Today's sentence: "There are conflict entrepreneurs out there who benefit from radicalizing us. . . We can return violence with violence; we can return hate with hate. That’s the problem with political violence. It metastasizes. We can always point the figure at the other side. At some point we have to find an off ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse." - Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. More here. How about he runs for President?
Robin Hanson reviews Eliezer Yudkowsky's book about AI, If Anyone Builds It, We All Die. Hanson is not impressed.
Scott Siskind against the argument that "unelected" judges should not contradict elected officials.
Fascinating long tweet summarizing the views and impact of the Irish Enlightenment: Swift, Berkeley, Hutcheson (hugely influential in America), Burke, etc.
Can organ recipients acquire personality traits and even memories from their donors? Some very weird stuff here. (Psychology Today, technical article titled "Personality Changes Associated with Organ Transplants." ) This is from very long entry in Siskind's "review anything" contest about theories of how memories are stored..
The tale of an Anasazi/Ancestral Pueblo skull with an embedded stone arrowhead.
Conor Friedersdorf, an opponent of the Trump administration, says they are right to raise the alarm about threats to free speech in Europe.
Ethan Mollick asks Claude, "Please create the PowerPoint shared by the high powered management consultants hired by Hamlet after seeing his fathers ghost."
The University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey goes back 50 years. For most of that time the sentiment of the young (18-34) was more positive than that of older people, usually much more positive. This started to change in 2018, and now it has been worse than the average for 9 of the past 11 quarters.
Tyler Cowen, "Stop Blaming Them"
Britain announces plan to build 12 modular nuclear reactors in Hartepool, in the northeast. They will replace the existing nuclear plant there, due to be decomissioned in 2028. They should produce much more power but I can't find any numbers.
Poll of Rhode Island voters finds that most support building more housing in the state, as long as it is not in their own neighborhood. (Twitter/X)
Drug addiction is usually not lifelong.
Disco Elysium is a cool game, but its makers seem to be childish jerks and lawsuits have blocked any move toward a sequel. (NY Times, IGN, TheGamer)
A Canadian company called First Atlantic Nickel is touting a deposit of Awaruite (Ni3Fe) in Newfoundland containing a lot of cobalt, which they say will challenge the Chinese dominance of nickel and cobalt production. (Company web site, promotional video) I have yet to find any outside analysis of their claims and would appreciate a link. Interest in Awaruite is high because processing the most common Nickel ore, Nickel sulfide, is such an environmental disaster that it basically can't be done in the US or Europe; Awaruite can be processed using electromagnets in a way likely to be less damaging.
Inscription records that Emperor Qing Shih Huang Ti's quest for immortality extended to Tibet.
Interesting arrangement of small idols around a Bronze Age hearth hints at domestic rituals.
Phil Christman's journey through Christianity, chronicled in two earlier books, has now led to the belief that Christians should become activists for socialism.
Collection of short interviews with young, hip female writers, with some interesting questions, including about the place of the novel in a world of very rapid change.
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Phil Christman's journey through Christianity, chronicled in two earlier books, has now led to the belief that Christians should become activists for socialism.
Most "Christians" continually amaze me with how utterly ignorant they seem to be regarding what their supposed Lord and Savior actually said and commanded his followers to do.
If you actually read the gospels, Jesus is constantly instructing the faithful to help other people, care for the sick, do good deeds, tend to the needy, give away their possessions and wealth, only hold property in common, etc. Of course if you claim to actually follow Jesus' teachings, you should promote socialism.
This is the man who at every turn condemned the pursuit of wealth! This is the man who practiced radical egalitarianism, ignoring distinctions of class, religion, ethnicity, etc! This is the man who said that when the poorest and most vulnerable suffer or are taken advantage of, it is he himself that suffers or is exploited!
How in the world people can read the Bible and then turn around and do the exact opposite of everything Jesus said astounds me. He preached radical nonviolence, and his supposed followers love guns and war. He preached radical acceptance of others, and his supposed followers love bigotry and exclusion. He preached forgiveness and not judging others, and his supposed followers love condemnation and punishment. It goes on and on.
There are what I call "real" Christians out there, who do seem to understand the actual message of Jesus and try to uphold it - but they are sadly a rare exception, and a very small minority. And I understand why - actually living according to Jesus' actual teaching is an incredibly difficult thing. But it still bothers me deeply how many people aren't actual Christians, but are merely adopting the mantle of supposed piety for selfish reasons.
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