- “It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber: Test scores have been falling for years—even before the pandemic.” Consistent with my anecdotal impressions, and what I wrote back in 2008. Some connectivity is good but, as with many things, more is not necessarily better and may be worse.
- Bess on “How the light gets in: a solstice at the border of life and death: The fire in each of us, on the shortest day of the year.”
- Is This the End of Recycling? Americans are consuming more and more stuff. Now that other countries won’t take our papers and plastics, they’re ending up in the trash.” Recycling things like paper and plastics has long been a waste of energy and, worse, time. I think a lot of people like doing it because it’s easy, but it’s also irrelevant to actual environmentalism. What matters? Combatting NIMBYism, transport choices, that sort of thing.
- Could the May 7 hearings mark a turning point for universities? It’s possible, sure. I’d love to see some change in the humanities and, realistically, social studies, but I don’t expect to see big changes. Not only professors but admins are now too acculturated into the social justice left (SJL) / woke / CRT / whatever-you-call-it worldview to change. I don’t exactly approve of legislative efforts to defund humanities programs, but I understand them. Universities were supposed to be devoted to disinterested free inquiry; if many of them, and many humanities departments, are explicitly devoted to being the ideological enemies of the legislators, and to producing “students” who are ideological enemies, why give them money? Aren’t the humanities supposed to help people see things from someone else’s point of view?
- Math team. On intrinsic interest, real learning, college admissions, and other topics.
- Building Apollo. Wow.
- Letting the CCP control TikTok is insane, and we should stop it.
- “New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to Reject Ban on Noncompete Agreements.” That’s bad news, and, if you’ve wondered whether democrats are as a group uniformly pro-worker and pro-innovation, you have another piece of the answer.
- What Sam Altman wishes someone had told him.
- Why don’t Democrats want to win?
- “The pharma industry from Paul Janssen to today: why drugs got harder to develop and what we can do about it.” I have a longer essay about clinical trials coming up, too.
- “We Were Once Masters of the Air: It’s High Time to Restore US Air Power.” Part of the ongoing problem with complacency and bureaucracy taking precedence over speed and effectiveness.
- “Things software developers should learn about learning.” Except it’s not just about software developers; it’s really about anyone who wants to learn and grow.
- How script doctor Scott Frank found his voice. Useful for anyone interested in storytelling, narrative, leadership, growth, or learning.
- Thinking about a long war with China.
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