“Some people recoil in horror at the thought of designer babies, ones genetically altered to incorporate sought-after traits when they are born. The rhetoric talks of the ‘insolence’ of ‘playing God’ instead of letting nature take its course. The case against seems to be one of allowing every fertilized ovum that attaches to a placenta to be born with the genes it acquired from its parents instead of having them altered. If parents were given a choice of traits their newborn might arrive with, they might choose clever, more talented ones, creating a gulf between those who were selected for a greater chance of success in life and those who were not. … If intervention of this nature gives us human beings who are better physically and mentally, the case is very strong that it will lead to a much better world for everyone.” (01/06/25)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin
“One decade ago this week, two gunmen entered the offices of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo and opened fire, killing cartoonists, journalists, and security personnel as part of coordinated terror attacks that would ultimately claim 17 lives. The attack on the magazine — which is now commemorating the 10th anniversary with a God cartoon contest — was likely due to its cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. In the immediate aftermath, proverbial battle lines were drawn around the contentious magazine and the legal and social rules around what we can, without punishment or retribution, say about religious symbols, holy figures, and their believers. … amidst the shifting legal and moral boundaries since 2015, the advocates of limiting our right to religious dissent are gaining ground.” (01/06/24)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“One of the things humans value is the welfare of other humans, most obviously their children but often other people as well. How can we fit that fact into economic theory? Gary Becker offered an answer, an economic theory of altruism. His model does not fit all altruistic behavior, as we will see, but it incorporates altruism into economics with a single, simple, assumption that produces an evolutionary explanation for why altruism, including non-kin altruism, exists.” (01/06/25)
Source: The Atlantic
by Charlie Warzel & Mike Caulfield
“Fairly quickly, the narrative emerged that the attack was a false flag, and the media were in on it. … For a while, the rush to gather evidence produced a confusing double narrative from the right. In one telling, the riot was peaceful — the Trump supporters in the Capitol were practically tourists. The other highlighted the violence, suggesting that anti-fascists were causing destruction. Eventually, the dueling stories coalesced into a more complete one: Peaceful Trump supporters had been lured into the Capitol by violent antifa members abetted by law-enforcement instigators working for the deep state. The function of this bad information was not to persuade non-Trump supporters to feel differently about the insurrection. Instead, it was to dispel any cognitive dissonance that viewers of this attempted coup may have experienced, and to reinforce the beliefs that the MAGA faithful already held.” (01/06/25)
“A familiar excuse for protective tariffs and other trade restrictions goes like this: It would be all well and good for our government to follow a policy of free trade if other governments did the same. But other governments don’t do the same. Other governments use tariffs and subsidies to give producers in their countries unfair advantages over producers in our country. Unless and until other governments embrace complete free trade, our government must ‘retaliate’ with its own protective measures to counter the protective measures imposed by foreign governments. Every competent undergraduate who has passed a well-taught course in Econ 101 can identify a significant problem that lurks in this excuse for protectionism — namely, protective tariffs and subsidies are a net cost to the people of any country whose government intervenes in these ways.” (01/06/25)
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Lena Cohen
“A global spy tool exposed the locations of billions of people to anyone willing to pay. A Catholic group bought location data about gay dating app users in an effort to out gay priests. A location data broker sold lists of people who attended political protests. What do these privacy violations have in common? They share a source of data that’s shockingly pervasive and unregulated: the technology powering nearly every ad you see online.” (01/06/25)
“Despite the November 5 vote approving Proposition A (a measure that will raise Missouri’s minimum wage and mandate paid sick leave), there will continue to be debate on the matter in courts and perhaps the state legislature. Whatever those outcomes, Missourians need to be wary about the claimed successes of mandated wage increases elsewhere.” (01/06/25)
“There is no need to wait for the great revolution to begin fighting against our rulers. There is no need to wait for things to get better to experience this world as paradise. The time for both of these things is now. Right at this very moment you can begin a daily practice of sowing the seeds of revolution. You as an individual cannot defeat the empire yourself, but it is absolutely within your power to open a few people’s eyes to the reality that the status quo is unacceptable, and that a better world is possible.” (01/06/25)
“Among the many legends about vampires is the belief that one cannot enter a home unless invited. ‘He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come,’ Bram Stoker tells us in Dracula. The same legend has been associated with sundry demons (Mephistopheles in Faust requires an invitation to enter: ‘Thrice must the words be spoken’), ghosts, evil spirits, even the devil himself. … Today being January 6, it is worth thinking a little bit about whom we — 77 million of us — have invited in.” (01/06/25)
