Joe Taylor

I manage songwriters and try to do something about climate change

[Media Tell The Truth XR @TTTMediaXR]

As we enter another deadly heatwave, let’s look at what a Tory or Reform government would do about it 🥵⚰️

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

In 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world by refusing to launch a nuclear retaliation when the system wrongly told him his country was under attack.

Americans and Israelis could face that same choice tonight. May they have the courage and wisdom to do what Stanislav did.

[Joe Taylor @nuxx]

This checks out for me. I always thought sixth form college was the peak of music loving for me and my peers, although I do still love both new and old music.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Your brain peaked musically somewhere around age 16. Everything since then has been a dopamine echo.

Between the ages of 12 and 22, the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, the same circuit that processes cocaine and sex, fires at levels in response to sound that it will never reach again for the rest of your life. A 2011 McGill study used PET scans and fMRI simultaneously and found that music triggers dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal. The caudate nucleus lights up during anticipation of the good part. The nucleus accumbens lights up when it hits. Your brain is treating a guitar riff with the same reward architecture it uses for food-seeking and pair bonding.

During adolescence, that response is dramatically amplified. Pubertal hormones are flooding the system. The prefrontal cortex is still wiring itself. Memories formed during this window get encoded with a density of emotional tagging that nothing in your 30s or 40s can replicate. Researchers at the University of Leeds identified this as the “reminiscence bump”: the period when your sense of self is forming, and the music playing during that formation becomes structurally integrated into your identity.

A 2025 longitudinal study from the University of Gothenburg analyzed 40,000 users’ streaming data across 15 years. Younger listeners explored broadly across genres. Older listeners collapsed into increasingly narrow loops, almost entirely anchored to music from their teens and early twenties.

Your brain stopped losing interest in new music years ago. It’s running a cost-benefit analysis. Familiar songs deliver guaranteed dopamine with zero processing cost. New songs require pattern recognition, expectation-building, and repeated exposure before the reward circuit kicks in. Past 25, most people stop paying that tax.

The one variable that predicts whether someone keeps exploring: the personality trait “openness to experience.” Score high, you keep seeking. Score average, you default to the familiar forever.

The fix, if you want one: deliberate exposure. Three listens minimum before your auditory cortex builds enough predictive models to generate a reward response. One passive listen on a playlist will never get there. Your brain needs repetition to find the pattern, and it needs the pattern to release dopamine.

[Joe Taylor @nuxx]

Once had to buy Neil Sedaka some DVDs from Sainsbury's on Camden Road. The selection was not good. Apologies Neil - hopefully there's a better selection wherever you are now.

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

BREAKING: Syria has erupted into civil war once again. ISIS prisoners are breaking free and the precious haven of democracy that is Rojava is under threat like never before.

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

BBC trying to rewrite history here 😡

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

Salvador Allende of Chile became the first socialist to be democratically elected as president of a South American country in 1970, promising education for all, land reform, public ownership of key industries, and an end to extreme inequality.

Guess what happened next. 🧵

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

It has been called “the most prophetic work of humanity”. In 1971, it told us why collapse is coming and how to avoid it.

It was denounced by almost every leading economist - but it was right.

This is the story of The Limits To Growth. 🧵

[Joe Taylor @nuxx]

One of my two best experiences in a theatre was seeing Stoppard’s Rock & Roll

[Harry Wallop @hwallop]

Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes about Tom Stoppard

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

In the USA you can elect whoever you want as long as they back the billionaire class.

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

All empires meet the same fate.

The "wealth pump" overflows.

A tiny elite siphon off the surplus, hollowing out the society beneath them until it cracks.

It’s happening again. But it doesn't have to be this way.

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

Trump. Putin. Carney. Støre. bin Salman.

Every leader of a petrostate is a murderous lying scumbag - except perhaps for one.

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

They were pillars of the British establishment.

Then they realised: we are the baddies.

What did they do next? 🧵

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

🌊 Rivers have spirits.

🪨 Rocks hold memory.

🌏 Earth isn’t a resource but a relative.

These are things many tribes that have lasted for millennia believe.

Is it woo-woo?

Or could it be the key to building a better world out of The Collapse?🧵

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

Nine times out of ten, it’s a waste of time arguing with someone from the other side of the political spectrum.
You’d be better off making them a cup of tea.

Here’s why that might actually work - and why your childhood determined your politics.🧵

[Media Tell The Truth XR @TTTMediaXR]

Scientists meeting in Exeter, UK have demanded world leaders take “immediate, unprecedented action” to save humanity from global collapse.

This is a thread compiling media coverage of this seismic news. 🧵

[Media Tell The Truth XR @TTTMediaXR]

In 2008, the collapse of a single bank - Lehman Brothers - nearly brought down the global economy.

Now, a far bigger crash is brewing. And our so-called leaders know it. But they're doing nothing about it.🧵

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

Nashville. 1960. One of the most segregated cities in the world.

But change is coming, thanks to a masterclass in strategy, discipline and nonviolent resistance.

This is the story of how the civil rights movement achieves the impossible. 🧵

[Red Hot World @RedHotWorld]

The USA is cooked. The rest of the world is cooking. How to stop the slide? Parties like The Democrats won’t do it. So then what?

@EricaChenoweth has the answer: if 3.5% of the population get involved in nonviolent resistance, they will achieve their aims (almost) every time.🧵

[Joe Taylor @ClimateJoe]

Happy memories of visiting Finland back when I used to fly.