The Brain Salad Surgery Podcast

The Brain Salad Surgery Podcast Unscripted Food for Thought with a small side salad of snark. Plastic Surgeon, Inventor and Itinerant Philosopher

06/05/2026

Smoking on airplanes was once routine.

Now it is almost surreal to imagine.

Try lighting up a Marlboro on a red-eye from LAX to JFK.

NYPD will have a welcome wagon waiting for you at the gate.

Food for thought.

06/05/2026

Cultures change slowly.

Until suddenly they don’t.

What once felt ordinary can later feel bizarre or unacceptable.

What once seemed radical can later feel mainstream, unremarkable, or obvious.

Most people know this happens.

Very few notice it while it is happening.

Food for thought.

06/04/2026

Some conspiracy theories are false.

Some are partially true.

Some later become substantiated.

And some may remain unresolved forever.

The analytical point is not to reject labels.

The point is that labels should not replace evidence evaluation or evidentiary standards.

Because social acceptability is not the same thing as evidentiary strength.

And when social pressure shapes perception, critical thinking becomes a personal responsibility.

Food for thought.

06/03/2026

A label can be useful.

A label can even be accurate.

But a label is not an argument.

Words like “misinformation,” “extremist,” “anti-science,” and “conspiracy theory” can sometimes describe something real.

But they can also become shortcuts.

Once a label carries enough emotional weight, people may react to the label itself rather than independently evaluating the underlying claim.

The point is not to reject labels.

The point is not to let labels replace evidence.

Food for thought.

06/01/2026

Want to feel the Overton Window move?

Watch an old movie.

Smoking was once ordinary. Social. Familiar. Even aspirational.

The product did not change.

The culture did.

And that is what the Overton Window looks like.

Food for thought.

05/31/2026

Cultures tend to change slowly.

That is, until suddenly they don’t.

Ideas that once seemed radical can become ordinary.
Things that once felt completely normal can later seem bizarre.

The Overton Window does not determine whether an idea is true or false.

It describes something different:

What a culture feels socially permitted to discuss.

And those are two very different things.

Because social acceptability is not the same thing as evidentiary strength.

A label can be useful.
A label can even be accurate.

But a label is not an argument.

The Overton Window.

Food for thought.

05/08/2026

Not every difficult behavior is a disorder.

Sometimes we confuse judgement...

with diagnosis.

Is it a narcissist — or just a human being having a "moment".

Drop a comment if you've ever judged someone too quickly without enough context, including yourself.

Food for Thought

05/07/2026

Sometimes boundaries feel selfish…

to people who benefited from you not having them.

Food for thought.

05/06/2026

Social media has a habit of compressing complicated behavior into clinical labels.

Sometimes the word is accurate.

But sometimes what we’re calling “narcissism” is just selfishness.

Selfishness isn’t a diagnosis.

It’s a behavior.

Context-dependent.
Situational.
Very human.

You can be selfish in a moment without being a narcissist as a person.

And still be a good, moral human being.

Food for thought.

05/05/2026

I felt like I was being selfish.

Turns out…

I was trying not to collapse.

There’s no clinical word for that.

So my therapist gave me one:

Selfic.

Food for thought.

Address

Southampton, NY

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Brain Salad Surgery Podcast posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category