* “China’s age of malaise.” Interesting, measured, and not the usual. Note: “Someone has to tell the Americans that the idea that China is going to overtake them is over. This guy [Xi] has ended that game.” And: “When information doesn’t flow, the whole country will go backward.” The U.S. has some major and important weaknesses, especially in our inability to build things and build things fast, but we have some strengths, too.
* “The ‘Decolonization’ Narrative Is Dangerous and False: It does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.” Not just false, but absurd. On the other hand, for people living at the center of a large, safe rich country, for whom everything is “rhetoric” and nothing is real, maybe it doesn’t matter, at least until the students stop coming and the budget is slashed. Perhaps relatedly, this Twitter thread is good: “This is what we’re witnessing – the dismantling of public higher ed in conservative states – and we’ve created the conditions for what’s going on at UNC. How did anyone think we could get away with being nakedly ideological for years without any chickens coming home to roost?” And: “This is about universities shamelessly embracing, as their official institutional posture, an openly ideological framework/stance.”
* “Miguel Ángel Perales, oncologist: ‘What we are doing today with CAR-T cell therapy against cancer seems like science fiction’.” Unfortunately for me, personally, CAR-T therapies haven’t yet been successful in solid tumors: “[I]n solid tumors, the biology is somewhat different. There are more variations in the tumors because they grow over a longer term. What is more, the tumor microenvironment is more difficult for the immune system because there is more suppression of immune cells. I think there will be something, but it will take time.”
* “Climate Risk Is Becoming Uninsurable. Better Forecasting Can Help.” Alas, that we’ll likely continue to ignore climate change, even as the evidence piles up that we can’t.
* Whatever happened to light verse?
* “Home schooling’s rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education.” Could be that the legacy schools and districts will now have to compete better.
* White House effort to improve clinical trial infrastructure and system. Good. Granted, a lot of the focus appears to be on pandemics, and on a signaling topic that no one in the real world cares about, but the effort is appreciated.
* “Anorexia was the gender dysphoria of yesterday: Both socially induced psychological illness and ambivalence toward the female condition is much older than the gender dysphoria boom.”
* “The Technological Innovations that Produced the Shale Revolution.”
* “Connecticut parents arrested for letting kids, ages 7 and 9, walk to Dunkin’ Donuts.” Let kids be free.
* “It Only Takes 200 Joules To Restart A Heart.”
Pareto called this the aristocracy of lions vs. the aristocracy of foxes. Lions are proud, forceful aristocrats who explicitly own their position as leaders. Foxes, however, are humble servants who will forever deny that they’re in charge. While lions want to run the world, foxes want to save the world.
Because our new elites are foxes and not lions, they no longer feel comfortable celebrating productive habits for the rest of society.
Our old elites used to share a sense of common responsibility and noblesse oblige — not just to give back, but to expect the masses to act in a way that would let them rise up as well.
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