Autocomplete Zeitgeist Revisited - 2026

Before we begin

In this post, which examines the American zeitgeist, I adopt a tone of playful criticism. Please don’t mistake me for one of those tedious killjoys who only finds fault. Believe me, I am grateful for my country and its people.

Introduction

As everybody knows, Google Autocomplete is a function of Google Search that starts providing feedback even before you’ve finished typing your query. The search engine predicts what you’re looking for based on others’ recent searches across the Internet. I find Autocomplete a good indicator of where people’s heads are, so in a long-ago post I asked Google a range of questions designed to examine the national zeitgeist as of March 31, 2018. Then, exactly four years later, I googled the same questions to see how things had changed and what people sought answers for in 2022. And now, another four years later (to the day), I peer back into Autocomplete suggestions to see where our heads are at in 2026.

(Note: to improve the accuracy of this experiment—that is, to make it more about the American people instead of about me—I turned off “Personal Results,” so my own previous searches won’t influence the suggestions.)

Persecution mania

Four years ago, the query “is it illegal to…” prompted Autocomplete suggestions that included burning money, hitting a girl, and working weekends in France. Today, this same short phrase produces these suggested queries as the top five:

• Is it illegal to write on US currency
• Is it illegal to talk to dolphins
• Is it illegal to drive barefoot
• Is it illegal to collect rainwater in California
• Is it illegal to drive without insurance

Driving barefoot has appeared in the top five for both my previous studies, suggesting that—even though Gen Z doesn’t seem very interested in driving—they’re still interested in this topic. Maybe they’re tired of their parents (or Uber drivers) going barefoot?

Now, this bit about writing on US currency I’ve never seen before, not even in the top ten—it’s completely new. So I asked myself, what’s changed that this is suddenly a #1 concern? The answer is simple: as described here, Donald Trump will soon be the first sitting president in history to have his signature adorn US currency, specifically the $1 bill. Now, I’m not here to take sides in matters of politics, but I think everyone can agree that this presents a tantalizing opportunity for the anti-Trump camp: they naturally want to write something like “sucks” right after his signature. Kind of a tit-for-tat: like, fine, you wanna write on my currency, I’m gonna write on it, too. But to consider actually indulging this temptation begs the question: will I get arrested for this?

If you think I’m being ridiculously paranoid, I’ll just say that a) it’s not necessarily the case that the typical American isn’t paranoid, and b) there is ample precedent to reasonably ask this question. The Donald saw to it that his face is prominently displayed right next to George Washington’s on US National Park season passes, and the backlash created a cottage industry of stickers designed specifically to obscure his picture.

The Department of the Interior reacted by prohibiting these stickers, claiming that they somehow bypass “security features,” and declared that affixing them can invalidate the $80 pass. As related here, this led to companies innovating again, this time with handy sleeves that cover up the picture until it’s time to present the pass to a park ranger. Given the history here, I can’t blame my fellow Americans for being careful.

Now let’s talk about the legality of talking to dolphins. As it turns out, the popularity of this search query is largely Google’s own fault because their AI summary indicates that it basically is illegal to talk to dolphins.

There’s not a direct link between this AI summary and the popularity of the Autocomplete text, but this kind of overstatement tends to get people up in arms, which is exactly what has happened. As described in a legal journal here, “A viral claim spread … suggesting that simply speaking to or near a dolphin is a federal crime.” So a paranoia has emerged about this activity, just like with defacing currency.

I’m going to skip over the rainwater thing for a moment and address “driving without insurance” next. (You’ll see why in a minute.) I am perplexed by these driving-related inquiries given how Gen Z isn’t much into cars. So I dug a little deeper into that, and surfaced this fascinating blog post challenging the popular theories about this generational change in driving behavior. The data do not show that this reluctance to learn to drive is due to the popularity of ride-sharing apps, or teens being too busy studying or doing extracurricular activities that improve their college applications, or because of our tough economic times, or because of increasing rates of depression. All of these explanations are refuted via data going back decades. The author argues, instead, that Gen-Z teens are just growing up more slowly—they’re “less likely to date, have a paid job, drink alcohol, and have sex than teens in previous generations” and that young adults “also take longer to get married, have children, and settle into careers.”

Worrying about having to get car insurance sounds like exactly the kind of grown-up task Gen-Z kids shrink from. I can just sense the eye-rolling and their thinking, “OMG, if I have to get actual insurance just to drive a car, forget about it!”

Could this delayed adulthood miraculously explain the rainwater gathering thing as well? Well, maybe. It could be Gen-Z, while afraid to drink tap water due to widespread mythology about it being unhealthy, also lacks both a car and the grown-up discipline of knocking out errands, and is thus too lazy to head to the grocery store for bottled. Or who knows, maybe young adults are so stunted they forget to pay their water bill. So they’re like, maybe we just put a bucket out back and drink from that … if we’re allowed.

Moving on to a slightly different search, “is it against the law to…” I get mostly the same results, but with these two additions appearing in the top five:

• Is it against the law to burn an American flag
• Is it against the law to not file taxes

Interestingly, flag burning was the very first Autocomplete suggestion eight years ago, but four years ago it didn’t appear at all. So why has this one returned? Well, it may well be a political matter, so let’s look at who was president when I did my two previous studies. My first Autocomplete post was halfway through Trump’s first term, which is when we first saw this burning question (pun intended, couldn’t resist); my second post was halfway through Biden’s term (when this suggestion disappeared); and now, halfway through Trump’s second term, it’s back. I’m not suggesting that Americans are more interested in burning flags during conservative reigns. It could be that the American flag simply figures more prominently in the national dialogue when we have a polarizing, populist president whose followers seem to believe they own this national icon.

In case you think that’s just a pet theory of mine, I did a little light research, and this article describes a 2025 poll of 2,404 U.S. adults on the topic of flags vs. party. (The sample was “weighted to be representative of adults nationwide according to gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census.”) The poll found, among other things, that forty-two percent of respondents assume a person flying the flag is conservative, whereas only ten percent assume a person displaying the flag is liberal.

I’m not suggesting that liberals want to burn our flag and are making sure this is allowed. I’m also not insinuating that conservatives, fearing that liberals are going to start burning flags, are seeing whether or not they can call the cops. Probably more to the point, when people are politically agitated in general, as they are now, the flag itself and notions of waving vs. desecrating it are more top-of-mind.

Moving on to our next query, “can you be arrested for…,” the top five include “a misdemeanor,” “speeding,” and “driving without a license,” all of which I saw last time. “Driving without insurance” shows up here, too. But I also see a newcomer to the suggestions, which is “can you be arrested for littering in Texas.”

I know my point with this post is to determine what can be inferred about the American zeitgeist from Autocomplete suggestions, but these highly local issues make it tricky. The question is, what happened recently in Texas that would drive this kind of query? I’m generally the wrong guy to ask because I keep my finger as far from the pulse of my fellow man as possible, eschewing all social media and most news sources. Whereas many people have FOMO (fear of missing out), I’m more plagued by “FONMO” (fear of not missing out)—that is, fear of being dragged into pointless gossipy discussions about this or that viral inflammation. But it’s really easy to research such stuff now, thanks (?) to AI chatbots. Claude drew my attention to this article about a cop beating up a woman for littering. Obviously this is a travesty, but worrying whether or not it’s illegal to litter seems to be missing the point. If this is how people fact-check before joining an online dialogue, I doubt they’re really in a position to fix the problem. It’s likely just more performative outrage.

Mercifully, since I have a lot to cover here, suggestions to complete the query “can you be arrested for…” haven’t changed since four years ago so I can skip them. No such luck with “can a police officer…” but that does turn up some very interesting results:

• Can a police officer arrest an ice agent
• Can a police officer search your car
• Can a police officer serve a restraining order
• Can a police officer arrest a federal agent
• Can a police officer date a felon

The first one naturally reflects current events, which have little to do—I suspect—with the American zeitgeist and more to do with remarkable changes in federal law enforcement. I mean, if Mount St. Helens erupted again with widespread atmospheric effects, it would certainly influence search suggestions, even though nothing about Americans would have changed.

But it’s an interesting scenario. I suppose the gist of this inquiry is whether a cop could arrest an ICE agent just for doing his or her job (and I’m going to guess the answer is “no” but I’m not performing that query because I don’t actually care). But what if people are just wondering if ICE agents can do as they please? Hold up a liquor store and the cops turn a blind eye?

The second query is pretty dumb, obviously. If a cop can punch you in the face for dropping litter from your car, he can certainly search it. So make sure you never have a taillight out, if you don’t want a cop finding that exploded can of Spam in the storage area where the spare tire used to be. (True story! My wife had stashed foodstuffs in case of, like, a zombie apocalypse. Turns out tinned meat can expire, big time.)

I have to confess, the popularity of the restraining order inquiry threw me. (Fortunately, my experience around this is nil.) The law is somewhat complicated around serving restraining orders and sometimes it’s the sheriff, not a patrol officer, who does it. So the question becomes, why now, when this question wasn’t popular four or eight years ago? Domestic violence hasn’t obviously increased, but light research indicates that there have been important legal updates lately, including explicit coverage of cyberstalking, GPS tracking, and smart home device manipulation. I find all of this kind of depressing so let’s move on to the final suggestion: can a police officer date a felon?

This one is kind of fascinating. Is it police officers asking this, because they think felons are kind of hot? Or is it felons (convicted or not) who are kind of turned on by cops? I have to think there’s some frisson there; I mean, it’s not like anyone is asking if urban planners can date botanists. Specifically, this query puts me in mind of Lil Wayne’s song “Mrs. Officer,” which includes the passage, “Yeah, doing a buck in the latest drop /  Got stopped by a lady cop, haha / She got me thinking I can date a cop, haha / ‘Cause her uniform fit her so tight / She read me my rights / She put me in her car, she cut off all the lights…”

(If you’re puzzled by that first line, “doing a buck” is driving at 100 mph, and “latest drop” means a recently released luxury car model. So Lil Wayne goes from being the man, all cocky driving at insane speed in his high-status car, to suddenly being chastised by a cop, but without the terror that would normally accompany that … all in the span of a few short lines. It’s really very clever.)

Now, four years ago I’d have simply shrugged at the popularity of this Autocomplete suggestion because honestly, how could I really learn the reason without a whole lot of work? But now, of course, we have AI, and I asked Claude for some perspective. It replied, “The broader cultural backdrop is probably the explosive growth of true crime, prison content, and ‘felon influencer’ culture on social media over the past few years. People with criminal records have become a significant content demographic on TikTok, sharing their experiences openly in a way that simply wasn’t happening in 2018.” Who knew? I questioned Claude further about this trend, and it explained that “lot of felon-related content isn’t really ‘influencer’ content in the glamorous sense — it’s practical. ‘Can I get this job with a felony?’ ‘Can I rent an apartment?’ ‘Can a cop date me?’ These are real pressing questions for millions of Americans — there are roughly 19 million people in the U.S. with felony convictions — and TikTok became a place where people with lived experience answer those questions in a way that law-related websites don’t.”

And here’s where things get really strange: one of the search results Claude cited included “a “caption/hashtag description from a TikTok video: ‘I got stopped by a lady cop… she got me thinking i can date a cop #texas #fyp #viralvideo #texasstatetroopers.’” Remarkably, Claude surfaced this without the context of the Lil Wayne song I mentioned above. Whether this caption was a deliberate reference to the song or just an independent expression of the same widespread fantasy, we can only guess.

Wrapping up with our final query for today, we’ll see what Autocomplete suggests for “are you allowed to.” Here are the top five:

• Are you allowed to fight in hockey
• Are you allowed to be gay in the military
• Are you allowed to carry a gun in California
• Are you allowed to bring food on a plane
• Are you allowed to go to Antarctica

The only suggestion that’s same as four years ago is fighting in hockey, which moved up from fourth place. I examined this topic at length in my previous post so if you’re interested, click here.

This second one might be a case of faulty memory. I mean, it’s such old news that “don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed (this was in 2011, for crying out loud) that I have to suppose people have just forgotten. Either that, or people far below military age back then just weren’t paying attention. (In fairness, an 18-year-old now would have been just three then.) Or who knows, maybe people who were gainfully employed adults in 2011 ignored the issue then but are suddenly considering joining the military since corporate America laid them off. (On a related note, a popular query both four and eight years ago, “are you allowed to retire at age 50,” no longer appears in Autocomplete suggestions, surely because in modern times it’s beside the point: anyone approaching 50 can expect to be laid off at any time, so why not wait for the severance package?)

As for carrying a gun in California, four years ago we had a similarly popular query, “are you allowed to carry a knife in California.” I guess things are even scarier here now, but at least people have wised up a bit. I mean, illegal to carry a knife? Seriously? I carry a pocketknife on bike rides!

Now, the next one, “bring food on a plane,” is just ridiculous and reinforces the notion that Gen-Z is just slow to enter adulthood. Anyone asking this clearly hasn’t been to an airport and watched—and smelled—people bringing their takeout food with them to the plane. And it’s not like airport personnel are going to bother differentiating between airport food and “outside” food. What, they’re gonna be like, “Sir, that looks like a Ziploc bag. You didn’t make that sandwich at home, did you?” (And by the way, I’m pretty sure I’ve brought a burrito from home wrapped in foil, no less. Just don’t bring a beverage or a Go-gurt.)

Which brings us to the final Autocomplete suggestion, “are you allowed to go to Antarctica.” As with so many of these inquiries, I’m reminded of the question, “Which is a bigger problem—ignorance or apathy?” and its answer, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” That is, I’m tempted to conclude that people are strange, and not give the matter another thought. But it’s now too easy to chase this kind of thing down, and I’ve discovered that there was a famous Internet influencer (over a million followers) who last year, at age 19, landed a little plane illegally in Antarctica and was detained there for two months while they performed various experiments on him and eventually stole his kidneys. Okay, I drifted off into fantasy for  a moment there but most of the story is true and—should you care—you can read it here. But actually, what does this have to do with the legality of traveling to Antarctica (which has been serviced by tour groups for sixty years)? Is anybody actually thinking of going? Why aren’t people googling “are you allowed to plagiarize albertnet”? (By the way, you’re not.)

Tune in next week…

As you have doubtless noticed, this post went on a bit longer than I expected, so I’ll cut it off here for now and post Part II next week. Check back because I’ll be covering a number of other Autocomplete categories: Who, what, where, why, how, and the future.

Other Autocomplete Zeitgeist posts

• Autocomplete Zeitgeist Revisited - 2026 - Part II
• Autocomplete Zeitgeist Revisited - Part II
• Autocomplete Zeitgeist Revisited
• The Autocomplete Zeitgeist

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Undeterred: A Critique of a Book About Life Without Free Will

Introduction

Is it responsible to review a book you haven’t even fully read? Well, here’s a thought experiment: suppose somebody came out with a new book about UFOs and in the introduction mentioned casually, “I never go UFO hunting without dropping acid first.” You’d have a pretty good justification to dismiss the book without even going out and buying it, right? Of course, bothering to review it would seem beside the point … but what if it were an “instant New York Times bestseller”? And what if you had reason to believe that thousands of otherwise appropriately skeptical people might somehow embrace the book? What if your family members decided that the denial of UFOs was a NASA conspiracy, and resolved to start dropping acid regularly? Wouldn’t you want to weigh in?

Something kind of like this happened a dozen years ago with Amy Chua’s irresponsible and stupid book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I wrote a blog post criticizing her book without having read it—but I did read the excerpt of it in the New York Times which I felt was enough. If Chua’s own distillation has enough wrong with it to fundamentally undermine her argument, do we need to read the full book? (To make an analogy, if you’re at a restaurant and your appetizer has a cockroach in it, do you need to stay through the entrée and dessert to conclude the restaurant has a problem?) Bestselling books in this vein have a way of smearing their overall message across the zeitgeist, whether or not people engage with the source material. For example, my wife, who also didn’t read Chua’s book, was somewhat swept up in the chatter around it and started wondering aloud if we needed to start getting all tiger mother on our kids’ asses. At that point I felt the need to stand up and say something.

I’m feeling that again now about Robert Sapolsky’s new “instant bestseller,” Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. I read two profiles of Sapolsky, which struck a nerve, and then I waded through enough of his book to take its measure. The book is total drivel, and yet it’s clearly making a splash … almost as though people are taking Sapolsky seriously.

In this post, I will delve into my issues with the book: not just that it’s poorly written and reasoned, but why I disagree with its very ambition. This examination will involve a lot of logic (something Sapolsky occasionally dabbles in between bouts of self indulgent blathering). But first, just as a warm-up and for your amusement, I’ll start with an irresponsible ad hominem attack against him, since this blog prioritizes entertainment over utility.

Irresponsible ad hominem attack

Just look at that picture above, a drawing my daughter did of the photo accompanying the Sapolsky profile in the New York Times. Can’t you just imagine this guy cornering you at a cocktail party and holding forth? I wonder how that beard came to be. It could be he just has a weak chin, which would make his beard a better idea than his new book, but probably the superabundant facial hair is more about the intellectual air he hopes to achieve. I can picture him looking in the mirror thinking, “Would I look more like a guru if I had a big, fluffy grey beard? Or would I just look like Santa? How can I look more like Karl Marx?” Maybe that’s why he also has the really long hair. Now, let me be clear, I think long hair on a dude is totally fine, when he’s young. But an ageing adult needs to have a little decorum. I mean, he’s got fricking ringlets! Doe he use product in his hair? And check out the odd difference in coloration between his beard and his hair … makes me wonder if he actually dyes it. If so, how vain!

Also note his wise, world-weary expression … does he always look like that, or only when he’s posing for a photo that will appear in the New York Times? Of course, it could be the photographer saying, “Okay, that’s good, but could you try to look more contemplative, maybe a little world-weary? Could we get, you know, a little more guru going here?” In that case Sapolsky shouldn’t have gone along with it. He should have just smiled naturally, because he gets to be in the Times and that’s a pretty big deal. But of course he needs to present this persona, so he stares gloomily and intellectually off into the distance, little realizing that he does not, cannot convey an air of gravitas when he’s wearing plastic clogs. With white socks. Sure, I have flip-flops I wear around the house, but for the Times I would dress up a bit, show a little respect. Look, Sapolsky, you might hang around college kids but that doesn’t make you hip or cool. You’re trying to shape widespread public perception of deep philosophical matters … try to be a grown-up, would you please?

One more heads-up

Full disclosure: I hold free will to be a capacity people should cherish, and to deny or even doubt its existence is to threaten our ability to seize it. That is to say, anybody’s effort to discredit the existence of free will invokes my ire on principle. (As I describe here, I frequently bring unnecessary physical suffering upon myself simply to prove, to myself, that I have free will.) So to be perfectly candid, Sapolsky’s very intent (combined with his douche-y beard, vainglorious long hair, and Stanford pedigree) made we want to hate him right off. Nevertheless, as somebody truly interested in this topic (having read a number of books on existential philosophy), I was willing to read what Sapolsky has to say, even after reading the profile of him in the New York Times and a critique of his book in the New Yorker, both of which only deepened my sense that he’s a tool.

Alas, his book is really popular around here so I couldn’t get it from the library. (There are 35 holds ahead of me.) I don’t like to buy a book unless I’m pretty convinced it’ll be good. Sometimes all this takes is a paragraph ... if the opening to a book is good enough, I will take a gamble on that alone. If a book doesn’t start off great, but I still think it may have promise, I’ll read a few of the free sample pages Amazon serves up. In the case of Determined, Amazon was unusually generous, and for the first time ever I found myself longing for the end of the free pages. The excerpt of this poorly written, poorly reasoned tract just went on and on, until—32 excruciating pages in—Amazon finally cut me off. Now, based on the two profiles and the pages I’ve read, I’m prepared to say I’ve revised my initial opinion (that Sarposky is a tool) to more precisely and accurately state that I find him a self-indulgent, glib, preening old fool whose brazen dismissal of a vast body of thought going back hundreds of years is the height of arrogance. There’s no point trying to pretend this blog post is an exploration … it’s a take-down.

(Note that I’m not being ageist here. I wrote “preening old fool” because it’s sad how foolish Sapolsky still is despite the many years he’s had available to him to have gained wisdom … years that he has apparently squandered.)

Thirty-two excruciating pages

Right off the bat, I have an issue with the title: Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will. What’s with “a science”? Science isn’t supposed to be a realm where everybody gets to have his own version, his own private belief system. It’s about building consensus, and improving our understanding in this way. A scientist investigates, builds a hypothesis, proves it in the lab, and then other scientists attempt to recreate the experiment and either confirm or deny the findings. That’s why the normal phrase is “the science of,” not “a science of.” Contrast this to Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. “An inquiry” makes more sense: you would never have “the inquiry” since the number of inquiries into a realm as general and squishy as “values” is infinite. But science is supposed to be the leading edge of the best effort of scientists to build a common, tangible understanding of how the world works, based on experiments that produce data, which describe and predict behaviors and other demonstrable phenomena. The phrase “a science” suggests that Sapolsky doesn’t fully support the collaborative mission that science is supposed to have.

Rather than illustrating any specific line of scientific examination, Sapolsky seems to use his reputation and authority as a biologist and neuroscientist as a flag that he waves. His grand assertions really beg the question. For example: “Once you work with the notion that every aspect of behavior has deterministic, prior causes, you observe a behavior and can answer why it occurred: as just noted, because of the action of neurons in this or that part of your brain in the preceding second.” Here he includes a footnote directing the reader to an introduction to neuroscience that he includes as an appendix (which presumably we’ll ignore other than as a rubber stamp of his authority, or else it wouldn’t be an appendix) and to another book he wrote on neuroscience that he warns us is “agonizingly long.” It’s as though he’s saying, “Yeah, there’s all this science behind understanding behavior but it’s really complicated, so just take my word for it.”

But even beyond how complex this science might be, let’s back up a second: he’s asserting that we can explain any behavior in terms of deterministic, prior causes having to do with brain neurons in the preceding second. Seriously? We could actually catalog and describe all these neural events leading to the behavior? How could we possibly chase them all down? But it gets worse: he goes on to say that those neurons were activated in the minutes before the behavior, and that the behavior was also influenced by hormones from hours to days before that, and that the function of those neurons was influenced by experience and environment in the preceding months to years, and by the person’s development in the womb and what his or her pregnant mother was going through, and further by culture that has evolved over decades, even centuries. So really, there’s no way we’re actually “answering why the behavior occurred,” because who has data going back that far? It’s only a theoretical explanation.

In terms of tying a behavior to past events, neurological and circumstantial, I can suggest a simple scenario that defies the idea. Have you ever been on the fence about an action you had to take, and decided to flip a coin in order to decide? I think plenty of people do this, from time to time. Our willingness to base an action on the outcome of a flipped coin flies in the face of determinism. We have decided in advance to act based on the random outcome of this coin-flip, thus the behavior that follows this flip cannot be predetermined because until that coin is flipped, there is/are no predictive, deterministic preceding event(s). Since the result of the coin flip is random, one can’t go back and trace the resulting behavior to anything except the decision of the coin-flipper to base his or her next decision on heads vs. tails. How is that not freedom?

Sapolksy doesn’t seem to begin with data and use it to lead us towards a conclusion; rather, he starts with an attractive notion to get our buy-in, so that perhaps so we’ll go easy on him when he builds his case. At the end of his first chapter he asks us to imagine a college graduation ceremony with all the happy students and their proud families milling about, and then draws our attention to a (hypothetical) garbage collector in the back. He asks us to consider the background of this garbage collector compared to that of the graduates. He declares, “Trade every factor over which they had no control, and you will switch who would be in the graduation robe and who would be hauling garbage cans. This is what I mean by determinism.”

What a smarmy, smurfy load of shit. Yeah, being born to college graduates in a wholesome community surely helps a person’s educational prospects, but it doesn’t determine how far they get. It just changes the odds a bit. Both my parents went to Berkeley; my dad earned a Ph.D.; one of my brothers—though lucky enough to grow up in one of the best school districts in the nation—dropped out of high school. Meanwhile, the rapper Lil Wayne (as he describes in this interview) was raised in a school district so dangerous that his mom, upon seeing him packing a gun in his backpack before heading to class, implored him to drop out, which he then did. And yet, Lil Wayne (despite the distraction of a platinum-selling music career) earned his GED and later enrolled at the University of Houston. So there are two counterexamples, right off the top of my head. Sapolsky’s little anecdote doesn’t effectively convey the gist of determinism. It’s sentimental, simplistic, and twee.

This backwards-looking attempt at establishing causality breaks down so easily upon close inspection. How is it not free will that my brother Geoff moved to the Netherlands? Is it fair to say that, having been born to the parents that he was, with the genes that he had, developing as a fetus in the natal environment that he did, growing up in the community that he did, and attending the college that he did, there was no other possible outcome than relocating to Europe? What about his identical twin brother, who—despite having the same parents, the same genes, the same fetal environment, the same community, the same friends, and the same (initial) college—stayed on this continent? Shouldn’t these two have been deterministically pushed into the same inevitable decision about where to put down roots?

But let’s assume that a person’s behavior could be tied to a pattern of neuron activity and historical factors. How would the scientist determine, much less prove, causality that is so airtight as to deny the possibility of free will? The perfect test would be if the scientist could then use his understanding of the precise mechanism of that behavior to make predictions about future behaviors as well. If we’re confident we understand exactly why that man pulled that trigger, shouldn’t we know his next move?

The last time I checked, biologists haven’t proven to be great prognosticators of human behavior. (Business people have done okay here, in terms of understanding basic principles such as are used in advertising, but they don’t pretend to be scientists.) Doesn’t it seem like Sapolsky is overestimating what science can do for his thesis? To put it another way, if Sapolsky really thinks there is a solid scientific basis to his refutation of free will, why shouldn’t his scientific findings be subject to peer review instead of just published to a lay audience as a general interest book?

Actually, from what I can tell, Sapolsky didn’t even do much of his own research for this book; it’s more of a survey of the existing stuff. Well … some of it. Which brings us to an overarching failure of logic in Sapolsky’s approach. He declares in his first chapter that to accomplish his goal of convincing the reader there is no free will, he’ll “look at the way smart, nuanced thinkers argue for free will, from the perspectives of philosophy, legal thought, psychology, and neuroscience. I’ll be trying to present their views to the best of my ability, and to then explain why I think they are all mistaken.” Um ... what? He’s going to discredit everyone who disagrees with him? Sure, his book is 528 pages long, but how is he going to evaluate even a moderately representative sample of the existing literature across these four gigantic fields? To be more honest he’d have to write, “I’m going to look at the way a VANISHINGLY SMALL PROPORTION of smart, nuanced (BUT NOT TOO SMART OR NUANCED SINCE I’VE CHOSEN TO INCLUDE ONLY THE ONES I THINK ARE WRONG) thinkers to explain why I think THIS TINY SAMPLING of them are all mistaken.” His approach only makes sense if he could refute all the great thinkers who’ve studied this question, which is of course impossible: it’s like proving a negative.

So, he digs himself in pretty deep with his stated intention to base his argument on a glancing review of these four realms while pretending that’s sufficient. Then, although he acknowledges that individual scientific studies can’t disprove free will, he goes on to say, “But—and this is the incredibly important point—put all the scientific results together, from all the relevant scientific disciplines, and there’s no room for free will” (italics his). Is he really purporting to have done this? He sure hasn’t presented the findings of such a comprehensive effort, which is no surprise because it would be simply impossible. ALL? ALL SCIENTIFIC RESULTS? There’s no way. Again, what he’s really asserting is more hypothetical; it’s like he’s saying, “I’ll bet if you looked at all the scientific results you’d find they’d collectively deny free will. In fact I’m sure of it. Just take my word for it.”

If it seems like I’m accusing Sapolsky of essentially cherry-picking his evidence: yes, I am. Consider that, as he willingly admits (in both profiles I’ve read of him), he has denied the existence of free will since he was thirteen years old: that is, since before he was educated and before his brain had even fully formed. So although he’s using biology and neurology to bolster his decades-old belief, he’s not doing so in the responsible manner of a scientist exploring the matter—he began his research with his mind already made up. It looks to me like a classic example of confirmation bias.

After his first chapter, which defines a lot of terms and explains his approach, Sapolsky’s book gets increasingly boring and pointless. He starts his second chapter with an exposition of one of the methodological approaches scientists have taken, through various studies, to evaluate the existence of free will. After a brief outline of this approach, Sapolsky concludes, “I think that at the end of the day, these studies are irrelevant.” Why, then, does he spend the next ten pages (well, at least ten—at this point the Amazon sample mercifully ran out) describing one such study in excruciating detail? How does simply knocking down other people’s work support his own improbable conclusion? (It’s like two economists discrediting a typewriter keyboard layout by basing their findings on a single previous study conducted about it, as I describe here.) I’m aghast at what passes for scholarship, and that this book is popular. Perhaps it’s just like the Tiger Mother book … it’ll be something to talk about at cocktail parties for a while because it’s timely, and then it will sink out of sight forever.

Beyond his poor execution

As described above, one of Sapolsky’s stated goals is “to convince you that there is no free will.” His second stated goal is “to take seriously all the implications of there being no free will.” With this second goal he seems to focus on whether or not we can hold people morally responsible for their behavior in the absence of free will. He says free-will skeptics (like himself) are “less punitive and more forgiving.” This seems to be at the heart of why, and perhaps how, he was able to publish this book: he’s positioning himself and his mission as a way to be a kinder and more liberal person, and as readers we can (choose to!) join him. Don’t hate the guy who broke into your car, he implies, because it wasn’t really him, he didn’t mean to do it, it was just the desperate position society put him in. So we’re sort of coaxed (or bullied) into accepting Sapolsky’s position so we don’t come off like the heartless old-school moralists who would throw a homeless man in prison for stealing loaf of bread.

The trouble is, such sentimental appeals cannot and should not stand in place of actual intellectual rigor. The New Yorker writer Nikhil Krishnan, in his review of Determined, questions Sapolsky’s assertion that free-will skeptics are less punitive and more forgiving:

But he can’t really have meant that... If free-will skepticism means never having to say you’re sorry, then it also means never being forgiven. Forgiveness is, as much as vengeance, a concept that can be applied only from within the first-person point of view. Sapolsky’s ethic of forgiveness demands that we retain something of our old-fashioned belief in holding one another responsible.

Ah, but I’m delving again into the failure of Sapolsky’s argument (because it’s just so easy!) when I’ve been trying to get into something else: the ramifications of accepting his ideas and putting them into practice.

My biggest issue with Sapolsky’s book is that if we truly embrace his goals of 1) agreeing there is no free will, and 2) living according to this belief, we are denying the possibility of making better choices. And yet isn’t making better choices the noble purpose of some of our most important human behaviors? Think of education, counseling, coaching, even self-reflection. If our every move has already been decided, what’s the point in trying to be better, by trying to choose better?

If we want to advance the argument that humans are slaves to our brain chemistry, it seems like nicotine addiction would be the ideal poster child. This NIH report, describing how nicotine activates reward centers, and how it rewires the brain of the addict, should be right up any neuroscientist’s alley:

Nicotine causes the release of dopamine in the mesolimbic area, the corpus striatum, and the frontal cortex. Of particular importance are the dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, and the release of dopamine in the shell of the nucleus accumbens, as this pathway appears to be critical in drug-induced reward… Likewise, nicotine withdrawal is associated with significant increases in intracranial self-stimulation reward threshold, consistent with deficient dopamine release and reduced reward. The decrease in brain reward function experienced during nicotine withdrawal is an essential component of nicotine addiction and a key barrier to abstinence.

The nicotine addict, then, would seem to be a classic case of somebody with no free will. As the same NIH report states, “Approximately 80% of smokers who attempt to quit on their own relapse within the first month of abstinence, and only approximately 3% remain abstinent at six months.” And yet, my brother—who had smoked for over forty years—decided exactly a year ago that he had to quit, and he did. For this to happen, he had to believe that he could … that he could fly in the face of statistics and his own fraught history with tobacco. But in Sapolsky’s view, my brother doesn’t get any credit for his resolve and tenacity—that is, for deciding enough was enough. Are we to believe Sapolsky that for my brother to quit smoking was predetermined somehow, just like taking up the nasty habit in the first place (even though he had the same parents I did, and grew up in the same health-crazed community)? So my brother’s behavior was all preordained, from the forty-year chemical addiction to the bold refusal to put up with even one more day of it? Seriously?

What if Sapolsky’s book had come out a year ago and my brother read it, decided he had no free will, decided to be more compassionate with himself because it wasn’t his fault he was a smoker, that he had no say in the matter, and that his lungs were already doomed based on neurons, environment, and history? Would he have taken that huge step of deciding (or, fine, pretending to decide) to quit?

Sapolsky seems to be trying to couch his worldview in being fairer: in not holding criminals responsible for their crime, and in not praising this or that lucky guy for his achievement. But we don’t need to deny the existence of free will to be more fair. We can acknowledge that a person choosing between hunger and theft was dealt, by society and history, a worse hand than the guy choosing between a savings account and a mutual fund. The world isn’t fair … we get it. But why not focus more on what all of us humans can choose (or seem to choose) to do, like taking better care of our bodies, our minds, our families? Why not behave as though we can improve, even if—worst case and unbeknownst to us—our free will is just a placebo? I mean, who cares … besides the preening, self-aggrandizing academic who needs to publish?

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Workout Megamix Liner Notes - Part III

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language and crude humor.

Update

Hear my entire Megamix (200+ songs) on Spotify - click here!

Introduction

My last couple of posts (here and here) have provided “liner notes” for (i.e., comments on) my Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix.  I got as far as M before you ran out of patience (which I sensed ahead of time).  In this post I cover songs beginning with N thru S because you’re here, so you’re ready for more … right?  It’s a long winter and you need more music recommendations for those boring indoor trainer rides!

(It just occurred to me to wonder if I’m using the term “megamix” correctly.  After looking this word up on Wikipedia I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t care.  I use this term to mean “mix tape that isn’t on tape.”)

Liner notes – Dana’s Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix Part III

No Love - Lil Wayne/Eminem

       Okay, this song is just frickin’ epic, as my teenager would say.  It starts off with a whole section by Lil Wayne (which threw my wife off at first—she was like, “What’s wrong with Eminem’s voice?  He sounds so weird!”).  This passage has some awesome lyrics, plus Lil Wayne just sounds great—he does a better “uh” than anybody, and that’s saying a lot, because rappers are, in general, really good at going “uh.”  The “h” almost makes a consonant sound.  Anyway, then Eminem cuts in with the chorus, which is good enough, and then the next verse is Eminem’s, and he’s so brilliant, and so fast, it just has me laughing every time, not just because it’s funny (it’s less comic than a lot of his stuff) but because it’s just so right and everything fits together like clockwork.  It would be very hard to slack off on your pedaling while hearing something so good.  Dang.

Not Going Back - Nas

Nothing Else Matters - Metallica

Offend In Every Way - The White Stripes

       This is a good, hard-rocking track, with a nice buzzing guitar.  Getting back to that other song, “No Love,” I forgot to mention something:  when Lil Wayne says “I’m rollin’ Sweets,” he’s talking about putting weed into a Swisher Sweet (the epitome of the cheap cigar).  My brothers and friends and I used to smoke Swisher Sweets occasionally (without anything added to them, I hasten to add, and without inhaling).  Mainly this was to get the garlic off our breath because we used to go to Café Gondolier for their all-u-can-eat pasta and like 3 of our 6 plates (each) would be the “oil & gar,” which was just pasta with olive oil and all this crushed garlic on top.  Nothing would get that garlic taste and stench out of our mouths.  We tried mint gum, clove gum, every kind of oral hygiene, whatever.  We’d be sweating garlic the next day.  The Swisher Sweet cigars didn’t really mask the stench, but did morph it into a gnarly hybrid cigar/gar.  One time we went over to our friend’s car, cracked a window, and (from outside the car) blew all the smoke from a whole Swisher Sweet (each) through the window, then quickly rolled the window back up. You couldn’t see across the car from one window through the next, for all the smoke.  The car reeked for more than a week.  Offend in every way, indeed.

On the Other Side - The Strokes

       One of my favorite Strokes songs.  It’s just so misanthropic, I love it:  “I hate them all, I hate them all/ I hate myself for hating them/ So I'll drink some more, I'll love them all, I'll drink even more/ I'll hate them even more than I did before.”  I’m not a misanthrope, myself—not exactly—but as I’ve said before, an angry mindset is perfect for pedaling hard indoors.  (And I’m never angry when I climb off.)

One Mic - Nas

       Listen for the background sound of a fiend dropping his Heineken.  This is a cool song because it keeps building up, hitting the chorus, relaxing, and then building up again.  I’ve used this song’s progression for doing intervals on the trainer.

One Time 4 Your Mind - Nas

Outshined - Soundgarden

       My favorite lines:  “I just looked in the mirror/ And things aren’t lookin’ so good/ I’m looking California/ And feeling Minnesota.”  Don’t overthink it, because looking California is probably better than looking Minnesota (i.e., he feels worse than he looks) and yet he says “things aren’t looking so good.”  Actually, overthinking things is good for the trainer, as long as you don’t forget to hammer.

       In 2008 I was hit by a car while riding, and separated my shoulder.  It was a long time before I could use my right arm well enough to shave, so I went ahead and grew a beard.  While I was at it, I let my hair grow for a good while.  Being thus unkempt, I relaxed my standards for attire as well.  One day I went into work wearing a shirt that was pushing the edge of the envelope for business casual; it was just shy of a Hawaiian flower shirt.  For some reason the LAN ports in my office weren’t working (this was before we had WiFi at the office) and I was leading a net conference, so I had to set up in one of the cubicles.  This cubicle ended up having a broken chair.  So after the call I took advantage of the broken chair back and fully reclined for a few minutes … you know, just maxin’ and relaxin’ and chillin’ my will.  Well, at that very moment this sales manager from the Phoenix office came through, trailing his little entourage, all of them in suits and ties.  I’d only ever encountered this guy at customer meetings where I was in a suit and tie myself (with a haircut and close shave to match), so he did a double take when he saw me all sprawled out in my flower shirt and beard and long hair.  “Wow, Dana, you’re … lookin’ California!” he said.  I figured there was no point trying to explain myself, and replied, “Feelin’ California, Paul!”

Overfloater - Soundgarden

Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones

       An oldie but goodie.  I used to enjoy singing this to my kids when they were babies and I was rocking them in my arms.

Paper Planes - M.I.A.

       If you’re not familiar with M.I.A. and would like to hear her most charismatic, crowd-pleasing song, this is probably the one.  There’s a cash register sound in the chorus, and if you’re sure you’re alone in the bat cave during your indoor workout, you can pantomime hitting the “Sale” key on the cash register, like Davis Phinney used to do after winning a prime in a criterium.  It’s okay, I give you permission.  (My daughter, reading over my shoulder, rescinds this permission, or tries to, lacking any authority.)

Personal - Ice-T

       Another great trainer track.  My favorite line:  “Bury you deep, creep, no one’ll weep, ‘cause the next night with your bitch I sleep.”  Here, Ice-T is obviously alluding to Shakespeare’s historical play Richard III, in which Richard of Gloucester famously wooed Lady Anne Neville despite having just murdered her husband.  These rappers, despite their coarse utterances, are far more erudite than many listeners realize.

Pump Your Fist - Kool Moe Dee

R.A.K.I.M. - Rakim

       I hope my recommending this song doesn’t get me in trouble with Homeland Security.  The “A” in the R.A.K.I.M. acronym conceit fits into the chorus thus:  “R: rugged & rough, that’s how I do it/  A:  Allah who I praise to the fullest.”  Let me just say this:  I myself am not Muslim, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy this song.  I’m glad to take this opportunity to clear things up, since the NSA has surely spotted this song on my hard drive already.  So I’ma give a shout-out to our NSA friends:  thanks for keeping us safe!  And please understand, I have a little fun with this song, but at the end of the day I’m a patriotic American, born American, and these colors don’t run!  USA #1 LET’S ROLL!

Rabbit Run - Eminem

Radio Suckers - Ice-T

Rap God - Eminem

       So you know that song I mentioned earlier, “Outshined” by Soundgarden?  It’s just over 5 minutes long and has 163 words.  R.A.K.I.M. is just shy of 4½ minutes and has 543 words.  “Rap God” is just over 6 minutes and has 1,551 words!  Eminem goes so fricking fast on this one, it’s amazing, and the lyrics are laced with double-, triple-, probably quadruple-entendres, and they’re funny.  If it bothers you that he calls himself a rap god, consider that a) let’s face it, he kind of is, and b) he tempers this boast with some perspective (calling himself “Dale Earnhardt of the trailer park, the White Trash God”) and also by being self-effacing (“Only Hall of Fame I'll be inducted in is the alcohol of fame/ On the wall of shame”).  By the way, I should point out here that I firmly believe those who enjoy quality (in their booze) enjoy it responsibly.  Don’t let this line from Rap God (or that line from “On the Other Side”) mislead you.

Rewind - Nas

Rhinosaur - Soundgarden

Richard - Obie Trice

       Did you think only one rapper (Ice-T, as described above) paid tribute to Richard III?  Well think again!  I’m talking about the line, “A ho’!  A ho’!  My kingdom for a ho’!”  (Okay, I’m kidding. That’s not an actual line from this song, and as far as I know, this song isn’t about that Richard.  But then, I haven’t read the play in a long time.  Maybe this whole track is some kind of extended Shakespearean allegory.)

Roughnecks - Obie Trice

Santeria - Sublime

Searching With My Good Eye Closed - Soundgarden

       This is a good song for the trainer, but with one reservation:  it gets off to a really slow start, as the narrator (yes, it seems to have a narrator) runs through a strange monologue involving animal sounds:  “Do you hear a cow?  [Moooo.]  A rooster says…  [Croooowwww.].  Here is a pig:  [Oink oink oink.]  The devil says….”  All very amusing, but it’s like 80 seconds before you get any drums and guitars and whatnot.  Is it worth it?  Sure!  Besides, you could use the downtime to wipe sweat off your face, or adjust your shoes or something.

Seduction - Eminem

       Perhaps a rapper can’t really call himself a rapper if he doesn’t do at least one song that recalls Richard III.  No, Eminem’s rival isn’t a king … just a fellow rapper.  But, same diff, you know?  And sure, this song isn’t about actually murdering anybody, but there are plenty of metaphors along these lines (“You think you killing them syllables … quit playing” and “it’s psychological warfare” and “your entire arsenal is not enough to fuck with one round.”)  And the other center idea, of stealing your foe’s mate, is expounded upon at length:  “There's a seven disc CD changer in her car, and I'm in every single slot, and you're not. Aww.”  (Shakespeare, being fairly ribald himself, would have like the double-entendre of “slot” here.)  And, “I am awesome and you are just awe struck. She's love stricken. She's got her jaw stuck, from…” Okay, maybe that’s enough.

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes

Sexodus - M.I.A.

Shoot Me Down -Lil Wayne

       I just love this song, and I can’t really say why.  I don’t have any idea what the hell he’s singing about.  I mean, there’s obviously some stuff about shooting, but all kinds of other wacky nonsensical stuff too, like “My picture should be in the dictionary next to the definition of definition” (could he be talking about well-defined muscles? I doubt it…) and “But your bullets don't reach Mars, haws, claws because I'm a beast I'm a dawg, I’ll get you.”  There’s one line that’s oddly fitting for riding the bike trainer:  “And I would die for ours, ride for hours, supply the flowers.”

Shooter - Lil Wayne

Sick Of You – Cake

       This song, like many Cake has made, is humorously dark and darkly humorous.  If John McCrea were a cyclist, he’d add a line or two about being sick of riding indoors.  He gave some background on this song to Spin magazine:  “It’s about how when you hate things, the circle of hate starts rather broadly.  You hate the President or a big movie star, someone you’ll probably never meet. Gradually though, the circle tightens and the objects of hate get closer and closer to the hater. Now it’s your uncle or your mother, now it’s your close friend, and finally it’s you. Bummer.”

Sing For the Moment - Eminem

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

So Human - Lady Sovereign

       This song is a good case study in basically stealing somebody else’s music and making it better (or at least more appropriate for dancing or working out to).  Kind of like Robin Hood, really.  This song samples pretty much the entirety of The Cure’s “Close To Me,” but turns it from a sad, frankly rather emo affair into something irreverent and saucy that you can hammer to.  Go, S.O.V.!

Spoonman - Soundgarden

       Okay, I have absolutely zero idea what this song is going on about.  “Feel the rhythm with your hands/ Steal the rhythm while you can, spoonman.”  A man, a plan, a canal, panama!  Maybe it’s about making spoonbread.  That would jibe with the line “all my friends are Indians” since Native Americans made spoonbread.  And I can imagine palpating spoonbread in my hands, perhaps rhythmically. But what grunge band sings about palpating spoonbread?  I’ve also thought this song could be about spooning.  I visited a little museum in LaCrosse, Kansas that had an old journal from a Civil War soldier in it, which visitors were free to thumb through, and I read a passage the soldier wrote about his battalion being crammed so tightly into a tent, they had to spoon.  One guy would be up all night (standing guard, I guess) and would periodically tell everybody to roll over:  “Spoon left!” or “Spoon right!”  But I doubt Soundgarden ever read that journal.  Anyway, it’s a great song.  I’ve never been much preoccupied about lyrics.

Stan - Eminem

       This song is depressing, according to my daughter.  (What?!  I let her listen to Eminem?  Yeah, I guess so.  But only certain tracks.)  Anyway, as I just explained to Alexa, when something is creatively or artistically brilliant, it doesn’t matter how depressing its subject matter is, because we’re uplifted by knowing humans can be capable of such brilliance.

       I won’t describe the song in great detail—there’s no time, no room, and anyway you can hear it for yourself—but there’s something particularly interesting I want to point out.  The song tells its tale in the “epistolary” manner (which is a fancy English-major way of saying “letters back and forth”), but with a twist:  we get all the letters, but not quite in the right sequence.  We get Stan’s three letters, in chronological order, and then we get Eminem’s reply, but this fourth letter is out of sequence.  Eminem has only received the first two of Stan’s letters, and is responding to the second one, which was written when Stan was frustrated but not yet heartbroken.  We know how this sad saga ends (having heard the third of Stan’s letters), but Eminem doesn’t—yet.  The real climax of the song, arguably, isn’t when the car goes off the bridge, but when Eminem delivers the penultimate word of the song—that is, when he realizes he’s at the heart of the tragedy he was too late to prevent.

Suck My Kiss - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Sunshowers - M.I.A.

Superunknown - Soundgarden

Survival - Eminem

Sympathy For the Devil - The Rolling Stones

Click here for Part IV, the Final Liner!

More reading

Here are links to the rest of my series of Workout Megamix liner notes:

• Part I
• Part II
• Part IV
• Part V
• Part VI
• Entire playlist on Spotify

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For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

Workout Megamix Liner Notes - Part II

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language and coarse humor.

Update

Hear my entire Megamix (200+ songs) on Spotify - click here!

Introduction

In my last post I described my decades-long project of creating the best collection of rock & rap songs to listen to while riding my indoor bike trainer or rollers.  Not all music is suitable for hammering away all winter, and music is a bare necessity for this activity.  (Note the inconspicuous, but all-important, headphone cord in this photo.)

I’m aware that some people watch movies or cycling videos while riding indoors.  I suppose this could be somewhat diverting—but that’s kind of the problem.  You can’t be diverted from the suffering at hand, if you’re going to do this right.  You need music with a driving beat, and it never hurts if it has some attitude, so you can find the proper frame of mind (which is somewhere between excitement and rage).  Oh, and the music has to be sophisticated enough that you don’t get sick of it after repeated listening.  There are pop songs I was already sick of before I’d finished hearing them the first time.

As I mentioned before, my Ultimate Workout Megamix has 165 tracks, which is about 11 hours of music, all in alphabetical order by track.  In my last post I was able to cover A thru G.  Tonight I provide the list—replete with liner notes on selected songs—for H thru M.

Liner notes – Dana’s Ultimate Superfly Workout Megamix Part II

Happiness is a Warm Gun - The Breeders

            Perhaps you’re familiar with the original Beatles version of this.  That wouldn’t be lively enough for the trainer.  The Breeders add a snarling guitar to it and it works great.  A college roommate of mine expressed astonishment that this was an all-female band despite the low voice of one of the singers.  Turns out my roommate was fooled by some photo where the guy was in drag.  That’s about all I know about the Breeders other than it was started by Kim Deal, formerly of the Pixies.

Head Down – Soundgarden

            This song helpfully reminds you to put your head down, which is useful while hammering, at least on the indoor trainer.  As the grammar coach of the UC Berkeley road team, I explained to everybody that “head down” is a figure of speech; while racing you really need to watch the road.  A former teammate of mine was once time trialing with his head down and rode right into the back of a parked car.  DAAAAAAAAAMN!

Heart In a Cage - The Strokes

            Good, fast tempo, the relentless driving beat so characteristic of the Strokes (it’s called a “triplet” according to my daughter, who knows something about music), and even some grumbling about how “I’m stuck in a city but I belong in a field” which captures that trapped feeling you get riding indoors for the third month in a row … this song has it all!  This is from “First Impressions of Earth,” an underrated Strokes album (all their others are overrated).

Heart Shaped Box – Nirvana

            Like “Black Hole Sun,” this song had quite the video.  It creeped me out big time when I first saw it.  At that time I was living in a literally flea-ridden apartment with a roommate who got baked like five times a day and had all the cable channels.  Just now I checked the video out again and probably the creepiest part is Kurt Cobain’s artificially blue eyes.  I once had an office job where the copier broke down constantly and I got to know the repairman, who had these dazzling blue contact lenses and a huge Swatch watch selection.  Nobody photocopies anymore … I wonder what that guy’s up to.  Maybe he’s in a band.

Heartbeat - Ice-T

            One of the best workout songs ever, as it reminds you to keep your heart rate up.  Plus it’s just a jammin’ song anyway.  “Listen to my heartbeat, it’s beatin’ like a wild man/ But that’s natural, ‘cause you know that I am/ No punk, no chump, no fool, no toy/ Try to get ill and I’ll serve you, boy!”  I sing along until I’m gasping for breath.

Hustlers - Nas
            This guy started rapping when he was just a pup, and was basically brilliant right out of the gate.  His quality control takes a bit of a hit because he produces albums almost constantly.  He’s kind of the Woody Allen of rap in that regard:  prolific but oddly willing to put out mediocre stuff now and then.  (He released two albums in one year, 1999; one went double platinum and the other fizzled.) This track is from “Hip Hop Is Dead,” which is my favorite of his albums.  An odd fact about Nas:  though he’s gotta be pretty wealthy, having sold over 15 million records in the U.S. alone, he also owns a shoe store.  I guess he just really likes shoes.

Hypnotize - The White Stripes

I Am A God - Kanye West

            Again, I cannot quite describe how I feel about Kanye West.  Actually, if I paraphrase the writer Adam Gopnik, maybe I can:  I don’t like Kanye West, but I like to listen to him.  (Gopnik was quoting his 6-year old talking about Barney, the purple dinosaur.)  This song is the epitome of braggadocio, but it’s got a good, weird, dark atmosphere and some great lines:  “I am a god/ So hurry up with my damn massage/ In a French-ass restaurant/ Hurry up with my damn croissants.”

I Am Not a Human Being - Lil Wayne

            What a great segue, from “I Am a God” right into “I Am Not a Human Being.”  This is one of my favorite Lil Wayne songs.  It has more effective guitar than any other rap song I can think of except maybe “The Girl Tried to Kill Me” by Ice-T or “Sing For the Moment” by Eminem.  I challenge you to listen to this on the trainer without starting to pedal harder.  I’m playing it right now to help with this commentary, and damn it, where’s my bike?!  LET’S ROLL, YOU AND ME, RIGHT NOW MUTHAFUCKA!

I Could Have Lied - Red Hot Chili Peppers

I Go To Work - Kool Moe Dee

            This is the rare nap song you can sing to your kids.  Did I really just type “nap song”?  Elton John would be a nap song.  I meant to say, this is the rare rap song you can sing to your kids.  There’s no profanity at all.  I was surprised the other day when my older daughter suddenly busted out with the whole first verse (which is a lot—237 words).  I started rapping this at my mom’s house at Thanksgiving recently, pleasantly camouflaged against the chatter of a bunch of kids, nieces and nephews, but suddenly they all went silent so they could hear.  It was a little scary, like suddenly being on stage.

I'm Back - Eminem

            Good, solid stuff.  I don’t know what this guy has against Christopher Reeves.  Maybe he’s just reminding us listeners that he’s the most tasteless rapper alive.  But good!

I'm Your Pusher - Ice-T

If I Had - Eminem

            My favorite line?  “If I had one wish, I would ask for a big enough ass for the whole world to kiss.”  This is funny all by itself, but even funnier for people my age who remember that corny Coke ad he’s mocking, from 1971:  “I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love.”

It Takes a Muscle - M.I.A.

Jack My Dick - Obie Trice

            This song might not work for your trainer ride the first few times you hear it because you’ll be laughing so hard your legs might turn to jelly.  Here, Obie presents the only convincing case for abstinence I’ve ever heard.  Not that this is the kind of song the Religious Right would ever embrace, and I can’t see it being put into service as a Public Service Announcement.

Jesus Christ Pose - Soundgarden

Just Lose It – Eminem

            Another song from the least of Eminem’s albums, “Encore,” but good for the trainer.  I think this is supposed to be a dance track.  It’s got a good beat, I could dance to it (if I could dance, but I can’t, so I ride rollers instead) … I give it a 7!

Killing Lies - The Strokes

Knives Out – Radiohead

            “If you’d been a dog they would have drowned you at birth.”  Nuff said.

Know It Ain't Right - M.I.A.

Last Nite - The Strokes

Legacy - Eminem

Like Suicide – Soundgarden

            Look, I know I have a lot of Soundgarden on this list.  I can’t help it.  I’m not saying they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread (and I’m not actually even that fond of sliced bread), but the drumming in this song, particularly toward the end, makes me want to ride to death.

Little Acorns - The White Stripes

Loco-Motive - Nas

Lollipop - Lil Wayne

            Some critic got all hot and bothered because this or that masterpiece of songcraft lost out to “Lollipop” for the Grammy in 2009.  The reader was expected to share this outrage, and I must say, “Lollipop” is just a bunch of gutter talk, very sophomoric, absolutely the kind of music you only listen to via headphones.  But none of this matters.  If you listen to this during exercise, you will get a better workout.

Longview - Green Day

Look In My Eyes - Obie Trice

Lose Yourself - Eminem

Love Me - 50 Cent

            I guess this is technically an Eminem song, but for some reason I think of it as 50 Cent.  I know nothing about 50 Cent.  My favorite line on this song is actually by Obie Trice.  It goes like this:  “Show me love … bitch.”  That just cracks me up every time.  I mean, it’s pretty bad when you have to tell your woman to love you.  I mean, you’re already on the wrong foot there, like people can just love on command.  But to make matters worse (perhaps out of reflex?) the speaker shows emphasis by calling her “bitch.” Yeah, dude, that will win her over.  It’s just funny.  Perhaps a feminist wouldn’t find this funny at all.  But think about it:  the funny part is how lame the guy is.  Feminists should use this as a case study for one of the many things wrong with men!  Who knows, maybe they do.

Love Me or Hate Me - Lady Sovereign

            Really, really great song, and I think this genre—grime—is generally a very good one for the trainer.  It’s fast, lots of wacky sounds, plenty to hook your bored brain on.  And the chorus here is good advice for the kind of person who tries so hard to be reasonable and likable, she just can’t cut herself any slack.  (Or he/himself … whatever.)  That advice is, “If you like me then thank you/ If you hate me, than fuck you.”  I sometimes play this one on speakers (rather than headphones), and whenever the f-word comes around I cough really loudly to drown it out, for the kids’ sake.  Today I finally let Alexa (age 14) hear the whole thing.  “I’d been wondering why this song always made you cough so much,” she said.

Love the Way You Lie - Eminem

Matangi - M.I.A.

Mockingbird - Eminem

Money Over Bullsh*t - Nas

Mother - Pink Floyd

            Okay, this isn’t actually ideal trainer music, but it’s just such a great song.  And actually, the guitar solo is pretty rousing.  If you’re into the movie “Pink Floyd The Wall,” you should check out my exegesis, in which I put forth this song as the key to understanding the entire movie.  Click here.

Mr. Carter - Lil Wayne

Mrs. Officer - Bobby Valentino/Lil Wayne

My Dad's Gone Crazy - Eminem

My England - Lady Sovereign

            One of my favorites.  If I understand this one right, it’s making fun of Anglophiles who think they know something about England because they read Bridget Jones’ Diary or saw the movie.  Meanwhile, Lady Sovereign both celebrates and denigrates her homeland in a way that never fails to amuse me.  Check it out!

My Mom - Eminem
            This is the best workout song I know of concerning Munchausen syndrome by proxy.  If you’re aware of other rousing rap or rock songs on this topic, please let me know.  If I gather enough of these, perhaps I’ll create a Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy Workout Megamix.  Actually, that might end up being kind of depressing, but it would still beat going to the gym.

My Name Is - Eminem

My Wave - Soundgarden

Stay tuned

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve focused on a relatively small number of bands/singers in this list.  Well duh, that’s to help you!  Not everybody consumes music by buying one MP3 at a time.  You could actually buy a few CDs, perhaps used, to take a gamble on this music.  Or just keep listening to that Sting album you bought back in college … see if I care.

Tune in next time for the penultimate installment (probably N thru S).  Click here for Part III, and enjoy your turbo-training!

More reading

Here are links to the rest of my series of Workout Megamix liner notes:

• Part I
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V
• Part VI
• Entire playlist on Spotify

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