Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander

“People could be so inured to crime that they stop reporting it to the police. Or the police could be so overwhelmed that they stop accepting the reports. Since most crime statistics are based on police reports, this would look like crime going down. There’s some evidence of this happening in specific situations, like shoplifting in San Francisco. Could it be the whole effect? No, for three reasons.” (02/18/26)

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/record-low-crime-rates-are-real-not

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Maros Giansante & Sérgio Alberich

“Contemporary culture grants increasing prestige to the figure of the expert who avoids explicit commitments and presents himself as moderate, technical, and ‘non-ideological.’ This posture is celebrated as a sign of intellectual maturity. In an environment saturated with open conflict, the refusal to choose appears prudent. Moderation becomes a public virtue. The problem arises when moderation ceases to be circumstantial and begins to function as a method.” (02/18/26)

https://mises.org/power-market/when-moderation-becomes-method-scientism-and-prestige-experts

Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg

“Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser, and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference to deliver a major address on Saturday. I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that. But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive.” (02/19/26)

https://archive.ph/NHt7b

Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison

“Hawks routinely try to paint adversaries as irrational in order to make diplomacy with the other side seem impossible and not worth trying.” (02/18/26)

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/the-iran-hawks-distorted-view-of

Source: Unpopular Front
by John Ganz

“The Reverend Jesse Jackson died yesterday at age 84. Although in the past couple of decades, he was not the public presence he once was, it speaks to his stature that Trump issued what was, for him, at least, a remarkably appreciative and respectful statement in the wake of his death. In the 1980s and early 90s, the era when Trump’s brain is stuck, Jackson was a figure of the first importance.” (02/18/26)

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-age-of-jackson

Source: Law & Liberty
by Thomas F Powers

“The right is giving America a beneficial opportunity to rethink the foundational principles of civil rights law.” (02/18/26)

https://lawliberty.org/forum/time-for-a-civil-rights-reset/