Month: July 2019

Moreover, there’s much less civil unrest than decades ago, and much of the culture-warring is being waged online rather than in person. From the post Politics may seem bad now, but it used to be much worse: In the span of 150 years Americans fought a war over slavery to now a culture war over… Continue reading The ’90s and now, part 11

Things have been slow on the news front lately. As I predicted 3 months ago, don’t expect much from the Trump administration until after the election, so we’re looking at 20 months minimum. Regarding Epstein, So a sleazy financier who everyone expected of being a pedophile is actually a pedophile…who knew. I predict there will… Continue reading Trump’s 2020 odds improve, but victory far from certain

For the past few years or so, there has been a lot of discussion online about ‘collapse’. There is even a very popular sub devoted to the topic, /r/collapse. From a 2017 post Collpase: Over the past few years, there has been considerable interest in the subject of ‘collapse’, whether it be the collapse of… Continue reading No coming collapse, and predictions for next 10 years

From Bloomberg, by Tyle Cowen I Want More Immigrants and a Census Citizenship Question: It’s obvious Tyler unapologetically and unconditionally supports more immigration, possibly even more so than most left-wing pundits and politicians, who support immigration but under the condition of including with reform. What is interesting (to me, at least) is how certain pundits… Continue reading Intellect as Social Currency

Online, strong opinions about issues such as immigration, the national debt, student loan debt, tariffs and China, internet privacy and surveillance, gun control, abortion, etc., are commonplace. Pundits such as Alex Jones go on long rants about the encroaching power of the state, about the overreach of CIA and FBI, about the ‘Chicoms’, and how… Continue reading Capital rules the world

But also, boomers tend to default to platitudes such as ‘democracy’, ‘ education’, and ‘voting’ as solutions to societal problems, whereas many of these woke (as in to be awake and aware, not necessarily left-wing as the definition is commonly understood) young people prefer alternative, potentially controversial and politically incorrect explanations and solutions to such… Continue reading The ’90s and now, part 10

This is pretty fascinating: Exceptionally Gifted Children, By Miraca U. M. Gross The book concerns education in Australia for exceptionally gifted children. Terence Tao, who was born in Australia but since 1999 has been math professor at UCLA, is mentioned in the book. And the related table of reading and talking ages for exceptionally gifted… Continue reading Studies of Exceptionally Gifted Children

How Free Speech Dies Online And, on the same note, is it so dangerous to let Richard Spencer shitpost on Twitter that stopping him is worth giving up on the idea of social media being a forum for the free exchange of opinion? His arguments do not seem to be gaining much traction. The 2016… Continue reading The Debate Over Free Speech Online

It’s not just math and science topics, but also matters of social and societal consequence that are being revivified thanks to the internet. For example, in 1995, the New York Times and The Washington Post acquiesced to Theodore Kaczynski’s demands to publish his infamous manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, which lead to his capture… Continue reading The ’90s and now, part 9