Thinking On Paper Robot Hands Need Fingernails, Turn Mercury Into Gold, Tax Breaks For Snails & Apple Fumbles
Every year, Tom Whitwell—reformed journalist, reformed consultant, electronic instrument designer—publishes 52 surprising things he learned. This year's list reveals how the world actually works.
Mark and Jeremy steal his homework (like OpenAI scraping the internet) and pick their favorites across AI, energy, labor, culture, psychology, and—yes—shrimp.
Some findings are encouraging:
- Deaths from air pollution fell 21% between 2013-2023. Tens of millions of people are alive today because pollution controls worked.
Some are weird:
- Nearly 0.7% of US exports by value are human blood or blood products.
- In the UK, you can legally register as a "farm" by keeping snails in plastic tubes in an office block (tax avoidance solved).
Most sit somewhere in between:
- 51% of farmed animals on Earth are shrimp.
- Attractive servers earn $1,261 more per year in tips—mostly because female customers tip attractive female servers more.
- The serial killer epidemic of the 1970s-80s may have been caused by lead exposure from cars and factories (solved by environmental regulations).
- Chinese CO2 emissions fell 1% in 2025, the first decline ever, driven by record solar power.
- Writing is a way to escape your mind's default settings.
We explore what these facts reveal about technology's unintended consequences, human behavior, and systems we take for granted.
Why does the UK communicate with offshore oil rigs by bouncing radio waves off meteorite trails? Why did Google launch a process to turn mercury into gold (and why do you have to wait 18 years to use it)? Why do job apps for nurses analyze credit card debt to set wages?
This isn't trivia. These are signals about how the world is changing—for better and worse—while we're busy predicting the future.
Tom Whitwell's annual list has become essential reading for anyone trying to understand what actually happened this year (not what we thought would happen).
For the last episode of 2025, Thinking on Paper goes backwards. And it's worth it.
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Source: Tom Whitwell, "52 Things I Learned in 2025"
Link: https://medium.com/@tomwhitwell/52-things-i-learned-in-2025-edeca7e3fdd8
Topics: Technology, society, environment, culture, psychology, economics, human behavior, annual review
Format: Co-hosted discussion (Mark Fielding, Jeremy Gilbertson)
Please enjoy the show.
And remember: Stay curious. Be disruptive.
Keep Thinking on Paper.
Cheers, Mark & Jeremy
PS: Please subscribe. It’s the best way you can help other curious minds find our channel.
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Email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz--
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Disruptors & Curious Minds
(01:15) Deaths From Air Pollution
(01:56) UK Tax Breaks Via Farms
(02:29) Meteorite Radio Stations
(04:03) Turn Mercury Into Gold
(06:10) Manipulative AI Apps For Nurses
(07:43) Bin Laden's Casio Watch
(08:31) Radioactive Shrimps
(08:53) Apple's Air Demo Cock-Up
(10:10) Does Jeremy Wear Crocs?
(11:13) What Is Raw Dogging
(12:00) Human Blood Products
(12:36) Relaxed Mowing
(13:20) Bugles At Funerals
(13:55) Robot Hands Need Fingernails
(14:40) First Names Affect Your Job
(15:27) Retrospect VHS
(16:04) Attractive Servers Earn More
(17:21) Hong Kong Phone Service
(17:33) McDonald's Loses First Place
(19:26) Shrimp Farming
(20:35) Peanut Allergies are Falling
(20:55) The Serial Killer Epidemic
(21:17) Namibian Politics
(21:50) Big Doors In LA
(22:40) Escape Your Mind With Writing
(23:43) HP Printer Ineptitude
(24:25) British Chaos
(25:20) Thank You Tom Whitwell