Welcome to the Fight Against Brain Rot
Manage episode 476129595 series 3658208
Welcome to the very first episode of "What the Fuck Did You Learn Today?," a podcast for curious minds who want to keep their brains from rotting. I’m your host, Urania Zed—writer, songwriter, overthinker—and this whole thing started with a half-asleep idea I had right before bed. I texted my friend Sara Collin the next morning and said, “Wanna be my first guest?” We met in grad school, bonded over language and humanities, and now both work in education and communications. Lucky for me, Sara was ready to go that same day—because she’d just read this CNN article about the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad site and was absolutely furious.
In this episode, we talk about why that article hit such a nerve, how storytelling shapes collective memory, and why we need to keep learning. Plus, we get into what it means to really learn something in a world that’s always trying to distract you.
Come for the righteous rage, stay for the brain gains. Let's get into it.
Resources mentioned:
- After a backlash, National Park Service restores old Underground Railroad webpage that prominently features Harriet Tubman, CNN
- The Relativity of Wrong, Issac Asimov, Wikipedia
- Federal Government’s Growing Banned Words List Is Chilling Act of Censorship, PEN AMERICA
- List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests, Wikipedia
- US student journalists go dark fearing Trump crusade against pro-Palestinian speech
- Bluesky
- Actor Ashton Kutcher, CNN in Twitter duel, Phys.org
- Yellow Journalism, EBSCO
- Breitbart
- Media Bias
- BBC
- Economist
- Musk reportedly made several pushes for Trump to back off global tariffs surge
Intro/Outro music, "Peace Arrow," by my band Kicking Down Doors.
3 episodes