autocratic regimes, exploring the consequences both of voting despite the odds and of refusing to participate in protest. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpVb...

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44 | Voting under autocracies

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Niraj Kushwaha joins the podcast to talk about modeling instances of armed conflict using fine grained datasets to better understand the emergence of conflicts and how they might be related. We also chat about statistical physics and its broader applications. youtu.be/KFn1Bc4iqbQ?...

youtu.be

43 | What makes a war?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

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-...

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4 | Can anything ever really be fair?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

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...

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42 | Who deserves human rights?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

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?...

youtu.be

41 | Gangs providing services

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

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?...

youtu.be

40 | Where does morality come from?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

@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

youtu.be

39 | How to make a curious mind

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

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

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

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...

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38 | How do we change norms?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

"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

authoritarian-stack.info

The Authoritarian Stack

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

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

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.com

37 | Why do people disagree?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

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_...

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36 | What makes us engage with content?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

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

youtube.com

35 | Why do some conflicts become violent?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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?

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

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.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Do not let Gavin Newsom redraw California's maps. All of a sudden the party that was campaigning on democracy is eager to suspend it. Newsom and Pritzker are asserting that the preservation of democratic values is naive, and accusing their detractors as attempting to take the moral high ground. 🧵

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

New paper! Takeaways: Social goals modulate the efficiency of information search in children and adults. The motivation to obtain social rewards can outweigh the drive for accuracy. The valuation of information is context-dependent and emerges in childhood. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Motivated information search: Context-dependent efficiency in children and adults

While the motivation to gather accurate information emerges early in childhood, social motivations can modulate the drive for accuracy. Across two stu…

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

How do infants treat information they come across? I sit down with Velisar Manea to chat about how the infant mind develops, the types of biases evolution might have built in, and how they manage to be so adaptive. www.youtube.com/watch?v=etGL...

youtube.com

34 | How do infants process information?

YouTube video by The Monkey Dance

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

8 cont. Society has enough to provide for everyone, but some lack the will to make that happen and the rest of us lack the ability to mobilize. That's what we need to change. The AI cognitive decline panic is the wrong road.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

8. AI is not some mystical force, it's a corporate enterprise. Raises taxes on corporations and the ultrarich, and place restrictions on industries, and the problem is mitigated.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

7. Why? Because it eliminates the bullshit jobs. It does the mind numbing busy work that is assigned to people in their struggle for livelihood. Ultimately, if it's accurate and reliable, it opens up the world in the same way the internet did: allowing people to explore and learn at their own pace.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

6 cont. However, if we manage at some point to build LLMs ethically, in ways that don't plagiarize, invent information, and actively ruin the planet and deny individuals the basic human rights of clean water, air, and a stable climate, then we'll be better for it.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

6. I'm not an avid supporter of LLMs. They're horrible for the environment and they aren't yet accurate enough to be reliable. They poison our water and our air because they use fossil fuels and fresh water for cooling.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

5 cont. They place some economic value on something they don't understand or overlook, namely cognitive capacity, and try to frame it as a cause for general concern. People are losing their livelihoods, that is the serious problem. The jobs they are losing are not the problem.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

5. This all feeds into a bullshit overarching capitalist narrative. These arguments are not worried about people finding fulfillment and purpose, they're not worried about people discovering the joy of knowledge, they're not worried about mental health. What they want is efficiency and productivity.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

4 cont. An essay will never accomplish this because the process of generating them has always been opaque. I understand people won't like this because it's more demanding even though what they're calling for is busy work that is more demanding.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

4. What we need is to take the time to have students integrate the information, that means actually testing children verbally, not on information but on concepts. Information requires memorization, explanation of concepts and processes requires understanding.

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Ohan Hominis @ohan.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

3. AI hasn't generated cognitive decline, bullshit jobs have done that for decades. What AI does is expose the uselessness of an education system based on nonsense indicators and jobs built around content that is inherently without value.

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