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How To Be a Baby Properly

2013-06-07 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Philosophy & meaning · reflection essay

Hank welcomes his newborn niece a child of the brothers with a comic six-step guide to being a baby built on newborn biology, ending on the sincere point that a baby's cuteness lets people see beyond their own lifespans and care about the future.

What is said

00:00:00 — Welcome to Earth, a child of the brothers: born into perhaps the most interesting time in history; the future could go either way

  • ★★ Hank welcomes a child of the brothers to Earth, 'a wonderful, terrible place', and says she is being born into what may be the most interesting time in human history. (hedged) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank's description says he has talked to John a lot since the birth: John is excited, exhausted, enjoying time with his family, and far less freaked out than when a child of the brothers was born. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank: if all goes well, in a child of the brothers's lifetime humans will walk on Mars, computers become intelligent, the paralyzed walk again, absolute poverty all but end, and she may live past 100; or technological society may implode. It could go either way. (hedged) — 00:00:12 · extreme poverty

00:00:42 — Uncle Hank's guide to being a baby, steps 1-5: born premature, crying, sleeping in 2.5-hour stretches, mouthing things, crying to communicate

  • ★★★ Hank explains that human babies are born quite premature compared with other placental mammals because our heads evolved to be so big they are hard to deliver later in development; a newborn is basically still an embryo. — 00:00:54
  • ★★ Hank says newborns want to be swaddled, warm and to hear whooshing noises, and that a baby's cry is designed to tap directly into the parents' sympathy. (playful) — 00:01:13
  • ★★ Hank advises a child of the brothers to sleep about two and a half hours at a time so her parents approach but never quite reach REM sleep, joking that they will start hallucinating. (playful) — 00:01:40
  • ★★ Hank says that because newborns are so underdeveloped their nervous system is poor and complex sensing is concentrated in one area (he gestures), so babies put things in their mouths to learn what they are. (playful) — 00:01:55
  • ★ Hank says babies have two ways to communicate; the first, crying, should be used all the time, whatever the baby feels (hungry, sleepy, bored). (playful) — 00:02:09

00:02:32 — Step 6: cuteness - the key to hope, to seeing beyond our lifespans and to caring about the future

  • ★★★ Hank: a baby's cuteness is extremely potent - not just for inspiring love but the key to our hope, our ability to see beyond our own lifespan and feel part of a continuum back to the first self-replicating life. — 00:02:32
  • ★★★ Hank: the baby's cuteness reminds us that decisions we make now will affect her, her children and their children, and that she is the next, hopefully better, step in humanity. — 00:02:55

00:03:18 — Hank wishes he could see a child of the brothers and John; 'Craig, I will see you on Tuesday'

  • ★★ Hank wishes he could see and hold a child of the brothers, and see John, but won't for a while; he signs off to Craig instead of John: 'Craig, I will see you on Tuesday'. — 00:03:18 · Craig Benzine

Humor (significant)

  • Crying is as easy as making any other noise for a baby, Hank explains — 00:01:24 > «But you're gonna want to look like it's really difficult.»
  • Hank advises a child of the brothers to sleep in two-and-a-half-hour stretches so her parents never quite reach REM sleep — 00:01:48 > «Which is going to be hilarious when they start having hallucinations.»
  • After declaring a child of the brothers the next, hopefully better, step in the process of humanity — 00:03:16 > «I hope that's not too much pressure.»
  • Instead of signing off to John, who is on leave, Hank signs off to next week's guest host — 00:03:24 > «But, Craig I will see you on Tuesday.»

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