Education, Religion, Policies that Don’t Work, the Revolt Against Expertise

Posted on Sunday 25 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Heather Cox Richard on the history of government suppression of education, especially as inspired by religion;
  • The GOP keeps promoting policies that history has shown don’t work;
  • The revolt against expertise, yet again.
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Heather Cox Richardson reviews the history of government suppression of education.

Letters from an American: May 24, 2025

Beginning with the Trump administration telling Harvard this past week that it can no longer enroll foreign students, which are about a quarter of the student body there. (Why does the government think it can tell a private university what it can and cannot do?)

While President Donald J. Trump might well have his own reasons for hating a university famous for its brain power, the anti-intellectual impulse behind Trump’s attacks on higher education has a long history in the United States.

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Posted in conservatives, Human Progress, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Education, Religion, Policies that Don’t Work, the Revolt Against Expertise

Nicholas Humphrey, LEAPS OF FAITH

Posted on Saturday 24 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitle: “Science, Miracles, and the Search for Supernatural Consolation”

(Basic Books, Jan. 1996, 244pp, including 20pp notes and index)
(Chatto & Windus, 1995, as Soul Searching: Human Nature and Supernatural Belief)

Here’s a book I read when it came out, back in 1996 — I think I was intrigued by the “search for supernatural consolation” part, which appealed to my impression that religion is more about psychological need that consideration of what is actually true — and picked up again last week to reconsider in light my current ideas of how basic human nature is reacting to the modern world, an environment so different from the one our minds evolved in.

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Crime, Hypocrisy, Fraud & Abuse, Doing Your Own Research, Cafeteria Religion, and Christian Presumption

Posted on Saturday 24 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Crime rates are falling; crime is not a national emergency; Why do people think otherwise?
  • Republicans criticize Democrats for what they are doing now;
  • Why do Republicans think there is so much fraud and abuse everywhere?
  • Why “doing your own research” is not plausible;
  • JD Vance and cafeteria religion;
  • Why do Christians presume they have the advantage in the Supreme Court?
– – –

Once again people, crime rates are *falling*. They’ve been falling since the 1990s, except for a blip aligned with the pandemic. There is no emergency in the way conservatives insist.

Vox, Bryan Walsh 24 May 2025: Something remarkable is happening with violent crime rates in the US, subtitled “Americans remained scared of violent crime. The numbers tell a different story.”

The astounding drop in violent crime that began in the 1990s and extended through the mid-2010s is one of the most important — and most underappreciated — good news stories of recent memory. That made its reversal during the pandemic so worrying.

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How to Fix the Budget; MAGA; Steven Pinker

Posted on Friday 23 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Paul Krugman’s constructive suggestions for fixing the budget;
  • While Trump’s allegiances lie with lower taxes for the rich and cuts to the social safety net for the poor;
  • How MAGA is about bimbos, like Kristi Noem and Sarah Palin, who play dumb;
  • Steven Pinker, in a long essay, defends Harvard against “Harvard Derangement Syndrome,” how some ideas are true that are nevertheless politically incorrect, how federal grants work, and how Harvard and other universities have made the world a better place.
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Let’s start with something positive and productive. Instead of talking about Republicans.

Paul Krugman,23 May 2025: What a Decent Budget Would Look Like, subtitled “Imagining a Congress that was neither cruel nor irresponsible”

OK, I was wrong. I thought House Republicans would pass their surpassingly cruel, utterly irresponsible budget in the dead of night, hoping nobody would notice. And they tried! Debate began at 1 A.M., and if you think that bizarre timing reflected real urgency, I have some $Melania coins you might want to buy.

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Posted in Economics, Politics, Steven Pinker | Comments Off on How to Fix the Budget; MAGA; Steven Pinker

Taxes and Benefits, Empathy, Genocide

Posted on Thursday 22 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Republicans, predictably, cut taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor. Because the poor deserve their station, apparently (and the rich fund Republicans);
  • Now among Christians empathy is a sin! (Do they actually read their Bibles?);
  • Trump is obsessed with “genocide” of whites in South Africa, and displays phony evidence to prove it.
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This is what Republicans do. You can count on it every time.

(And it’s not only due to their discredited ‘trickle-down economics’ claims. It’s to their peculiarly un-Christian belief that poor people are that way because they’re bad people, or somehow deserve to be poor, and therefore don’t merit government “welfare.”)

The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait, 22 May 2025: The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History, subtitled “House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.”

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Posted in conservatives, Human Nature | Comments Off on Taxes and Benefits, Empathy, Genocide

Substack as the new Royal Society, vs MAGA waging war on the future

Posted on Wednesday 21 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Will Substack be the Royal Society of the 21st century?
  • While Trump and MAGA wage war on the future;
  • Robert Reich on *why* Trump and his regime want to destroy every institution in America;
  • And my running theme about the conflict between human nature and the modern world.
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The ongoing story about science fiction is how it’s a vehicle for understanding humanity in a changed environment. As I’ve been saying recently… And so I find this kind of thing interesting.

Big Think, Peter Leyden, 21 May 2025: Why Substack will be the intellectual engine of the 21st century, subtitled “The platform is a digital Royal Society for today’s greatest minds — and it could play an essential role in shaping the next civilization.”

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Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, Evolution, Human Nature, Politics, science fiction | Comments Off on Substack as the new Royal Society, vs MAGA waging war on the future

Taker States and Desi Arnaz

Posted on Tuesday 20 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Thomas Edsall on the destructiveness of the Trump presidency;
  • As the US discounts investments in the future, China is taking the lead;
  • How Trump World clings to conspiracy theories;
  • And how Trump folks simply stop enforcing rules they don’t like, misunderstand basic legal principles, and prioritize red “taker” states;
  • A remembrance of Desi Arnaz and “I Love Lucy” for an unusual reason.
– – –

The simpletons are destroying what they do not understand. The barbarians are at the gates.

NY Times, guest essay by Thomas B. Edsall, 20 May 2025: ‘I Even Believe He Is Destroying the American Presidency’

As usual Esdall quotes and corresponds with numerous others. I’ll cover just the first.

One thing stands out amid all the chaos, corruption and disorder: the wanton destructiveness of the Trump presidency.

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Posted in Human Nature, Politics, TV Sci Fi | Comments Off on Taker States and Desi Arnaz

The Daily News

Posted on Tuesday 20 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The range of politics reflects the range of human nature;
  • Posts without much comments about military tribunals, hacking the economy, Jeanine Pirro’s black and white worldview, how the Qatar jet deal is Biden’s fault, Paul Krugman on sadistic zombies, and how China will dominate.
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Most of the news on a day to day basis consists of illustrations of how politics works, and how politics reflects the conflicts between different kinds of thinking. Political conflicts are seldom rational disputes about the effects of this or that policy; they’re conflicts between fundamentally different views of the world, and how it should work. Continue reading →

Posted in Human Nature, Politics | Comments Off on The Daily News

GOP/conservatives and the Rich; and the Countryside; and Star Wars

Posted on Sunday 18 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The GOP tax bill will hurt lowest earners and help the rich (of course!);
  • NYT’s Jamelle Bouie on Republican hypocrisy and the countryside;
  • Trek v. Wars, and how Wars reveals conservatives’ authoritarian fantasies.
– – –

NY Times, Tony Romm, 16 May 2025: G.O.P. Tax Bill May Hurt the Lowest Earners and Help the Richest, subtitled “Even though most Americans may see lower taxes, Republicans’ spending cuts could outweigh those benefits and leave some worse off.”

May? May? It’s always happened like that in the past. That’s why some from the left criticize NYT for being too accommodating.

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Posted in conservatives, Culture, science fiction | Comments Off on GOP/conservatives and the Rich; and the Countryside; and Star Wars

86 Hypocrisy, Our Puritan Legacy, and Belief in God

Posted on Saturday 17 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • 86 47, and 86 46;
  • The GOP’s new anti-porn bill, and the US’s puritan legacy;
  • Richard Dawkins on belief in god.
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I almost thought this would be too trivial to mention, except that Heather leads last night’s column with it, and there’s a further salient point she doesn’t mention.

Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson: May 16, 2025.

MAGA world is performing over-the-top outrage over a photo former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey posted on Instagram, where he has been teasing a new novel. The image shows shells on a beach arranged in a popular slogan for opposing President Donald J. Trump: “86”—slang for tossing something away—followed by “47”, a reference to Trump’s presidency.

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Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on 86 Hypocrisy, Our Puritan Legacy, and Belief in God