“Classical liberal arts education embraces the ideals of sharpening students’ critical and creative thinking; provoking them to examine divergent perspectives; and teaching them to strengthen their oral and written arguments. Yet, during the Covid period, colleges and universities all over the country followed government and bureaucratic mandates while discouraging and even punishing students’ critical thinking and questioning.” (02/07/26)
“The sustainable agriculture movement’s ideological opposition to biotechnology undermines genuine environmental progress and food security.” (02/08/26)
“‘Imminent financial collapse,’ United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres hysterically predicted in a Jan. 29 letter to all UN member states, saying his reputationally challenged organization is so cash-strapped that it will run out of money by July, close its iconic Manhattan headquarters in August and cancel its annual General Assembly meeting in September. Most UN functions, including its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which claims to coordinate responses to global emergencies, may also sunset in the coming months due to lack of funds. This gushing cavalcade of good news sounds more like a promise than a warning.” (02/07/25)
“As AI systems grow more powerful, Anthropic’s resident philosopher says the startup is betting Claude itself can learn the wisdom needed to avoid disaster.” (02/06/26)
“A study published last month in Nature analyzed 41 million research papers across the natural sciences and found something that should unsettle anyone who believes AI will revolutionize scientific discovery. Yes, scientists who adopt AI tools publish three times more papers and receive nearly five times more citations. Their careers accelerate. But the collective range of scientific topics under investigation shrinks by nearly 5 percent, and researchers’ engagement with one another’s work drops by 22 percent. The tools that turbocharge individual scientists appear to be narrowing science as a whole.” (02/06/26)
Source: The UnPopulist
by Emily Chamlee-Wright & Jason S Canon
“‘These are the times that try men’s souls.’ That’s how Thomas Paine opened The American Crisis in 1776. The Declaration of Independence narrates the origins of that crisis: a tyrant choosing private gain over public good, usurping legislative authority, stifling immigration, cutting off trade, bending the judiciary, and sending ‘hither swarms of Officers to harass our people.’ 250 years later, surveying the aftermath of the ICE surge in Minneapolis, we know what Paine meant. … we’d like to follow Paine in turning soulward. How do we bear witness and resist without letting our shock and outrage corrupt who we are? We’re not here to tell anyone what or how to feel. Rather, we want to explore two traditions of directing our feelings toward inner and outer peace.” (02/06/26)
“As did many fellow Americans, I chuckled when President Trump announced the creation of the US Space Force on December 20, 2019. I even remember laughing heartily while taking in the late-night circuit’s many Star Trek jokes that day. Yet, I had mostly forgotten that the Space Force still exists until last week when Secretary of War Pete Hegseth started a policy speech alongside Elon Musk at SpaceX’s headquarters by flashing the Vulcan salute and affirming Musk’s desire to ‘make Star Trek real.’ The absurdity of Musk’s introduction (in which he spoke of ‘going beyond our star system to other star systems, where we may meet aliens or discover long dead alien civilizations’ as if this could happen in any of our lifetimes) belied the seriousness of the new U.S. Military Artificial Intelligence strategy that Secretary Hegseth proceeded to announce.” (02/07/25)
“[F]or much of Trump’s first year in office many Democrats were reluctant to challenge his immigration policies, because their defeat in 2024 was widely seen as in part a response to surging immigration during the Biden years. Until recently, Democrats tried to keep the national conversation focused on affordability and Trump’s obvious failure to deliver on his promises to bring grocery prices way down. While the Democratic strategy was an understandable response to a shattering electoral defeat, it rested on a cynical and nihilistic view of American voters: that they couldn’t be trusted to vote against a party that reveled in inflicting cruelty and injustice as long as the price of gasoline fell. But recent events refute this nihilistic cynicism.” (02/06/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“The Calculation Controversy was an extended debate between a group of free market economists, including Ludwig von Mises and Friederich Hayek, and a group of socialist economists including Abba Lerner and Oskar Lange. It was set off by Mises’ article Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth, which argued that without markets and trade, rational economic calculation was impossible. The most interesting response from the socialist side was the Lerner and Lange’s model of socialism with markets.” (02/06/26)
“The following, it seems to me, is what really matters: an email from an Epstein friend in 2014 (long, long after Epstein’s conviction for sex with a minor): ‘Thank you for a fun night … Your littlest girl was a little naughty.’ No proof of an actual crime here but, in the broader context of what we know about Epstein, the mind reels at the way so many in our elite were able to ignore the abuse of minors happening in the wings. Money, glamor, and connections easily trumped any moral qualms. I guess if Catholic Cardinals can look the other way, so can Larry Summers and Brad Karp. There’s something darker here too. The abuse of minors turned into a joke — long after Epstein’s first conviction …” (02/06/26)
