Category Archives: Human Nature

The Conservative Denial of Existential Threats

Posted on Monday 14 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump thinks concerns about AI are a hoax; Paul Krugman related AI to climate change: the MAGA plot(s) to destroy humanity. – – – Trump thinks concern about AI is a hoax. CNN, today: Trump dismisses AI alarms as a … Continue reading →

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Hiking is a Modern Invention

Posted on Sunday 13 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The idea of hiking was not a thing until relatively recently; How Trump is stifling free speech; Brief items about hurricanes and methane; Nice Brucker 6 performance by Myung-Whun Chung. – – – First, a think piece. About how the … Continue reading →

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How the Terrorists Won, in a Sense

Posted on Saturday 12 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Passing through airport security is an example of how the terrorists won, and maybe what led to MAGA and Trump; Jonathan V. Last on how terrorism sometimes works; (And how terrorists are motivated by religion); The reflecting pool contractor admits … Continue reading →

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Tribalists, Bribes, 9/11 and Tyranny, Fear, and Cheating

Posted on Friday 11 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Reading David Pakman, and considering Republican history since Reagan; Trumps is now trying to bribe voters; How the Patriot Act, passed after 9/11 and never repealed, have given Trump the tools to become a tyrant; How Republicans use fear to … Continue reading →

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The Battle

Posted on Wednesday 9 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

How the erosion of the 20th century’s “liberal consensus” began to crumble under Ronald Reagan; Conservatives lying with fake photos, photoshops, bogus census reports, and more. – – – Heather Cox Richardson has told this story. (See my review.) NY … Continue reading →

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Adam Kirsch: THE REVOLT AGAINST HUMANITY

Posted on Wednesday 9 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: Imagining a Future Without Us (Columbia Global Reports, 2023, 100pp, including 2pp of further reading.) Here’s a small book with some provocative ideas I didn’t anticipate from the title. It’s from a publishing imprint of Columbia University called Columbia … Continue reading →

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Is the World Becoming Too Complex for Ordinary Human Cognition?

Posted on Monday 7 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The “time tax” and the unavoidable complexity of society; The value of liberal education; – – – Here’s more about the new book about the so-called “time tax.” The Atlantic, Adam Harris, today: How the Government Wastes Our Time, subtitled … Continue reading →

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Peter Singer: THE EXPANDING CIRCLE

Posted on Sunday 6 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress. (First published 1981. This edition, with a new preface and afterword: Princeton University Press, 2011, xviii + 208pp, including 35pp of notes on sources, afterword, and index.) I had thought this book was about … Continue reading →

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Wonder is Appreciating the World as it Is

Posted on Friday 4 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

An essay on wonder in everyday life; The UN’s new world map and US opposition to it; Brief links. – – – Wonder is freely available, in the reality of the world we live in, for people who bother to … Continue reading →

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Is America Literally Being Sabotaged? From Within?

Posted on Thursday 3 September 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Is America being sabotaged from within? Robert Reich asks his readers what gives them hope, with four options; Headlines about Haitians, Satan, a terror attack, the end of free meals for children, hiding statistics, how conservatives are realizing Dolly Parton … Continue reading →

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