Wishful Thinking is wishful thinking. Dan Williams @danwilliamsphil notes that "We believe comforting things because they make us feel better" makes no adaptive sense, and is not the best explanation for why people believe falsehoods like conspiracy theories. open.substack.com/pub/conspi…

The US is not an ethnostate, and adherents to any religion, or no religion, can be full Americans. "‘E Pluribus Unum’ isn’t a lie. A Tennessee congressman’s anti-Muslim screed is vile. His attack on pluralism itself is worse." by @Jeff_Jacoby bostonglobe.com/2026/03/11/o… via @BostonGlobe

"Often university administrations indulge students who think that it's a legitimate form of expression to occupy buildings and eject deans from their offices, to obstruct passageways, to invade classrooms chanting slogans over bullhorns. Even if you are a First Amendment advocate, there are legitimate restrictions on time, place, and manner of expression of speech. I'm fully in favor of public expression of opinions, but that doesn't mean that I want someone invading my bedroom chanting, you know, build the wall at 3 a.m. There are legitimate grounds for preserving private spaces, and universities ought to have a consistent policy of not allowing students to shut down the university, invade classrooms, take over libraries, and so on."

Why Woke Failed. (The movement was based on flawed understandings of human nature, argues @michaelshermer) open.substack.com/pub/persua…

A historic tragedy: What really made America great was that it was based on the Enlightenment ideals of individual rights, the rule of law, and democracy, not blood and soil or throne and altar. Descendants of Eastern European Jews, Italians, Indians, Mexicans, Chinese, Caribbean islanders, etc. are as American as Mayflower scions. These are the glorious ideals that Trump's intellectual apologists want to blow up - and with them, the peace & prosperity of the past 80 years. More dead-on commentary from @mattjj89 @quillette quillette.com/2025/03/30/a-h…

The right says the country is dying so you should vote for Trump despite his flaws. The hard left says the country is a hellscape so you may as well vote in protest for a 3rd party or sit out the election. My NYT op-ed this morning shows in 8 graphs why these are seriously deluded. The country faces problems (as always) but is in better shape than for most of its past. nytimes.com/2024/10/29/opini…

Another example of the contrasting views of the world from headlines and data: Life satisfaction of young people globally has *increased* over the past decade and a half.

For people who read the news (a nonrandom sample of the worst events anywhere on Earth) and think everything is getting worse, it's vital to follow data instead. Like this: The number of children who died before the age of five hit a historic low of 4.9 million in 2022, less than half the number who died in 2000. Levels and trends in child mortality - UNICEF DATA. data.unicef.org/resources/le…