My son and I turned his reading homework into a game: start a stopwatch and stop it as fast as possible. We weren’t trying to accomplish anything. We were just having fun.
My new Quillette essay: quillette.substack.com/p/how…
Subscribe free to The Laughing Ape: robertc12.substack.com/welco…
At a ten-day silent meditation retreat in Thailand, I understood the instructions immediately: watch your breath, notice when your mind wanders, and bring it back.
I spent the next ten days discovering how little understanding those instructions helped me follow them.
My new essay, “The Insight Trap,” explores the gap between knowing and doing, and why an insight can give us the satisfaction of progress before we’ve done any of the work. Understanding can point us toward change. Turning it into behavior takes discipline and practice.
robertc12.substack.com/p/the…
If you missed my conversation with Zoe on Quillette, I’ve added it to The Laughing Ape. We talked about humor, status, why comedy needs risk, and the eighth grader who drew a penis on my 540 million year old fossil.
robertc12.substack.com/p/my-…
Why is taking our own advice so hard? My new Quillette essay, “The Insight Trap,” explores the gap between knowing and doing.
quillette.com/2026/10/19/the…
Subscribe free to The Laughing Ape:
robertc12.substack.com/subsc…
I talked with Zoe Booth on the Quillette Cetera podcast about status, addiction, humor, taboos, and the gap between knowing and doing.
Watch the conversation:
youtube.com/watch?v=IUJkbL2X…
For more of my writing, subscribe free to The Laughing Ape:
robertc12.substack.com/subsc…
Different doesn’t mean better or worse. My essay “Not every difference is a rank” is now in Aporia:
aporiamagazine.com/p/not-eve…
Subscribe free to The Laughing Ape:
robertc12.substack.com/subsc…
I wrote about what happened when my four-year-old discovered the word that made adults lose their minds. It’s about kids, taboos and the power we give forbidden words.
Read it on The Laughing Ape, where you can also subscribe:
robertc12.substack.com/p/how…
Now republished by The Freethinker:
freethinker.co.uk/2026/10/ho…
Men and women are equal. That doesn’t make them interchangeable. Why do we hear “different” and immediately start looking for a winner?
My new essay—free to read, with audio.
robertc12.substack.com/p/men…
My four-year-old discovered America’s most powerful word, realized it made adults lose their minds—and turned it into a superpower.
New essay:How My Four-Year-Old Discovered America’s Most Powerful Word
robertc12.substack.com/p/how…
My second essay on taboos called "The Ape in the Basement and" it's now up on my Substack "The Laughing Ape."
It’s about masturbation and why something almost everyone does is still so hard to acknowledge.
A version appeared earlier this week in Quillette. This is my original version, with an audio voiceover.
robertc12.substack.com/p/the…
My second essay in the taboo series is up at Quillette: The Ape in the Basement.
It’s about masturbation and why something that almost everyone does is so hard to acknowledge.
I’ll post my original version at The Laughing Ape this weekend with an audio voiceover.
quillette.substack.com/p/the…
New essay on substack called 'Naked in America.'
Its about Icelandic pools, American locker rooms, naked toddlers, old men at the gym and how Americans forgot the difference between nakedness and indecency.
First in a three-part series on taboos.
robertc12.substack.com/p/nak…
Great video Quillette made on an article I wrote about declining social status. substack.com/@quillette/note…
My essay “Naked in America” is up today at Quillette.
It’s the first of three pieces I’m writing on taboos — this one about locker rooms, communal showers and the changing norms around kids and adults being naked in America.
I’ll eventually post it at The Laughing Ape too, but for now you can read it here: quillette.com/2026/09/01/nak…
I made a “Start Here” guide to The Laughing Ape — essays on status, self-deception, humor, anthropology, taboo, and the ridiculous things humans pretend not to notice.
robertc12.substack.com/p/sta…
How Anthropology Lost Interest in the People It Was Founded to Understand robertc12.substack.com/p/how…
My new essay in Quillette. About a field built to understand people who think differently — and stopped being curious about them. My old postdoc advisor Chagnon, evidence vs. ideology, and an AAA president who called sex "nonsensical" without being able to define it. quillette.com/2026/08/06/wha…
I added audio versions to all three essays in my status series, for anyone who would rather listen than read.
The series works best in order. Start here:
I Was Wearing a Tutu When I Started Bragging About My PhD
robertc12.substack.com/p/i-w…
Part 2:
I Was a Scientist. Then I Became a Substitute Teacher
robertc12.substack.com/p/i-w…
Part 3:
What an Eighth Grader Who Drew a Penis on My 510-Million-Year-Old Fossil Taught Me About Status
robertc12.substack.com/p/wha…
My Grandparents Knew Waste Is a Sin | Plough plough.com/articles/my-grand…
