“Critics of low-skilled immigration usually lament their effect on low-skilled natives. Once in a while, however, the critics bemoan the effect of low-skilled immigrants on robots. Without low-skilled immigrants, there would be a much stronger incentive to mechanize agriculture, deliveries, driving, gardening, and beyond. Indeed, without low-skilled immigrants, we should expect much faster innovation for a vast range of labor-saving technologies. As J.D. Vance explained earlier this year: ‘[C]heap labor is fundamentally a crutch, and it’s a crutch that inhibits innovation.’ … The argument is correct — and deeply misleading. It’s a technophile’s variant on the classic Broken Window Fallacy.” (11/17/25)
“Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington is a disgrace, and it is outrageous that he will likely leave with new U.S. pledges of support and more arms deals. The crown prince is a war criminal and a murderer in addtion to being an increasingly repressive despot. He is the de facto leader of one of the world’s worst governments, and he ought to be treated like a pariah. Welcoming him to the White House is an affront to American interests and basic human decency. Trump defined his first term with his abject servility to Saudi and Emirati interests. It seems that he wants to outdo himself in the second term.” (11/17/25)
“President Trump began his second term with a trade war, and the sentiment among US workers has been anything but great. Last week, however, the president surprised his cabinet and introduced a new idea: sending out a $2,000 ‘dividend’ check to Americans. Using revenue from the trade war, Trump is proposing the influx of money be put into people’s pockets as well as ‘lower our debt.’ What’s old is new. This isn’t the first time the president has floated sending out checks, and the idea faces countless hurdles were it ever to become law. However, one thing remains certain: sending out tariff rebates does not provide a long-term solution for families, but ending the trade war would.” (11/16/25)
“Born on November 16, 1938 in Brooklyn, Robert Nozick began his intellectual life as a young socialist but ended it as one of the twentieth century’s fiercest defenders of property rights and limited government. Raised in a Jewish immigrant household, he joined Norman Thomas’s Socialist Party youth wing and helped organize the Student League for Industrial Democracy, yet his curiosity soon led him beyond doctrinaire leftism. While studying at Columbia and later Princeton, he encountered thinkers such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, and Ayn Rand, whose arguments for self‑ownership and free markets challenged his egalitarian assumptions. In the preface to his most famous book, he recalled that a long conversation with Rothbard ‘stimulated my interest in individualist anarchist theory’ and began a process that changed his mind.” (11/17/25)
“By now, the U.S. Supreme Court surely must see that it made a horrendous mistake last year when it ruled that presidents are above the law. The court’s conservative majority should admit its error and fix it. Their decision in Trump v. United States was naïve at best. More likely, the court bought into the right wing’s confusion about the difference between a unitary president and a dictator. Either way, the ruling put the Constitution and the rule of law into the hands of a president who willfully abuses both. It was an especially reckless act when President Trump was seeking the presidency again. … he was clearly running for office to escape trials and jail time for dozens of additional alleged crimes. Trump ran on a platform of personal retribution rather than public service. Once in office, he wasted no time proving how ill-advised the court’s decision was.” (11/17/25)
“Coordinated weekend protests in Mexico’s capital and other cities were organized through social media tools popular among young people around the world. But labeling them ‘Gen Z protests’ (akin to recent ones in Asia and Africa) would miss the significance of this movement and this moment for all Mexicans. In fact, the estimated 17,000 citizens who marched in Mexico City on Saturday represented a cross section of Mexican society. The multigenerational march was sparked by outrage over the recent killings of Carlos Manzó, a popular, tough-on-crime mayor, and Bernardo Bravo, head of a citrus growers’ association. Spontaneous demonstrations first broke out in the two men’s home state of Michoacán, which has been mired in cartel-linked violence for years. ‘This reaction, organic and honest, fed up with the security situation … is something new,’ David Mora, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNN.” (11/17/25)
“How should we understand the character of the American political present? Are we living through the radical transformation of American democracy into a competitive (or even uncompetitive) authoritarian system? Or are we merely experiencing the fulfillment of longstanding antiliberal and anti-democratic trends in American politics in general and the Republican Party in particular? Or do we merely find ourselves at a rare (but nonetheless democratically legitimate) moment of rapid constitutional evolution to the right after nearly a century of consistently leftward shifts?” (11/17/25)
“Humanity is just now hitting its stride, or at least we’re threatening to. We approached it before World War I, then suffered through a long, ugly period. More recently our leading edges have started to push through the thorns and weeds, and there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll make it this time. But even if this attempt fails, one of the generations that follows us will make it. Post-primate society is coming; it’s only a question of when. This is certain because the development of mankind, of the human race, has been nothing short of spectacular. We have risen so fast that any other conclusion must stand upon gloominess and depression. The long-term record is clear.” (11/17/25)
“The roughly 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps did not receive their November 1 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits as the government shutdown dragged on. The missed payments came just as the holiday season began, leaving many families struggling to put food on the table. Lines at food banks backed up traffic across the country. The Trump administration defied federal court orders to restore full funding to the program before the Supreme Court’s conservative majority temporarily green-lit the freeze. The White House even tried to claw back funding from states that had already distributed it to hungry families. Lawmakers have now negotiated an end to the shutdown. But the threat to the nation’s primary nutrition assistance program, SNAP, is far from over. As the government reopens, millions will still lose access to food assistance starting almost immediately.” (11/17/25)
“The natural home for this work is a biomedical journal. There is zero chance, however, that a paper would be accepted by any conventional journal. Why? Because the results are earthshaking, as stated in the title. This post is technical, but the preamble is not. For the non-academic reader, the preamble will serve two purposes: 1) to share an interesting story about the evolution of this work; 2) to give a simple summary of what I found. So, stay with me at least through this section.” (11/17/25)
