The Curious Engineer

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Shane O'Mara

brainpizza.com

Explore the mysteries of your brain and the magic of life by Shane O'Mara, Substack Featured Writer, best-selling author, and Professor of Experimental Brain Research. Book: Talking Heads - The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds. Click to read Shane O'Mara, a Substack publication with

ScienceSociety / politics / economyEssays / personal

’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
261 from 11 Oct 2020 to 30 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (23 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://www.brainpizza.com/feed

2026 17

  1. “Can democracy learn? Your weekend long listen”
  2. A democracy unable to learn cannot endure - podcast
  3. you need lots of good quality sleep
  4. why the past feels so short: it’s a design glitch in memory
  5. online shopping and the trouble with ‘dopamine hits’
  6. Please! Have Your Boarding Pass Ready (or prepare for the wrath of the efficient)
  7. Remembering Eleanor Maguire
  8. Too hot to handle
  9. cognitive warfare: rehearsing for the wrong tomorrow (part 1)
  10. metropolitan city living
  11. antecendents of reinforcement learning, part 2
  12. ‘Cognitive Ecologies’: understanding mutual misunderstanding between polities
  13. the (forgotten) ancestry of reinforcement learning, part 1
  14. civilisations diverging
  15. Cognitive Republic Catch Up
  16. MAGA is an ‘identity-centred’ political form - take it seriously
  17. Beyond Magic Bullets: Alzheimer’s Needs the Right Cocktail and Timing

2025 50

  1. Two books, one theme: the modern state versus the lone operator
  2. five (surprising) ideas from cognitive and social neuroscience
  3. Five years here: post #250!
  4. From 'Neurons to Nations': How Nationalism Feels So Real
  5. From campfire to cortex: storytelling as shared cognition
  6. Reasons for quietude
  7. the tech industry’s flawed model of your brain
  8. parasite, predator, hive: thinking with acid blood
  9. predators
  10. learning styles: a seductive but utterly useless idea
  11. interleaving: the mix-it-up memory method that works
  12. Umwelt
  13. using your memory to strengthen your memory: retrieval practice
  14. the agi dream keeps missing the point
  15. why current ai integrations are so offensively stupid
  16. the puzzle of authority when no one is really in charge
  17. certain and wrong: you can’t enfactify your way out of it
  18. the self as a governance unit
  19. the planning trap: when more means less
  20. unitary presidentialism as a collective cognition design flaw
  21. against civilisational nostalgia: western identity and global cognitive drift
  22. We are all (latent) cosmopolitan globalists
  23. psychological reactance theory: this is why you resist change
  24. ‘a low dishonest decade’
  25. the myth of a fixed personality
  26. walking is fundamentally good for human wellbeing
  27. looking into nostalgia’s mirror: bittersweet, fond-ish, social reflection
  28. Institutions as Robust and Resilient, Dynamic, Human, Time-Travelling, Cognitive Communities
  29. Decoding desire: brain science investigates the cosmetics industry
  30. Catch up service
  31. Exercise is a Universal Cognitive Enhancer: Bridging Gaps in Lifespan Brain Health
  32. miscellany, kind of
  33. Tariffs as 'costly punishment'
  34. Part II: Resisting the Allure of Strongman Politics – Rewiring Our Primal Needs for Democratic Renewal
  35. Part I: Rethinking Leadership – Beyond the Myth of the Strong Leader
  36. short livestream
  37. Interesting reads, March 2025 edition
  38. How institutions think
  39. When power becomes personal (part 2)
  40. The Cognitive Dimensions of Close Reading: Themes and Ideas
  41. Power dynamics of ultra-personalised leadership styles
  42. What we are losing; what we have lost
  43. Authoritarians: Some just want to watch the world burn; others prefer spreadsheets
  44. When power is very personal (part 1)
  45. Live with Shane O'Mara - Discussing Dan Davies fantastic new book 'The Unaccountability Machine'
  46. Livecast with Chris Johns at 9 pm Dublin time/4 pm ET on Monday the 27th Jan
  47. Base case for a democratic resurgence: We're (not entirely) doomed
  48. Smarter thinking in everyday life
  49. Pessimistic prospects for a democratic resurgence
  50. Optimistic prospects for a democratic resurgence

2024 58

  1. Why do I forget jobs I have completed?
  2. Predictions about the future of neurogrifters and neuro-nonsense
  3. Altered states: The new science of appetite and brain plasticity
  4. Burning questions: Why the ways we think about our metabolism are all wrong
  5. Your brain 🧠 on exercise: How movement fuels you
  6. 'Just put your phone away' - Dec 2024 catch up service #1
  7. Notes on cities
  8. What if societies were (deliberately) built to learn? (part one)
  9. Methods for the Experimenting Society by Donald T. Campbell
  10. Invisible feedback loops: How the body shapes the brain
  11. Interesting reads, November 2024 edition
  12. How bad will you feel when your side loses the election?
  13. Science of Dread
  14. The onward march of semaglutide and friends
  15. Brainy ideas
  16. William Fakespeare: LLMs are not creative
  17. Interesting reads, October 2024 edition
  18. Minimally conscious states
  19. A Neglected Partner in Episodic Memory
  20. My Substack Summer
  21. The GLP1 weight loss drugs offering new hope for Parkinson’s treatment
  22. The Trump-Harris Debate: Contrasting System 1 and System 2 thinking
  23. Some ways authoritarian leaders establish a shared reality
  24. Measuring authoritarianism; 1950's Ireland was what Project 2025 wants the USA to be
  25. How Great Storytelling Lingers in the Mind
  26. Our all-too-human metabolism; Hunger and the weight-loss drugs; Riots, violence, aggression; Movement is medicine
  27. Interesting reads, August 2024 edition
  28. Authoritarians and authoritarianism (part 1)
  29. Patrick MacGill, the 'navvy poet'
  30. Elections allow national conversation resets
  31. Cognitive strain
  32. Interesting reads, June 2024 edition
  33. The pope and the tooth fairy
  34. 'Let's have three meetings at the same time to discuss it...' ('No, let's not, thanks')
  35. Conversations and protest #3
  36. Interesting reads, May 2024 edition
  37. Protests, protests, everywhere, but does anybody stop to think? #2
  38. '...be a little underemployed'
  39. Protests, protests, everywhere, but does anybody stop to think? #1
  40. Regular exercise can both prevent and treat depression
  41. Obeying Orders
  42. Interesting reads, April 2024 edition
  43. How do you feel?
  44. Burn, baby, burn
  45. 'Anger is an energy'
  46. Creative flow
  47. Belief exhaustion (part two)
  48. Interesting reads, March 2024 edition
  49. Belief exhaustion (part one)
  50. Zealots, extremists, ideologues, and fanatics (ZEIFs)
  51. Some interesting reads for February 2024
  52. Dementia (.... and Joe Biden)
  53. Brain scans reveal critical periods for vulnerability
  54. Life expectancy under strain - the silent epidemic
  55. Thinking about George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens
  56. 'Just put your phone away'
  57. Bad is stronger than good
  58. Some interesting readings to get you going for 2024

2023 69

  1. Food sharing vlog
  2. Food sharing
  3. Year-end wrap-up
  4. Altered States: transformative potential of the new weight-loss drugs - twenty-two empirical predictions (part three)
  5. Altered States: Rewiring cravings (Part two)
  6. Altered states: Navigating the hunger game (Part one)
  7. 'There is no magic pill. There are no shortcuts. There are only reps, reps, reps.'
  8. Let's Talk: How we use conversation to create our shared worlds
  9. Let's Talk: How we use conversation to create our shared worlds
  10. Aerobic exercise is good for the brain
  11. Dodgy knees and ankles: what is to be done?
  12. Really, Elon, really?
  13. No, Elon, NO! (part one)
  14. October readings: what I've been reading, thinking about, and listening to
  15. Thinking about the future: Our cognitive blindspots
  16. BrainPizza September recap (yes, it's October)
  17. Thoughts on three years of substacking
  18. Collaborative writing
  19. Break on through to the other side
  20. You may not be interested in change, but change is interested in you
  21. The people who stop you getting things done (part one)
  22. Brain Pizza August Recap
  23. How to write books - collected pieces
  24. Finishing a book
  25. “Old man yells at cloud”: melancholy, world-weary, with a little self-serving bellicosity
  26. Where is my memory?
  27. Notes on a neuroscience of nationalism (repost, with some extras, inc podcasts)
  28. Talking Heads is now published...
  29. August readings
  30. Alone again, naturally
  31. Brains at war
  32. Among the Thugs
  33. His Dark Materials
  34. July Readings
  35. Dark thoughts, and how to avoid them
  36. Aliens
  37. Only disconnect: The pain of 'just thinking'
  38. The World is Not Enough
  39. The Godfather
  40. Brief Encounter
  41. How fear and pain rewire the brain, and what might be done about it
  42. Stress, work, and personality
  43. June readings
  44. Hypersleep in Aliens, torpor in animals
  45. The myth of the magical city: Why I hated Paris, why I was wrong, and what New York taught me
  46. Zoom chat?
  47. Too hot to handle
  48. In Praise of Walking
  49. 'Eat less, exercise more' is useless advice; Our activity levels are up.
  50. Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds
  51. Our love for vengeance shapes how we punish
  52. In praise of 'mindlessness' - escaping self
  53. Isolated, Contained, Excised, and Despised
  54. Join me on Notes
  55. Our future self: The stranger we are unable to imagine, and yet will come be
  56. Building a Better Future: A Radical Proposal to Overcome NIMBYism
  57. Connecting the Mỹ Lai Massacre and Milgram's Obedience Studies
  58. AI: Boosterism and Doomerism (part 3)
  59. AI Use Cases: Illusory conversations, receptivity to pseudo-profound BS, translating worst academic writing (Part 2)
  60. AI Anxiety: Be sceptical of your own thoughts and fears, please (Part 1)
  61. Social life: The people around you are inside your head
  62. Against 'inequality'
  63. Regarding distress, and the biological roots of empathy
  64. Biological economics: 'Live fast, die young’; ‘live slow, die old’
  65. How Great Storytelling Lingers in the Mind
  66. Burn, baby, burn
  67. Surviving Combat: The Effects of Predator Stress on Brain and Body
  68. January readings
  69. Brainstorming the Future

2022 35

  1. Goodbye 2022; Hi, 2023 :-)
  2. Talking Heads
  3. December Readings
  4. Join my chat
  5. Lie to me
  6. Notes on a neuroscience of nationalism
  7. Torturing the brain
  8. November readings
  9. Hellraiser Halloween Horror
  10. The con artist and the mark
  11. In praise of talking
  12. October readings
  13. What we feel
  14. Traversing the ‘long middle’ of writing a book
  15. Therapeutic Conversations
  16. Folie à Deux: Our connections run deep
  17. Some September Readings
  18. Creativity consumption style: meet internet-enabled ‘expression-architectures’
  19. So, you want to write a book...
  20. Mid-August readings
  21. What I'm Reading - August Edition
  22. Networking Criminal Gangs
  23. Daniel Lieberman - Exercised
  24. Political Memories
  25. Donna Leon and Andrea Camilleri
  26. Sins of Memory
  27. 'Underworld: A Deep Time Journey' (2019) by Robert Macfarlane
  28. Video book review - Edward Platt's 'Leadville' (2001)
  29. Collective Memories
  30. 'I'm just asking': Consenting and cooperating
  31. Seven key lessons on writing
  32. Reading and Writing for Research (and Beyond)
  33. Post-pandemic cities
  34. Zoom amnesia - not zoom fatigue
  35. For 2022: De-centre, pause and think, ask, use the golden rule, walk

2021 12

  1. A small present for 2022
  2. Extended duration walking for personal, social, and transcendent purposes...
  3. Rough Cuts Podcast #2 - Veronica O'Keane, author of 'The Rag and Bone Shop: How We Make Memories and Memories Make Us'
  4. Rough Cuts Podcast #1 - Rob Martineau, author of 'Waypoints: A Journey on Foot'
  5. Sleepy school kids (and sleepy surgeons)
  6. We can prevent dementia; substack podcasts
  7. Urban Walking (Galway, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Miami Beach, Lucknow)
  8. Rich, +Asshole Syndrome; Productivity; How to Write Fiction & Non-fiction; Reduce Your Chance of Death
  9. Will Self, Walking; Corporate Bullshit; Enjoyable Daily Living; Science of Learning; Covid Vaccines, by the Numbers; Mesmerising Origami Samurai Warrior
  10. Bowie; Harmless Hiker; Resilient Brains; Worrying Virus
  11. Central Park Walking; Good Boredom; Status Anxiety and Mafia Bosses; Daft Beliefs; Oldest Institutions
  12. Top 2020 posts: Orwell (+ copyright); Let's Walk; Sleepy Secrets; Covid Brain Fog; Brain Training; Cities

2020 20

  1. John Le Carré through a psychological lens
  2. George Orwell’s 1984 through a neuroscience lens*
  3. Creative cities; Iceman Ötzi; Car-free cities; car tires kill salmon; chilly music; covid race; polio
  4. Iceland hammers COVID; personal space; locked-in; don't mess with celebrations; lies and lying liars who lie; long covid brain fog; Music: Oneohtrix Point Never; Etta James
  5. Long covid brain fog research project participants required for online study: please circulate
  6. Black holes; dad biology; Bulgarian population collapse; poor ancestors; covid vaccine explainer; Music: Tricky; Melody Gardot
  7. Our (future) cities, our (future) selves
  8. Sunday Reads: Commented Links, Music
  9. Sleepy secrets (memory!) & coffee, circadian rhythms, wearables, nightwalking, insomnia (*and a signed book competition)
  10. Sunday reads - Commented Links; Music
  11. Plans For This Newsletter; Some Planned Research on Long Covid; (Pilgrim) Walking
  12. Sunday reads - Commented Links; Music
  13. Bad News on Brain Training- it doesn’t work (but check out things that do)
  14. Scary Saturday reads - Halloween edition: Commented Links; Music, Poetry
  15. Gluten-Free Cooking (an occasional item)- A Simple, Light, Fluffy, Pancake Recipe
  16. Sunday reads - Commented Links; Music, Poetry
  17. Let’s Walk (a lot more): Why We Need to Walk, And Now, More Than Ever
  18. Some Sunday reads - Commented Links; Music
  19. Everything you might think you think about the human response to apocalyptic times might be wrong
  20. Slices of writing on brains, behaviour, & lots in between