“Days after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush gave the world a now-infamous ultimatum: ‘Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.’ Thus began the forever war on terror and a shift in the American psyche that sought the destruction of any perceived enemy as some sort of divine retribution for the horrific acts witnessed on 9/11. This thirst for justice led to the popularity of ‘To Catch a Predator,’ an early 2000s reality TV series on ‘Dateline NBC’ that used hidden-camera sting operations to catch adults who showed up to meet underage decoys for sex. It was unobjectionable on its surface. The objectively abhorrent people depicted on the show deserve to be held accountable for their perversion. But the show existed in a bevy of contradictions, particularly in how it blurred the line between entertainment and justice, ultimately collapsing in on itself.” (10/01/26)
“Donald Trump’s administration is increasingly defined by its foreign policy adventures. To his critics these are the deadly flailings of a mad king; to his supporters these are strategic masterstrokes reshaping the globe to America’s advantage. What has been missed in the partisan hullabaloo is how Trump’s foreign policy actions are not in fact a result of his unique personality. They are a result of structural forces which can be observed the world over: the return of the cutting-off way.” (10/01/26)
“One of many current controversies over artificial intelligence centers on ‘alignment’: A euphemism for ‘trying to build AI that won’t intentionally kill us all.’ That’s important, but it overshadows a more immediate concern: The misalignment not between AI and humans, but between humans. That is, the misalignment of interests between the people who own AI and the rest of us.” (10/01/26)
“Affordability is getting worse, especially if you have to drive to work or anywhere else. By late September, the total cost of the higher gas and diesel prices triggered by President Donald Trump’s war against Iran exceeded $103 billion, according to my organization’s analysis of the federal government’s energy data. And those higher prices aren’t showing any sign of slowing. If current trends hold, the price tag by the end of this year will approach $180 billion. For the average household, that comes out to $750 extra so far, and that figure is on pace to top $1,300 by year’s end. For a family of four with two drivers, those costs are even higher, topping $1,000 already and slated to be over $1,700 by the end of the year if the war continues.” (10/01/26)
“On September 17, Julian Assange’s return to Twitter/X did not go unnoticed. With more than fifty-one million impressions, it becomes clear his and WikiLeaks’[s] impact is undeniable. Still, his journalism and WikiLeaks have not come without scrutiny. Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin stated Assange should be ‘hunted down.’ Current U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said regarding his work, ‘whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.’ Meanwhile, former secretary of state and CIA Chief Mike Pompeo considered kidnapping and killing Julian Assange, according to reports from Yahoo News.” (10/01/26)
“We have, a number of times, insisted that China is one of the most free market economies on the planet. Yes, obviously, there’s all that national planning and state ownership of industry and so on. Commanding heights and the Communist Party and all that. And yet at the ground level entry into a market is near entirely free of restriction. In that free to enter the market sense of free market it probably is that most free market economy too. In the professional life of one of us we’ve seen a Chinese company go from idea to production in the time it takes to do the environmental paperwork in Europe. We’re even willing to agree that total freedom to do just anything might not be optimal. But more absence of regulation and where that’s non-optimal less and faster seems like a good idea to us.” (10/01/26)
“The 25-year-old William F. Buckley Jr. wrote God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom’ with an appreciation of the contributions made by leading universities in the United States, Great Britain, and elsewhere in the building of our civilization. His special concern was with the civic order, and the role of institutions of higher education in forming citizens of a constitutional democratic republic. As James Madison said, a ‘well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.’ But is there not a tension between two ideals: that of education for citizenship (especially in a republic—that is, a regime in which government is not only of and for the people, but also by the people themselves), and that of liberal education: the unrestricted pursuit of truth, understood not as a means to other ends, but as an end-in-itself?” (10/01/26)
“Something curious has happened to the young, a new government report suggests: ‘the number of high school students who use marijuana has decreased by almost half — 44 percent — since states started enacting adult-use legalization.’ … a standard argument against marijuana legalization: If marijuana is readily available, kids will increase usage of the ‘pernicious weed.’ Hasn’t happened! But why?” (10/01/26)
