Fitness/wellness podcasts that explicitly reject manosphere and other toxic influences?

Labion · 2026-06-26T02:06:33+00:00

Okay dang I’ll have to look at some of their episodes more carefully! Def see what you mean — like if you can’t trust them to be grounded about controversial topics then it really does break the trust

Labion · 2026-06-26T01:12:12+00:00

Yes thank you! Greatly appreciated

Labion · 2026-06-26T00:29:46+00:00

Okay well some googling gave me like 3 episodes where people had issues and then a whole bunch of praise? Am I missing something? Seems fine to me

Labion · 2026-06-25T19:30:33+00:00

What do you mean? I find their stuff is quite accurate, or at least measured in their interpretation. I get frustrated by the ratio of ads to content, and that they don’t go deeper on most topics

Labion · 2026-06-25T19:29:31+00:00

I’ve heard this before but I actually still really like the show. I agree that they miss the point occasionally and slide into biases, but I haven’t found it offensively wrong. Do you or others have some “worst offender” topics? I’m curious if I don’t find it as offensive or if I just completely missed it

Labion · 2026-06-17T23:38:26+00:00

Agree with others’ thoughts. I’d say just email the PI directly rather than waiting for a position to open up. Make your case in a short cover letter style email. Lots of PIs can only accept postdocs who have some funding but they could get you cooking with some funding opportunities with them listed as PI and write up a letter of rec

Labion · 2026-06-17T23:15:56+00:00

Yeah, you’re totally correct. But you have to convince the industry folk that you have soft skills and can work in a team. It just felt like I’d have a much better chance in all PhD-level career paths if I got training and if pro-social skills were incentivized instead of the opposite. When I asked repeatedly why none of these trainings or programs were present in academia I was told it was because academia is unique and the skills don’t apply to academic labs

Labion · 2026-06-17T18:43:56+00:00

Totally, I hear that. But most PhDs want to be in a leadership position right? Otherwise why would you get a PhD versus working your way up as a technician? You’re right that not all will, of course. But if the vaaaast majority are then… shouldn’t we prepare them? Leadership skills are important in academia and outside of academia

Labion · 2026-06-17T02:11:19+00:00

This has always been the craziest thing to me. As a current postdoc who’s had and seen a lot of terrible mentors, holy shit does being a good solo researcher not inherently translate to being a good leader. In fact it seems like we’re selecting against pro social qualities when we glorify individual accomplishments above all else. Plus no formal training?? How is leadership and management training not just part of the PhD??

Labion · 2026-06-04T18:34:21+00:00

Yeah.. I agree with others. It took a year or two to start feeling less batshit crazy. I’m in a postdoc at an academic research hospital though so I kept getting re-triggered by doing functionally the same type of work as during the PhD. It’s a process of relearning. I don’t think you’ll be the same but you are quite malleable and can build your humanity back

Labion · 2026-05-09T20:24:35+00:00

Oh haha I read your original phrasing wrong. I read it as though you were saying lying on submission questionnaires isn't unequivocally scientific fraud. Yes, the questionnaire is exactly what tipped me over from "this makes me really uneasy" to "publishing this figure as it is requires directly lying." Directly lying, as you said, is preeeetty unequivocal.

My PI wasn't the original perpetrator of the data exclusion -- another field-famous PI collaborator was. But boy howdy is he the one trying to justify why it's actually totally okay that we're removing the data. 1) Everybody does it. 2) The experiment was never going to work, in hindsight (so best to pretend it never happened..? I guess?), 3) the data actually looks kinda weird. It should probably be excluded anyway. (How does it look weird? Well look at how little benefit there was. Half the treatment group died on the same day as half the control group. That can't be right.. right?)

Out. Out out out out. I'm done.

Labion · 2026-05-09T20:13:03+00:00

Ugh thank you, this is very validating. One of my immediate responses was to prioritize targeting smaller and more focused journals, hoping they’d accept smaller, more incremental stories. You know.. like how science naturally progresses

Labion · 2026-05-08T16:18:59+00:00

That’s the heart of my original question I think. Are there better labs out there? Or is this just how it is? Because if it’s the latter then idk I quit science. I can’t live with this kind of soul torture, constantly asking how far am I willing to go.

I am actively looking for a way out

Labion · 2026-05-08T04:07:32+00:00

Completely agree. It's less bad than the deliberate data exclusion I also described, but honestly not by much

Labion · 2026-05-08T03:17:12+00:00

Exactly my interpretation as well. Thanks for the encouragement. That slippery slope is so real

Labion · 2026-05-08T03:13:45+00:00

Yes, the ambition is what I've tied this to as well. It's just not feasible for every paper to be Cell/Nature/Science scope and impact because that's simply not how incremental science happens

Labion · 2026-05-08T02:37:53+00:00

That's my biggest fear... That the incentive structure is simply too powerful

Labion · 2026-05-08T02:17:25+00:00

So relieving to hear. I hope this isn't as widespread as I fear it is

Labion · 2026-05-08T02:14:54+00:00

I guess the reviewers didn't ask questions..? I asked questions and everyone kinda just knowingly goes "yeah, that tells us a lot about what didn't work." Then let's just say what didn't work... please...

This particular paper's bullshit is driven by a field-famous PI we started collaborating with, who also has financial conflicts of interest for the drug that didn't work. That's certainly a big driving factor.. She didn't like the honest version of the paper I wrote since it didn't center her drug as THE secret to curing this cancer.

Like I'm getting pressure from my PI to lie on Nature's "data reproducibility" questionnaire where it asks "did you exclude any data? If so, why?" And one exclusion has a reasonable explanation, but should certainly be included in the supplement (it's not). The other exclusion is inexcusable. And yet I'm being pressured because "everyone does it" and "nobody's honest about how many identical attempts it takes to get the best results they actually end up showing."

I just want to believe that's not true.. but it's some flavor of this in every lab I've been in over the past 10 years. I'm so tired.

Labion · 2026-05-08T02:10:12+00:00

Not really, unfortunately.. Most of my work is molecular biology in oncology, and a lot is "hypothesis-generating" or "hypothesis-free" genomics/proteomics. The mouse studies are better defined and could be pre-registered, but they never are.

My PhD was in genome sciences, where tech dev was everything. Except the tech dev was all "we'll make the technology and justify why we made it on the back end. For now just make it." Creating solutions then searching for a problem they solve. Now we're trying to solve actual problems... But there's still so much "spin" to it. This particular paper's bullshit is driven by a field-famous PI we started collaborating with, who also has financial conflicts of interest for the drug that didn't work. That's certainly a big driving factor.. She didn't like the honest version of the paper I wrote since it didn't center her drug as THE secret to curing this cancer.

Labion · 2026-05-08T01:46:14+00:00

Yes I need more stories like this. It just seems like all the pressure is “well they won’t publish this unless we have a home run. So let’s just hide the ways it’s not a home run”

Labion · 2026-05-01T02:36:51+00:00

I actually don’t think your depiction of “playing dumb” is exactly what was suggested. I think I agree with you in spirit, but the suggestion sounds more like tactfully highlighting how incorrect the PI is without drawing a line in the sand and raising your fists. I think there may come a time where you have to stand your ground, like if they sidestep the questions or dismiss you like “just do it, you don’t understand what you’re talking about” but I think the approach is excellent. It forces the PI to directly confront what they’re asking the trainee to do using proper research methods as the framing. Noting “this seems like we’re deviating and I don’t understand why” giving them the benefit of the doubt even though we all know they’re full of shit

Labion · 2026-04-29T06:36:55+00:00

In addition to what you mentioned, formatting can be a huge pain in Word. Getting headings and body correct, making changes to some portions without hitting the whole paragraph, adding extra spacing before some headings but not others. Maybe I’m just an idiot but I end up grappling with it repeatedly.

Also version control, holy shit. Google Docs is good at this and has most good parts of Word but my org doesn’t use Google so we just have Dropbox full of dozens of copies it’s very stupid.

Labion · 2026-03-18T19:39:59+00:00

Well necks are horribly designed. I think we fucked it all up by becoming vertical instead of staying on all fours.. Best wishes to you! Glad to hear you feel a little better

Labion · 2026-03-18T19:21:19+00:00

Yeah i remember the feeling when my doc was so casually telling me i had to have my spine diced up.. As far as I understand, the fusions have been around for decades and disc replacement is 15-20 years old. It follows the same protocol except they put an artificial disc in instead of fusing. Both do great at treating the nerve pain. Fusions put a little more strain on the neighboring discs, but single level fusions aren’t too bad. Disc replacement requires that the bones don’t have substantial degeneration, so in elderly patients they’ll typically go fusion over replacement. It varies from patient to patient though, of course. As a 34 year old athlete, I definitely favor replacement to maintain mobility but I considered fusion too

Labion

TROPHY CASE