Doomed: Modern Dating is Broken

I found this rant about the difficulties of dating in the modern world:

There IS a dating problem in the western world. Something of a dating crisis, really. Traditional methods of pairing-up have fallen by the wayside and have been replaced by a mess that doesn't work.

However, this joke of an idea won't fix it. It is just another gimmick that doesn't address any root cause and just won't work.

We are kind of stuck. There is simply no going back to the old world. The kinds of technologies that shape our daily lives make doing so a ridiculous prospect. The Internet, in particular. It has made a fundamental change in how we connect with each other (and a whole lot of stuff I won't bother to mention because nobody wants to read a novel here anyway). The old world is gone.

But the new world is broken. Especially when it comes to dating. And dating sites are a major contributor to this broken world. They present us with a selection environment utterly unlike the one in which we evolved. Much like the way in which modern food abundance gives free reign to instincts that should have been naturally curtailed (and drive up obesity and diabetes), so to does the modern dating site give free reign to instincts that only serve us when naturally constrained by a much more limited environment.

To put it bluntly: dating sites motivate the upper 20% of attractive people to have short term sexual flings with each other while leaving the other 80% alone and disappointed. 100% of the people want to date the top 20%, so this is what you get. The people that "everybody want" will never commit because they have too many options, and everyone else will never settle in the face of such desirability a seeming mere click away.

It gets worse. Those in the 80% who actually do settle for an "even match" both feel like they are getting less than they deserve, both feel like the other should be grateful for settling, and hence both feel like they bring more value than the other and hence the other owes more. That dooms the relationship.

And for the upper 20%, once any of them decide to stop sleeping around and find a life-mate, they generally find a barren wasteland. Some of them have aged out of the upper 20% and so are no longer desirable, and others find people who are in theory willing to commit but both of them have become so narcissistic that the relationship is doomed before it begins. And this says nothing of the life-destroying consequences of the inevitable divorce, when it happens.

No dating site will fix this, but we cannot just eliminate them. They are here to stay. It IS possible that a few individuals can enlighten themselves out of this mess and find a satisfying relationship that will last, but statistically speaking this is not a common event. And the threat of life-destroying divorce remains ever-present even for them.

I think that the first step in climbing out of this mess is to fix the divorce situation. People need to know that getting married is a financially safe thing to do. They need to know that they will not be facing a life of indentured servitude if the other decides to leave. And they need to see marriage as something other than a means of gaining access to someone else's money. We need a new definition for it and new laws to regulate it so that it once again becomes an agreement with social-support that fosters child bearing and family. This will require legislation and will be fiercely resisted by religious types who cling to the past and others who still want to use marriage as a means of financial enrichment. So, that's an uphill battle and probably lost already.

After that, we need much better social support for raising kids. It's expensive as hell, hard as hell, and takes two decades. People are more hesitant to sign up for that than ever. We need to take the edge off if we want more babies.

And after that it's mostly a matter of educating people as to how love actually works (no more hollywood romance bullshit), what their timeline is, and why they need to reflect on their life goals and proceed along a life plan if they want to feel accomplished and satisfied when they die.

Personally, my money is on "we are doomed."

A common theory says that women are instinctually hypergamous, and will seek out the highest status man available. The peasant girl wants to marry the prince, And if she goes on a date with the prince, then no other man is good enough.

That is an ancient story, but is exaggerated with urban opportunities and dating apps. An average woman can go on a date with a top 5% man, but he is unlikely to marry her. So all the women chase the alpha men, and get dumped. People do not find suitable mates, and everyone is unhappy.

There is no easy fix. We lack the political will to make any big changes, so we are probably doomed.

A NY Times op-ed details how no one knows what do about declining marriage and birth rates:

To date, no government policies have significantly improved their nation’s birthrates for a sustained period — at least no policies whose lessons are easily transferable to other countries. ...

America has made parenting unusually, needlessly hard. Child care and rent are unaffordable; medical care, even when subsidized, is a nightmare of red tape; family leave is too short and too rare; everyone feels overextended and underachieving.

As the climate activists Meghan Elizabeth Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli have observed, the United States “is already an anti-natalist country in everything but name.” ...

Surveys conducted over the past few years show that Americans already want more kids than they are having; they’d like between 2.1 and 2.7 children on average, depending on the gender and age group questioned, which is half to a full child more than the 1.6 that women are actually having at present.

Usually behaviors can be changed with financial incentives, but they have not worked here. When women make more money, they become more picky about men, and not less picky.

The highest fertility rates are in the poor and the rich. The rich do not need the financial incentives. Giving money to the poor just moves them out of the demographic having the most kids. So no nation has succeeded in paying people to have more kids.

She has her own unworkable ideas.

So what do America’s women actually need? Or to put it another way, is there a way to be natalist without also being patriarchal?

First, some facts about American women. A growing share of them are single; by one estimate, more than half of non-college-educated women born in the mid-90s will be single when they’re 45. Among women of reproductive age, a vast majority work. Women are increasingly having children in later years. And despite women’s growing earning power, they still do the lion’s share of housework, even when their husbands are unemployed.

But fewer women are marrying, at least in part because they’re having trouble finding appealing men. In addition to the partnering problem, many women report financial concerns as a major obstacle to having kids (or having more kids).

Helping heterosexual women have children, then, will require tackling toxic gender dynamics before and within marriage, and committing real, ongoing financial support

She goes on to recite a bunch of feminist goals. But she admits they do not work either, as Denmark has created her feminist utopia, and still has declining birth rates.

The most woman-friendly and birth-friendly regime I have come across so far is in Denmark, where child care is subsidized and extensive parental leave is provided. The public health ministry, which has offered free in vitro fertilization for single women as well as couples until the woman turns 41, recently started to cover treatment for a second child. Today medically assisted reproduction accounts for roughly 12 percent of Denmark’s births, compared with just over 2 percent in the United States. ...

Denmark’s policies haven’t changed the trajectory of the nation’s falling birthrate, which now stands at about 1.5 per woman.

Denmark can maintain its population by importing foreigners, but it has tried that, and stopped it.

Note that she does not want to roll back any of the feminist trends that led to the marriage and birth declines. Her main concern is giving women what they say they want, but women may be already getting too much of that. There is no mention of what would incentivise men.

Any plan to make marriage and children more attractive would need to consider what men want and need. But that does not seem to have occurred to the above author. Also what women say they want may not be what makes them happy. By most surveys, women were happier before the supposed gains of feminism.

Update: The NY Times celebrates Fathers Day by publishing a whiny narcissistic list of petty complaints. This is a good example of leftist feminist women devaluing fatherhood. by a woman about her father.

Trying to Define Western Culture

I have heard people argue that there is no such thing as Western or White culture, as whatever you list has been copied all over the world. I say that is backwards, as it is copied because it is a distinctive culture that is widely emulated and admired. I asked an AI LLM to draft a list.

Core Systems and Values:

Democracy, rule of law, constitutionalism, balanced power.
Individualism, personal freedom, human rights, universalism.
Contract-based legal systems, civic associations.

Intellectual and Scientific Traditions:

Math, logic, scientific method, medicine, philosophy (e.g., rationalism, empiricism).
Exploration and discovery (e.g., maritime voyages, space exploration).
Universities, libraries, research labs.

Cultural Expressions and Institutions:

Codified competitive sports (e.g., soccer, cricket, basketball).
Art, literature, tonal music, film, comedy, digital entertainment.
Western culinary traditions (e.g., fast food, European cuisines).
Monumental architecture (e.g., cathedrals, civic statues).
Fashion, work ethic, hobbies, moral responsibility.

Economic and Technological Innovations:

Market economy, capitalism, corporations.
Transportation innovations (e.g., automobiles, aviation, infrastructure).
Machines, electricity, semiconductors, key inventions (e.g., printing press, internet).

Social Norms:

Romantic love, nuclear family.
Pet ownership and companionship, hobbies.

Probably a lot of people would say that these are not uniquely Western, or White. For example, people play soccer all over the world.

Yes, they play soccer, but they are copying White culture when they do. Nobody ever played sports like that until White people invented them. Likewise with other stuff on the list.

Tacos are still Mexican when Whites eat them. So yea, everyone copies White culture, and it is still White culture.

Science does not support LGBTQ Counseling Policies

I asked an AI LLM about the Colorado MCTL, and it defended the law as being grounded in scientific evidence about the prevention of harm.

It admitted:

Asymmetry in Counseling: The law creates an asymmetry: therapists can support a minor exploring or adopting an LGBTQ identity but cannot counsel them toward a heterosexual or cisgender identity if it involves trying to change their current orientation or identity. This reflects the law’s grounding in the medical consensus that conversion therapy is harmful, whereas affirming care is not. ...

Under the MCTL, if a minor is confused about their sexual orientation or gender identity, a therapist can affirm or support an LGBTQ identity if it aligns with the minor’s exploration, but they cannot counsel the minor to be straight or cisgender if it involves attempting to change their orientation or identity.

When I pressed it for the evidence, it admitted that there are no randomized clinical trial, or similarly rigorous studies. The studies cites by the authorities are mostly surveys of teenagers who already identify as LBGTQ, and asking them if they prefer therapy that affirms their beliefs or asks them to change. And yes, they are happier being told that what they already believe is good.

There are several things wrong with this. First, if Colorado is going to pass laws intruding on psychotherapy free speech in a way that has never been done before, there ought to be good evidence. Even if Colorado considers such as study unethical, as it argued in court, it ought to be able to use studies from somewhere else where it would be ethical.

Even if these studies are valid, they tell us nothing about how to counsel the confused or questioning teenager. This law requires the therapist to push the kids into being LGBTQ, when that may not be what he wants at all.

Third, kids do not necessarily know what is good for them. The same arguments would say that fat teenagers should be counseled to affirm their fatness, and be happy about it. Surveying them might well find that they prefer being told it is good to be fat. However it would be incorrect to deduce that teenage health is promoted by affirming fatness.

Fourth, there is really something sick and perverted about adults passing laws mandating children to receive pro-LGBTQ counseling. It is called grooming kids to be molested. Some also pass laws requiring pro-LGBTQ pornography to be available to kids in school and public libracies. Some force drag shows and pride parades for children. Many schools are now required to have pro-LGBTQ programs, classes, and symbols. Some even conceal this from parents.

Everyday I see stories about how Jeffrey Epstein and Puff Diddy were the epitome of evil for sex trafficking. The evidence seems weak to me. But the Colorado legislature is openly and brazenly conducting its own form of sex trafficking.

You might say that these lawmakers and others are just following expert opinion on what is good for the kids. Do you believe that? Why? It is against common sense, against scientific studies, and against moral views that have prevailed for centuries. Believing these supposed experts is about like following witchcraft or voodoo.

There are many court briefs against the Colorado law, and they make many good arguments, but I did not see any arguing the points 2-4 above. Some did argue that lack of good studies.

Court to Rule on Pro-LGBTQ Psychotherapy

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of this decision upholding a Colorado law, and briefs are going online. Wikipedia explains:

Colorado's Minor Conversion Therapy Law (MCTL), passed in 2019, prohibits licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with clients under 18 with an exemption for therapists "engaged in the practice of religious ministry". Conversion therapy refers to practices aiming to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. Over 20 states have similar laws which are supported by major medical organizations.[2][1] The Supreme Court has turned down earlier cases challenging state bans on conversion therapy.[2]

So if a minor seeks advice about his/her sexual identity, the Colorado psychotherapist can push the child into being LGBTQ, but cannot help him/her be normal or straight.

I am expecting the Supreme Court to overturn this crazy Leftist law. If not, I expect Republican states to start passing laws saying that licensed psychotherapists must treat LGBTQ patients as having a disorder where the cure is to go straight.

The lower court said, 2-1, that the law is consistent is the policies of major psychological organizations and:

We thus have no trouble concluding the MCTL is rationally related to Colorado’s interest in protecting minor patients seeking mental health care from obtaining ineffective and harmful therapeutic modalities.

But most psychotherapy is effective and harmful. If that were the standard, it would all be abolished.

The backers of this law say that a scientific consensus is in their favor, but when asked for scientific studies, they say that would be unethical!

The dissent says:

Science has enjoyed tremendous respect because of the great advances it has made since the beginning of the scientific revolution. But it has not made those advances by respecting “authority.” To give just one illustration, although Albert Einstein is widely recognized as the greatest of physicists, virtually all theoretical physicists, then and now, have rejected his views of the nature of quantum mechanics. ...

the briefs of appellees and several amici emphasize the official positions taken by national professional organizations. But I have no idea of the process by which those positions were arrived at or who actually made the decisions, and it really does not matter unless they are based on persuasive evidence. Consensus is irrelevant to science. A book by one great physicist reports a comment by an even greater one that makes the point: “When a book was published entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, [Einstein] retorted, ‘If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!’” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time 193 (1996).

The Left and the Democrat Party today is obsessed with pushing LGBTQ ideology on underage children. I believe that the purpose is grooming children for abuse by adults.

What other explanation is there? Colorado is literally using state-licensed pyschotherapists to counsel children to engage in perverted sexual acts or be transgender. And trying to carve an exception to First Amendment free speech in order to prevent those children from learning the truth.

The Trangenderism in Sports Arguments

I asked an AI LLM for both sides of this issue.

Arguments for allowing transgender girls to compete in girls' sports:

Inclusion and equal opportunity for all students to participate in school activities

Mental health benefits of sports participation and team belonging

Anti-discrimination principles - treating all students fairly regardless of gender identity

Educational value of inclusive environments that prepare students for diverse workplaces

Individual assessment rather than blanket policies may be more appropriate Many argue that school sports should prioritize participation and development over pure competition

There are no mental health benefits. No one's mental health has ever been improved by letting boys compete against girls.

The other arguments are all against letting the boys compete. Nearly everyone believes that equal opportunity and fairness require letting girls compete against other girls, and not boys.

Arguments for maintaining sex-based categories:

Biological differences in muscle mass, bone density, and physical development that typically emerge during puberty

Concerns about competitive fairness, scholarships, and records in girls' sports

Safety considerations in contact sports

Preserving opportunities that Title IX was designed to create for female athletes Arguments that separate categories serve important purposes in maintaining competitive balance

These arguments are better, but do not go far enough.

The differences between boys and girls are not just puberty muscles. They affect many psychological and behavioral traits, and have cultural importance.

Sports are sex segregated not just for muscle and bone fairness and safety. It is also for all those other differences.

I do not see the arguments on either side addressing those other differences. I wonder why. Is it because they believe those differences do not exist? Or that the differences are not relevant to sports? Or that some important social goal is achieved by trying to minimize or ignore those differences?

I do not know. People talk about the puberty muscle differences as if those are the only ones, so maybe they do not know about others. On the other hand, even the transgender advocates talk about sex differences before puberty as being real and substantial, so they must recognize the differences. And they obviously think that the differences are relevant to sports, as that is why they push transgenderism in sports.

So my conclusion is that they have some ideological purpose in pushing transgender sports, even if it has negative consequences for everyone involved. Those reasons would be similar to the reasons for progressive pride flags. It serves to undermine social norms that certain people hate.

Gymnast Simone Biles was in the news promoting transgenderism, but why? She is a freak with a height of 4'8". I would not be surprised if she used drugs to suppress her growth. It is known that she uses performance-enhancing drugs under a controversial exemption she was granted. The creepiest thing about her is her allegations against Larry Nassar, the disgraced gymnast physician. I think she is lying. She only complained just in time to collect on the millions in settlements. Apparently she made enemies with her pro-transgender, and she had to issue an apology. Riley Gaines said it was very strange that Biles attacked Larry Nassar, while giving a pass to transgender sex abusers.

What is Wrong with Democracy

The most important political thinker in the world today is Mencius Moldbug, according to a 12k word New Yorker essay. He has a lot of radical ideas.

He is most known for his critique of democracy. He has a lot of other ideas. Some of his ideas are so outlandish that it is hard to tell if he is serious, or if they would work. They are thought-provoking.

He is considered right-wing, and so he is despised by the leftists at the New Yorker. The article is a hatchet job, of course. But they must be scared of his ideas that they would bother writing such a long article about him.

See last month's debate:

Danielle Allen and Curtis Yarvin met for a debate at the Harvard Faculty Club on May 5, 2025. The event was not sponsored by the university but was a private event booked in the club by Passage Press, Mr. Yarvin's publisher. Allen and Yarvin debated two resolutions prepared by the Press:

Resolution 1: “Resolved: The long-term stability and flourishing of our society is better secured by concentrated executive authority than by egalitarian democratic institutions.” - 35 minutes

Resolution 2: “Resolved: Harvard’s model of elite formation, grounded in a contested balance between meritocratic excellence and egalitarian inclusion, undermines the democratic legitimacy of the political and cultural systems its graduates go on to shape.”

The debate lasted roughly 1 hour and 15 minutes.

As a thought experiment, Yarvin asks if moral equality should be extended to chimpanzees or to missing links, if they were not extinct. There is no good answer.

Magazine says AI Industry is a Scam

It is funny to see people trying to predict AI. Some experts say:

We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of the Industrial Revolution.

Eliezer Yudkowsky says it will kill us all.

The Atlantic is a dopey magazine own by a billionaire widow and edited by Jewish Trump haters. It says AI is a con:

Her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, is part Silicon Valley exposé, part globe-trotting investigative journalism about the labor that goes into building and training large language models such as ChatGPT. It joins another recently released book — The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want, by the linguist Emily M. Bender and the sociologist Alex Hanna — in revealing the puffery that fuels much of the artificial-intelligence business. Both works, the former implicitly and the latter explicitly, suggest that the foundation of the AI industry is a scam.

To call AI a con isn’t to say that the technology is not remarkable, that it has no use, or that it will not transform the world (perhaps for the better) in the right hands. It is to say that AI is not what its developers are selling it as: a new class of thinking — and, soon, feeling — machines. ...

These statements betray a conceptual error: Large language models do not, cannot, and will not “understand” anything at all. They are not emotionally intelligent or smart in any meaningful or recognizably human sense of the word. LLMs are impressive probability gadgets ...

These folks have a funny idea of intelligence. The magazine could already be written by ChatGPT or another AI LLM.

The foundation of the AI industry on benchmarks that are widely replicated. The models do exactly what is claimed for them. People who complain about them nearly always misunderstand them.

Here is the real reason the Atlantic hates AI:

At a companywide meeting earlier this year, Nicholas Thompson, chief executive of the Atlantic, said the publication should assume traffic from Google would drop toward zero and the company needed to evolve its business model. ...

“Google is shifting from being a search engine to an answer engine,” Thompson said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We have to develop new strategies.”

The rapid development of click-free answers in search “is a serious threat to journalism that should not be underestimated,” said William Lewis, the Washington Post’s publisher and chief executive. Lewis is former CEO of the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones.

They may have to start offering content worth paying for.

Vaccine Advisory Committee Abolished

RFK Jr announces in the WSJ:

Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). We are retiring the 17 current members of the committee, some of whom were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration. Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.

ACIP evaluates the safety, efficacy and clinical need of the nation’s vaccines and passes its findings on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine. It has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust.

I used to complain about this committee. It is a sham. There was not even any attempt at balanced or open analysis.

At one point I got the ACIP Charter, and it stated its purpose as promoting vaccines! Not promoting health or safety.

One time I got some meeting minutes, and members said that they should endorse any (FDA approved) vaccine, because that insures free shots for poor people.

Psychiatry is Largely Harmful

Tucker Carlson interview: Here’s Why You Should Never Go to a Psychiatrist. This is part of a longer interview, with pieces here and here.

The guest explains how the whole field of psychiatry is rather unscientific. There is not much foundation for the diagnoses and treatment. You might hear someone say that a drug is correcting a chemical imbalance in the brain, but there is no truth to that at all. The drugs have never been shown to do that. The drugs have dubious benefits and significant side effects.

Pride Month for Straights

The last minute is an ad. I think. Or some joke that I did not get.

Zionist Opposes Identity Politics

Comedian Dave Smith dives into hot political controversies, and declared:

Ben Shapiro built a career opposing identity politics as a proud Zionist.

His point is that Zionism is the belief in Israel protecting the Jewish identity.

I wonder if readers might also accuse me of hypocrisy. I have quoted Shapiro, but I do not blame him for this.

Nearly all ethnic groups look out for their own kind. China looks out for Chinese. Turkey looks out for Turks. Etc.

There is nothing unusual about Jews wanting a Jewish state. The only difference about Jews is that their entire religion is based on God having favoritism towards their ethnic group. And also that Jews aggressively subvert other ethnic groups. In the USA they support and finance the Democrat Party whose primary function seems to be to divide the nation along racial, sexual, and religious lines.

The main difference with Whites is that they identify themselves ethnically much less than any other group in the world.

Much of the Democrat Party is based on identity politics. About 20 years ago, it went whole hog into identify politics, and neglected some of its bigger issues. The result has been overwhelmingly bad for the USA. I have posted about these negative effects many times, and Shapiro has also addressed them.

Most non-orthodox American Jews have faithfully supported the Democrats, and done everything they can to divide the USA with identity politics and non-white immigration. On every front, they work to systematically replace Whites with non-whites.

The American political system was designed for White people, with educated male landowner voters. As the nation becomes more and more non-white every year, it is not clear that the system will continue. Jews and non-whites vote with their ethnic groups. Democracy becomes an identity politics game. The Democrat Party is already ruined.

So yes, I am against identity politics in the USA, because it is destroying our political system. I do not care so much about Israel and the rest of the world, because they have ethnostates and non-American political systems anyway.

So if I am against DEI wokism in the USA, should I also be against Israeli genocide in Gaza? No, I do not see it that way. I have no opinion about what should be done in Gaza. It appears to me that both sides are going to fight until somebody surrenders. It does not matter what I think.

Not All Accept Same-sex Marriage

Everyone assumed that same-sex marriage had become accepted in the USA. No, it has become a partisan issue again.

The Daily Signal reports:

A new poll is showing that support for same-sex marriage has dropped to a 10-year low among Republicans but spiked to a record high among Democrats. ...

Gallup reports that support for same-sex marriage among Republicans has fallen to 41%, down from an all-time high of 55% in 2021 and 2022 and the lowest point since May of 2016, when support stood at 40%. ...

Despite statistics on support for same-sex marriage, fewer Americans of all political stripes consider same-sex relationships morally acceptable. According to Gallup, only 38% of Republicans consider same-sex relationships morally acceptable, compared to 69% of independent voters and 86% among Democrats.

The decline in the perceived moral acceptability of same-sex relationships has been pronounced among Republicans.

Worldwide it is legal in most of Western Europe and the Western Hemisphere, but not Asia and Africa. This month has a lot Pride parades, but interest is declining, and it was canceled in Idaho.

All of the major religions still oppose same-sex marriage, including Islam, the major Christian denominations, Judaism, and Hinduism.

Most people answer the same when asked about the morality of same-sex relationships, and the legality of same-sex marriage. Somewhat more favor legality than moral acceptability. So some say that marriage should be allowed, even though the relationship is immoral. One could also thing the reverse -- that the relationships are moral, but not to be endorsed by government marriage.

Democrats Appeal to Crazy Women

One of the biggest indicators of the right-left divide is mental illness. Most Democrat women have a diagnosed mental disorder.

Blaze reports:

Nate Silver, an American statistician and founder of the now-shuttered political analysis blog FiveThirtyEight, recently dug into why men, young men in particular, don't like Democrats — a trend that has Democratic operatives scrambling both for answers and Joe Rogan-sized remedies.

Silver indicated that a big part of Democrats' problem might be that those young men beyond their reach are not mentally unstable or attracted to a mentally ill style of politics.

Democrats — whom Americans largely regard as weak and ineffective — are right to be desperate.

"I think an underrated factor in the 'how can Democrats win back young men' debate is the effects of personality, which differ especially among younger voters [and] are quite strongly correlated with voting preferences," tweeted Silver.

Whereas only 20% of liberals reported having "excellent" mental health, 51% of conservatives said the same. On the bottom end, 45% of liberals said their mental health was poor, while only 19% of conservatives reported the same.

I am trying to figure out this diagram. Possibly it is trying to say that Jews are the source of the world's evils, but I don't think so. My guess is that it is attempt to unite various Leftist movements, even they have little in common.

Free Puff, and Greenwald Blames Trump

Journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted to Jason Whitlock:

Serious thoughtful question: how have you been able to separate what you regard as Donald Trump's inspired and noble political leadership from the repeated behaviors in his private life long considered deeply immoral and degenerate under the most widespread and long-standing Christian and Western moral dogma:

Overlapping affairs and marriages, serial adulteries, affairs with porn stars that he paid to cover up, closely cavorting with Jeffrey Epstein after he was publicly convicted of sex trafficking of minors, boasting of "grabbing womens' pussies" without asking, and I could go on and on. We'll leave to the side the multiple allegations of sexual assault from various women to whom he wasn't married even though one was repeatedly upheld in a court.

For his whole adult live, Trump lived the life of a libertine Manhattan billionaire, not even close to a paragon of sexual moral virtue.

One of the things I've always liked about Trump is he never purported to be a moralist because he knew his life didn't permit that pretense and it wasn't something he pretended to value, Nor -- as his many close libertine friends demonstrate, or, say, his choice of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General this demonstrates -- was it something he used to judge the moral worth of others.

Trump obviously didn't care to align his private behavior with the moral judgments of others: only with his own codes about right and wrong.

Greenwald is deflecting attention from a recently leaks homosexual sex tape.

His accusations against Trump are completely false, and he knows better. He tries to imply that Trump cooperated in the sex-trafficking of minors. Not true. He falsely describes the famous Access Hollywood comedy routine. There were no affairs with porn stars. All we know is that his fixer paid off a blackmailer.

There was an allegation upheld in court in a civil case, but that was so ridiculous that it is nearly impossible to believe.

It is weird that Greenwald would compare himself to Trump in this way. There are no videos of Trump doing anything immoral. Some Trump allegations would be illegal if true. Did Greenwald do anything illegal? He is sensitive about adopting a couple of kids with a Brazilian partner who is now dead. Not sure what that is all about.

Other sex scandals in the news are the retrial of Harvey Weinstein, and trial of Puff Diddy, aka Sean Combs. I haven't followed these trials, but I am waiting for the smoking gun. The defendants may be scum, but the charges are ridiculous. Diddy's chief accuser is Cassie Ventura who had a long-term affair with him from 2007 to 2018. She sued him in 2023, and obtained a $20 million settlement. So what is the issue now?

Another complaint says Diddy behaved inappropriately at a 1997 party.

Here is the latest witness, apparently allowed to testify anonymously:

NEW YORK (AP) — A former personal assistant to Sean “Diddy” Combs who says he raped her testified Monday that she continued sending him loving text messages for years after her job ended in 2017 because she was “brainwashed.”

The woman, testifying for a third day under the pseudonym “Mia” at the music mogul’s federal sex trafficking trial, ...

In an Aug. 29, 2020, message to Combs, Mia recalled happy highlights from her eight years working for him — such as drinking champagne at the Eiffel Tower at 4 a.m. and rejecting Mick Jagger’s offer to take her home — saying she remembered only “the good times.”

I am expecting a prosecution expert to testify that it is completely normal for rape victims to send years of loving messages to their rapists. He will say the messages prove the brainwashing worked.

With both Weinstein and Diddy have attracted lawyers digging up dozens of gripes from decades in the past, and looking to collect legal settlement. No single complaint is provable, but the argument is that there are a lot of complaints and the defendant has deep pockets, so he should pay.

That was also the issue with Trump. The porn star figured that Trump had deep pockets, and he would have to pay off to avoid publicity, whether the allegation is true or false.

Our Woman Celebrities are Narcissists

News:

Michelle Obama: ‘I’m not divorcing Barack — I’m choosing me’

A lot of people were pushing her to run for President. I do not think she is really liked. She is way too much of a narcissist. Even when she says she is still married, it is all about her.

This is old news, but UK BBC reported:

Kanye West has been ordered to pay Kim Kardashian $200,000 (£167,000) per month in child support in a divorce settlement.

The former rapper and reality TV star will share joint custody of their four children. ...

The couple have four children: North, 9, Saint, 6, Chicago, 4, and Psalm, 3.

In several statements submitted earlier, Kardashian, 42, had said she "very much" wanted the marriage to be ended, adding that this would "help Kanye to accept" that the relationship was over.

Ye, 45, had previously fought against the separation.

Kardashian is a billionaire, from her celebrity tv shows. Kanye West is Black, so their kids are half-Black. Apparently she bailed out of the marriage, and demanded millions in child support! Only in America does this happen.

Rising Interest in Astrology and Mysticism

Religious practice has declined in recent decades, so has everyone become more rational? No, of course not.

AP reports:

A lot of American adults — about 3 in 10 — make use of astrology, tarot cards or fortunetellers at least once a year. But only a small fraction of them rely on what they learn from these practices to make major decisions.

That’s according to a nationwide survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, encompassing 9,593 U.S. adults who were interviewed last October.

Overall, according to Pew, about 2 in 10 U.S. adults say they engage in at least one of these activities mostly “just for fun,” while about 1 in 10 say they engage mostly because they “believe the practices give them helpful insights.” Only about 1% say they rely “a lot” on what they learn from these practices when making major life decisions.

Yet it’s a big business. The psychic services industry — which encompasses various specialties such as astrology, palm-reading, psychic readings and fortunetelling — generated an estimated $2.3 billion in revenue in 2024 and employed 105,000 people, according to market research firm IBIS World.

The Catholic Church has a long history of discouraging superstition. As Christianity declines, superstition will increase.

Democrat Strategy for Male Voters

News:

Democratic Party strategist and activist Olivia Julianna has been enlisted to advise the party on strategies to appeal to young male voters. This follows reports that Democrats have scrapped a $20 million public relations campaign, code-named SAM: 'Speaking with American men', which was previously aimed at winning back this demographic.

Julianna has suggested that the party should address issues such as abortion from a male perspective, emphasizing how men could benefit from such policies. She has also stated that many young conservative men are pro-choice, support gay marriage, and are in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Democratic Party's new approach involves deploying Julianna as a prominent voice to engage with young men.

This sounds like a joke, but it is not.

Crazy Somali Criminal Addict Allowed to Stay

British news:

A Somali criminal seeking asylum in the UK has avoided deportation after a judge ruled that returning him to his home country would cause him too much "stress."

The unnamed asylum seeker, who has been dependent on alcohol since 2006, would suffer stress if deported to Somalia, which would worsen his mental health.

Judges in the upper immigration tribunal ruled that deportation would breach article three of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects against persecution and inhumane treatment.

The Home Office had argued the man, jailed for unspecified crimes, could receive necessary medication and treatment in Somalia for his schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations.

The Upper Tier Tribunal was told the man moved to the UK in 1999 when he was 29, claiming his family faced persecution due to their clan membership.

He was accompanied by his support worker during the hearing and was described as having a "high level of vulnerability" and "complex needs" with long-standing health problems.

"The severity of his mental health problems is closely linked to his stress levels and use of alcohol," the tribunal noted.

The man has been "significantly dependent" on alcohol since 2006 and has served prison time for crimes that were not specified in court papers.

The whole asylum system needs to be abolished. It is just a system for importing the worst people.

Here is a good Libertarian debate:

Dave Smith and Alex Nowrasteh debate the resolution, "Government restrictions on the immigration of peaceful and healthy people make sense from a libertarian standpoint, especially in present-day America."

Comedian and host of the podcast, Part of the Problem, Dave Smith defends the resolution. Taking the negative is Alex Nowrasteh, the Vice President for Economic and Social Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. He's the coauthor (with Benjamin Powell) of Wretched Refuse? The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions.

Smith argues that the big majority of Americans do not want mass immigration, and they elected Pres. Trump to stop it. A Libertarian should want to let those people live as they wish, instead of swamping them with Somali refugees or other immigrants.

Nowrasteh argues that government should not have the power to restrict anyone's travel. He also cited academic studies claiming that immigration was beneficial.

So if immigration is beneficial, why is almost everyone against it? It is not, of course, if it forces unwanted lifestyle changes on people.

A telling point was that Smith has kids. He narrowly won the debate, according to their voting rules.

A point of issue was that USA has tight immigration rules from 1925-65, and they have been dramatically loosened since then. Which policy was better for the nation?

Many other changes went on in the XX century, so this is not a great argument either way. But I think we had nicer and more pleasant communities back then, and a lot less crowded. About 90% of the immigration has been for the worse.

Dominoes Falling or Dice Rolling

Sam Harris rants against free will, and apparently his model of the universe is falling dominoes and rolling dice. He says:

i mean just 46:11 viewing people as physical systems that are not separate from the universe. there really is just the universe doing its 46:17 thing it's doing its thing deterministically. you know just one domino is falling and hitting the next 46:23 and if you if you believe that there's a component of randomness in there then there's some you know jiggle to the 46:30 system that is that is in indeterministic and uh therefore 46:36 intrinsically unpredictable, but in neither case neither with dominoes 46:41 falling or dice rolling do you get a picture of a will that can that tr can 46:48 independently author its own uh doings.

Wow, what a silly argument. His theory is that his brain works by either falling dominoes or rolling dice, and neither has free will. Neither is conscious either.

When he is not denouncing Pres. Trump or free will, he is promoting meditation. What is the point of meditation if the mind is just dominoes and dice? Does that somehow get those dominoes and dice to function better?

He charges $150 per year to listen to these wacky rants.

People hold him up as a rational leftist, but he is not.

Demographic Delusions: World Population Growth

I regularly see articles claiming that civilization is going to collapse because of dramatic population declines. The truth is more nearly the opposite.

Paper from 2023:

Demographic Delusions: World Population Growth Is Exceeding Most Projections and Jeopardising Scenarios for Sustainable Futures

by Jane N. O’Sullivan

The size of the world’s population has profound implications for demand for food, energy and resources, land use change and greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines why most population projections have underestimated world population growth, and the implications for actions required to achieve sustainable societies. The main determinant of future population is family size choices. ...

Unless political will is rapidly restored for voluntary family planning programs, the global population will almost certainly exceed 10 billion, rendering sustainable food security and a safe climate unachievable.

As interviewed last year:

Richard: Fertility rates are declining sharply in OECD countries, and China’s population is now dropping rapidly. Is world population growth in the rear-view mirror, a problem we no longer have to worry about?

Jane: “Declining sharply” and “dropping rapidly” are emotive terms that exaggerate the trends and distract from the far more rapid growth elsewhere. Globally we increase by somewhere between 70 million and 90 million annually, and that pace has been unrelenting for more than 40 years. We don’t have hard evidence that the curve has started to bend, let alone that it is on track to peak any time soon. So, the problem hasn’t gone away, and the impacts of the human population get more serious and intractable every year. ...

Every two or three years, the UN publishes an update of their population estimates and projections. Almost every update this century has revised the world population upward. Their mid-2022 release estimated the mid-2022 population to be 7.975 billion. This was 21 million higher than their 2019 projection anticipated it would be, despite more than 15 million unanticipated deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was 177 million more than the 2010 projection expected, and 253 million people more than was projected in 2000. Despite their consistent underestimation of growth, their model continues to assume all high-fertility countries are experiencing rapid fertility decline, even though their historical data show they haven’t.

Here is some ominous new research:

A new study published in the open-access journal PLOS One suggests that human populations may need a fertility rate of at least 2.7 children per woman to reliably avoid long-term extinction, significantly higher than the commonly cited replacement level of 2.1. The research was led by Takuya Okabe of Shizuoka University, Japan. ...

In stark contrast to the newly suggested sustainability threshold of 2.7 children per woman, global fertility rates have been steadily declining for decades. According to the United Nations, the global average fertility rate in 2024 was approximately 2.3 and is projected to drop below 2.1 by mid-century.

The authors conclude that true population sustainability – as well as the sustainability of languages, cultural traditions, and diverse family lineages – requires rethinking conventional fertility targets.

The island nation of Japan has a population of 123 million. No, there is no danger of Japanese extinction.

Some minor languages and cultures could go extinct. My guess is that they will be preserved by AI models. English is becoming the universal language, and obscure languages are just a nuisance.

The George Floyd Con, 5 Years Later

The Boston Globe reports:

Five years ago, the 8-minute, 46-second smartphone video of George Floyd‘s murder upended the long frustrating campaign for racial equity. The recorded death by Minneapolis police tugged at people’s hearts, anger, and ultimately, their wallets.

In the months that followed, organizations across the country made sweeping proclamations of antiracism, pledging to give billions upon billions to initiatives to combat racism and end violence and injustice on Black communities.

In Greater Boston, at least 20 foundations, organizations, and corporations pledged about $1 billion in grants, investments, and scholarships for equity-related causes, according to a Globe review of announcements in response to the racial reckoning of 2020. They variously aimed at reducing disparities in health and wealth and reforming the criminal justice system, among other issues afflicting Black America.

But five years later, it’s difficult to discern what all that money bought.

It was all a con. Floyd died of an overdose. Even if he were murdered, that would not prove anything, but an isolated crime.

Dirty Canard About White People

Jung-Freud writes:

It’s an oft-heard complaint, even a canard, about white people in general and white conservatives in particular. The immigration issue is framed in terms of white dislike for other races. It’s misleading, even among most white right-wing types. While it’s true that some whites do harbor disdainful, contemptuous, hostile, and even hateful views in regards to nonwhite groups, sometimes grounded in facts (especially black criminality) and sometimes grounded in ignorance(of different peoples & cultures), the main issue regarding mass immigration isn’t about race/ethnicity but territoriality.

As he explains, most people, all over the world, do not want their communities invaded by a foreign ethnicity or culture.

Why? He tries to explain it. People like their own kind, regardless of the characteristics of the foreigners.

I am not sure the reasons matters. In some cases, people do not like being around the others. In other cases, the foreigners bring in crime and other problems. In some cases, the foreigners are nice and well-behaved, but they play soccer instead of baseball, eat rice instead of potatoes, and prefer to speak another language.

Economist Predicts No Growth from AI

Here is an AI skeptic, and he is maybe the biggest Economics big-shot.

MIT Technology Review reports:

A Nobel laureate on the economics of artificial intelligence

Daron Acemoglu has long studied technology-driven growth. He thinks we should slow down and make sure we’re using AI the right way.

For all the talk about artificial intelligence upending the world, its economic effects remain uncertain. But Institute Professor and 2024 Nobel winner Daron Acemoglu has some insights.

Despite some predictions that AI will double US GDP growth, Acemoglu expects it to increase GDP by 1.1% to 1.6% over the next 10 years, with a roughly 0.05% annual gain in productivity.

He is widely praised for his analysis of big trends, but I have criticized him here and here.

I tried asking an AI LLM how I could give a politically respectable account of how nations succeed and fail. It said to give all the credit to institutions, and occasionally blame colonialism, but never draw attention to human capital. In other words, say exactly what Acemoglu says.

He pretends to be data-driven, but I do not believe it. He just gets ahead by telling people what they want to hear.

I am reminded of Economist Paul Krugman writing that the internet's effect on the economy would be no greater than the fax machine's.

I occasionally see others argue that AI is not intelligent, or is still looking for the killer app, or is just a gimmick, or has not progressed. For example, Gary Marcus says AI progress has ended.

Wake up. AI has made very consistent progress over the last 15 years, and has shown no sign of slowing down. Its economic value is already many billions, particularly in image processing, text drafting, and software coding.

OpenAI announced that it will buy Jony Ivy's startup for $6.5B, and Windsurf for $3B. And it intends to lose $44B before it makes a profit. It is supposed to be a nonprofit, so it still has to legally figure out how to be a for-profit. So there is legitimate skepticism about whether its plans will pay off.

Maybe not, but ChatGPT technology is incredibly useful, and the latest models from Google, Anthropic, Meta, and the Chinese are getting really good.

The wait for self-driving cars and humanoid robots is frustrating.

A few decades ago, the whole world was computerizing, and economists complained that there were no measurable productivity gains. Acemoglu even wrote a 2014 paper complaining about it. So why were companies computerizing?

The computers were leading to great efficiencies that the economists were not measuring.

We are going to see the same thing with AI. Soon the whole world will be running on AI, and it will work so well that we will wonder how we got by without it. But Acemoglu and other economists will deny that AI has any economic impact.

Update: New interview:

Nobel Laureate Busts the AI Hype

MIT Sloan Management Review

While many people are predicting that AI will rapidly transform the economy, MIT economist Daron Acemoglu offers a more modest forecast. Drawing from his research, in this brief video he explains why AI might automate only 5% of tasks and add just 1% to global GDP over the next decade. Acemoglu also asserts that AI’s potential is less clear than the internet’s was and that human judgment trumps algorithms, and he challenges leaders to innovate with AI rather than simply slash costs.

He doubles down on his argument that AI is over-hyped, and will be of little consequence. He says that he cannot be replaced by AI, but I think he can.

Russia to use Phones to Track Foreigners

News:

The Russian government has introduced a new law that makes installing a tracking app mandatory for all foreign nationals in the Moscow region.

The new proposal was announced by the chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, who presented it as a measure to tackle migrant crimes.

"The adopted mechanism will allow, using modern technologies, to strengthen control in the field of migration and will also contribute to reducing the number of violations and crimes in this area," stated Volodin.

Using a mobile application that all foreigners will have to install on their smartphones, the Russian state will receive the following information:

Residence location
Fingerprint
Face photograph
Real-time geo-location monitoring

"If migrants change their actual place of residence, they will be required to inform the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) within three working days," the high-ranking politician explained.

This seems outrageous, and foolish for a country that wants tourism.

And yet I think it is inevitable that most countries with do something like this. The technology is cheap, easy, and efficient.

Most tourists are not going to secret locations, or anything like that. My guess is that soon most will not mind.

The USA desperately needs to better monitor millions of people. Mainly, criminals on parole or probation, and foreigners on temporary visas or claiming asylum or without authorization. Nearly all have smart phones, and they could be tracked.

NY Times: Professors Rant about Fascism

New video:

We’re Experts in Fascism. We’re Leaving the U.S. | NYT Opinion

Legal residents of the United States sent to foreign prisons without due process. Students detained after voicing their opinions. Federal judges threatened with impeachment for ruling against the administration’s priorities.

In this Opinion video, Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley, all professors at Yale and experts in authoritarianism, explain why America is especially vulnerable to a democratic backsliding — and why they are leaving the United States to take up positions at the University of Toronto.

... Their motives differ but their analysis is the same: ignoring or downplaying attacks on the rule of law, the courts and universities spells trouble for our democracy.

I post this as an example of Jewish Leftist hatred and paranoia. The complainers are mostly Jewish, but their complaints include the Trump administration deporting foreigners who advocate killing Jews.

For more unhinged academics, see the physics-related blogs of Peter Woit and Scott Aaronson. They are both fanatical leftist Trump-haters, and regularly rage about how he is destroying universities and becoming the new Hitler.

So you think they agree? Nope. They disagree like Stalinists and Trotskyists. Woit says Aaronson needs psychiatric help, and Aaronson says Woit is an antisemitic piece of s**t.

What is going on? The dispute concerns protests at Columbia U. that disrupted the college, and took the side of Gaza against Israel.

In my opinion, Columbia should not put up with disruptive protests about foreign issues that have nothing to do with the college.

Columbia gets billions in federal aid, and should stop refusing to comply with Trump administration demands. The demands are things that Columbia should be doing anyway, such stopping discriminatory policies.

The broader issue is whether Jews should be held accountable for the death and destruction in Gaza. I don't want to put words in the mouths of these guys, but I think they are not being fully straightforward.

Jews believe in protecting what is good for the Jews, above all else. The view Gaza-Hamas and their sympathizers as a threat to the existence of Israel, and hence to the security of worldwide Jews. That cannot be tolerated. If necessary, they will kill a thousand enemies to retaliate for the death of one Jew.

Others, such as many modern leftists and much of the Islamic world, see Jews as evil and the Gaza destruction as proof.

A lot of influential Jews are Trump-haters, but Trump and his supporters are mostly pro-Jewish, and do not see Jews as evil.

I sometimes blame Jews on this blog, but I do not blame them for destroying Gaza. Gaza is at war with Israel, and continues to hold hostages while it refuses to surrender. I do not have have any opinions about what Israel should or should not do, and I do not think anyone should be surprised at what it is doing.

Israel defenders like Aaronson like to say that they favor a two-state solution for the Palestinian Arabs, but that appears hopeless to me. Woit appears to want the Jews to surrender Israel to the Arabs in the way that South Africa surrendered the nation to the Blacks. That also appears hopeless. They both pretend to be holding the moral high ground, but I see nothing moral about advocating something impossible, or about resisting Trump when he is making constructive proposals.

Illegal to Sell Tasmanian Rocks

News from 2017:

A police raid in Sydney has netted more than 150 stolen Aboriginal artefacts which were being illegally offered for sale online.

The Tasmanian department of primary industries said the raid was prompted by reports the items were on the verge of being sold.

"It is very concerning that these culturally significant items are just being treated as a commodity," natural and cultural heritage division chief enforcement officer Luke Bond told AAP.

The items are believed to have been taken from a number of locations around Tasmania.

They look like simple rocks to me. How culturally significant could they be?

Pinker on Harvard's Troubles

New podcast:

Today's guest is Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Pinker and Reason's Nick Gillespie discuss recent shifts at Harvard toward greater institutional neutrality and free speech, while warning that threats to academic freedom now come from both internal ideologies and external political forces—including pressure from the federal government under President Donald Trump.

Pinker defends the role of federal science funding but cautions against political micromanagement of academia, emphasizing the need for independent scholarly governance. The conversation also touches on Pinker's admiration for Richard Dawkins, the impact of declining religiosity on moral progress, and the concept of "common knowledge" as explored in Pinker's forthcoming book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. 

It explains that Pinker published a 2023 essay on what Harvard must do to save itself. It is roughly the same as what Pres. Trump is now ordering it to do. So is he a Trump supporter?

Of course not. He is a Jewish atheist liberal professor Trump-hater. He said he became a USA citizen and voted against Trump. He speaks a lot about free speech, but he does not dare praise Trump.

I am curious about his new book:

But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge — to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can’t know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room.

He is very articulate, and his books have arguments that are well-supported and good to read, even when I disagree with them. And so I often criticize him.

I can think of a few things that everybody knows, but most do not like to acknowledge. That race is real. IQ correlates with success. Sex is binary. Trump is a great President, especially compared to Biden or Harris. Immigration is ruining Europe and the USA.

There is a famous common knowledge paradox, The blue-eyed islanders puzzle. Pinker will probably mention it.

He gives the story of the emperor with no clothes as an example. Everybody can see that he has no clothes, but they do not know that the others know until a boy blurts it out.

Another example is Pres. Biden dropping out of the race in 2024. Everyone knew that he was senile and the debate did not change many minds, except to convince everyone that everyone else knew that he was senile.

Maybe he would mention former FBI Director James Comey posting "86 47" as if it were a directive from God. Now everyone knows how much some people hate Trump.

For info on Harvard violating discrimination, see Christopher F. Rufo. Harvard already lost a case at the US Supreme Court.

I occasionally see someone describe his worldview as pro-Enlightenment or Enlightenment liberal, or something like that. Pinker wrote a popular book about it, so that is surely what they mean. They act as if it is the source of all modern goodness and something that everyone should agree with. I intend to post some more criticisms of it.

Pinker's book credits the views of a handful of philosophers in the late 18th century. I am dubious that any of them had any significant impact. He probably is going to say that everyone knew that there is no God, and once some 18C Enlightenment philosophers said it, and then the whole society got the industrial revolution, modern science, democracy, egalitarianism, and all other wonders of modern life.

I believe his view is seriously mistaken. Europe and American did pass up the rest of the world in wealth and accomplishments, and that needs explanations. I have posted many times on various explanations.

I would say that it was Christendom than leapfrogged ahead, not the Enlightment, because the big advance was many centuries earlier and entirely in Christian nations.

Democrats want Racial Reparations

Wash. Times reports:

A House Democrat who introduced a resolution calling for the U.S. to spend trillions of dollars on reparations for Black Americans says there won’t be an income cap for receiving the payout.

All Black Americans would qualify for reparations because, regardless of their current economic status, their ancestors suffered the indignity of slavery, said the resolution’s author, Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania.

You can read her resolution here.

Whereas, in other countries, including South Africa, Canada, Colombia, and others, poorly designed reparations proc- esses have not only failed to bring complete justice, but have created new forms of harm;

You might think that complete justice would also consider how Blacks have damaged. No, of course not. That is not considered, or Blacks would never be able to pay.

Find the Hidden Nazi Message

This tweet has generated millions of views. The claim is that there is a hidden Nazi message. Look for yourself.

There are people who seem to think that this image is so dangerous that everyone should take down and destroy all copies. No, I do not agree. It appears that Matt Walsh was tricked with an ingenious picture, and he refuses to admit it. I congratulate the trickster.

Here is another controversial image.

This was posted by James Comey, the Trump-hater and former FBI Director. Trump 45 fired him in 2017. There is a law against threatening the President. It is bizarre for him to post this. Even when he was FBI Director, he had a strange phobia about Trump.

The Benefits of Science Funding

The NY Times attacks Pres. Trump on a daily basis, and even in the science pages:

The government spends $200 billion annually on research and development, knowing that payoffs might be decades away; that figure would drop sharply under President Trump’s proposed 2026 budget. ...

Here are nine more life-altering advances that government investment made possible.

The government has indeed funded a lot of great work, but the list is not so great.

If you’re reading this on a screen, you’re looking at quantum dots, billions of them.

Quantum dots are tiny crystals of semiconductor stuff, 10 nanometers (billionths of a meter) or smaller in size, and they have become a mainstay of consumer electronics.

No, the technology is used on some high-end displays, but not on most screens. And a typical display has millions of pixels, but not billions.

Are you a robot? Probably not. We know this — “we” being any website you visit that asks you that question — thanks to a security technology called CAPTCHA, a digital puzzle that weeds out nonhuman bots that might be trying to disrupt a billing system or other valuable database.

This technology is now a big nuisance, as the bots are better able to solve the puzzles than humans.

The company’s work on the moon drill paved the way for the development of a suite of cordless consumer products, including the Dustbuster, a hand-held vacuum cleaner that came to define a whole new category of cleaning products.

This is ridiculous. We did not need the Moon for battery-powered tools.

In recent decades, however, many NICUs have begun providing and promoting more comforting forms of touch, including infant massage — an innovation that grew out of a chance observation in a university rat lab.

Now I think the NYT is trolling us. Really? No one had the idea to touch babies until some government scientists played with some rats?!

Smart Babies are Slower to Walk

The most sensitive research topics are genes, race, and IQ. Anything relating all three is forbidden.

The London Telegraph reports:

Late-walking babies ‘may do better in school’

Genes that determine the age of taking first steps linked to educational achievement, suggests study

The study looked at age at onset of walking in over 70,000 infants of European ancestry.

This is respectable research because it avoided racial issues, but there is other research that some groups learn to walk sooner.

These studies just find correlations. They do not mean that a particular baby will be smart just because he walks late.

Psychopaths Are More Attractive

Newsweek reports:

Dark personalities may not just be uncaring, self-obsessed and skilled at manipulation—but they may also look trustworthy, according to a new study that sheds light on how physical appearance can subtly disarm our instincts.

A new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences examined how people perceive strangers' trustworthiness based on facial appearance alone.

Researchers found that individuals with high levels of the so-called "dark triad" traits—narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism—were consistently rated as more trustworthy.

Why? The answer lies in looks. People with high dark triad traits tended to be perceived as more physically attractive—and this perception strongly influenced how trustworthy people believed them to be.

I do not take these studies too seriously. I just post this so you can be on the alert about how you might be manipulated.

Refugee Service Objects to Whites

Millions of non-whites have been brought into the USA as refugees, but when a handful of Whites get in, a migration\ service goes nuts.

AP reports:

The Episcopal Church’s migration service is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church’s longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.”

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe announced the step Monday, shortly before 59 South Africans arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on a private charter plane and were greeted by a government delegation.

Episcopal Migration Ministries instead will halt its decades-long partnership with the government, Rowe said.

I am not sure the Episcopals should be considered Christian. They have become a pro-LGBTQ lobbying group, and apparently White-haters also.

Most Americans think that democracy was brought to South African by the resignation of the White Apartheid government in 1994. Not really. Before 1994, the country had competing parties and elections. Yes, they favored the Whites, but they functioned as a democratic country.

Since 1994, South Africa has suffered one-party rule. Corrupt leaders have ruined the country. It is only more democratic in the sense that the leaders have the same skin color as most of the residents. Otherwise, the government is much worse. It is even worse for the Blacks.

The Whites are being wiped out, and are leaving the country. Most of them speak English, and are well-behaved citizens who could assimilate into the USA.

The White-haters would rather bring in Black Somalians, like the ones harassing a Minnesota mom. It was terrible that Christian groups and White-haters were allowed to repopulate Minnesota with Somalians.

MSNBC complains that the refugees are the descendants of White supremacists. They are also the descendants of those who built a great nation, only to see it destroyed by Blacks.

Princeton Disfavored Whites, Jews, Males

Christopher F. Rufo writes:

Amid the ongoing showdown between the Trump administration and the Ivy League, one university president has positioned himself as a leader of the academic resistance: Princeton’s Christopher L. Eisgruber.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration suspended hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants to Princeton as part of its investigation into racial discrimination and anti-Semitism at the New Jersey campus. Eisgruber, though, was defiant, telling the New York Times that he’s “not considering any concessions” and calling for other university presidents to follow his lead.

This isn’t Eisgruber’s first bid for the spotlight. After the death of George Floyd in 2020, he declared that Princeton—where he has served as president since 2013—was guilty of “systemic racism.” In a letter to students that September, he went so far as to claim that racism was embedded in the very “structures of the university itself.”

Eisgruber was right to say that he presides over a system of racial discrimination—but not in the way he imagines. The university does not discriminate against “oppressed” groups, such as blacks and Latinos, but against those seen as “oppressors.”

“At Princeton, it’s totally common knowledge that there are favored groups and disfavored groups,” one professor said. “And the disfavored groups are whites, Jews, males,” and others commonly disliked by the Left.

A City Journal investigation confirms that Princeton has, in fact, entrenched a system of racial discrimination and segregation. We have obtained more than a dozen internal documents and conducted interviews with a half-dozen employees, who confirm that the university has flagrantly violated the principles of the Civil Rights Act in the name of “social justice.”

The basic structure of this system is the university’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bureaucracy, which has expanded dramatically under Eisgruber’s tenure. An infographic circulated by Princeton shows at least 40 academic and administrative departments with established DEI committees, with the express purpose of adjusting the campus’s racial composition.

I went to Princeton. This has been going on for decades. It got worse in the last ten years. The administration does not believe it is accountable to national policy.

Pride Flags in Utah and Idaho

I thought Utah and Idaho were our most conservative states.

The Hill reports:

The Democratic-controlled cities of Salt Lake City and Boise adopted new city flags this week showing support for LGBTQ+ people in defiance of their respective states’ Republican-controlled legislatures, which have banned traditional rainbow pride flags at schools and government buildings. ...

The measure — which aims to sidestep such violations by adopting the new flags as official city flags — passed unanimously.

These are not just pride flags. The above is a progressive pride flag.

Some people think that these flag represent tolerance, but that is not correct. They represent progress towards a Black-queer dominated society. They are extremely offensive. It is a symbol of hatred, not tolerance.

Memphis Cops Acquitted of Murder

Slate reports:

Tyre Nichols was murdered.

Not killed. Not lost. Not a life that simply “ended.” He was murdered. He was ripped from the fragile thread of existence by the deliberate choices of men who decided that his life did not matter. ...

But for Black Americans, the promise of due process is too often a mirage, a pledge written in ink that fades when touched. ...

For all the names I know — Tyre Nichols, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, Rodney King, Atatiana Jefferson, Botham Jean, Oscar Grant, Stephon Clark, Sonya Massey — there are thousands more. Names that never became hashtags.

I did not follow this case, but the Black police defendants managed to get an all-white jury, and were acquitted of all state charges.

Some of them may have to federal time. The Constitution says no double jeopardy, but apparently there is an exception when Black want to lynch a cop.

I followed some of the above cases, and they were mostly stories of violent Black criminals who resisted arrest. If there were some systemic racism, I would think that someone would find a good example.

Black Woman Statue in New York City

News:

A new 12-foot-tall bronze statue of a plus-size black woman, titled 'Grounded in the Stars,' has been installed in the middle of Times Square, New York City. The sculpture, created by artist Thomas J. Price, aims to challenge preconceived notions of identity and representation, according to the Times Square website.

The statue, which has drawn significant attention online, is part of a series that seeks to confront societal views on identity. It is described as a nod to Michelangelo's David due to its contrapposto pose, yet it also aims to disrupt traditional ideas of what constitutes a triumphant figure by celebrating marginalized bodies on a monumental scale.

Usually statues commemorate a great man who accomplished something, and try to be beautiful art. This is supposed to be the opposite.

This is weird to fetishize fat Black women. I see more and more examples of this.

Why Are Black Crime Rates So High?

Ben Shapiro has a podcast on facts, and here is a recent episode:

29,322 views Apr 17, 2025 #BenShapiro #DailyWire #TheBenShapiroShow

In America, conversations about race and crime often follow a familiar script: white perpetrators, black victims, and a justice system accused of systemic bias. But what does the data actually say?

In this episode, Ben breaks down the numbers, traces the media’s influence and examines the role of fatherhood, policing, and culture in shaping crime patterns across racial groups.

so why is this 5:28 happening? why disproportionate crime in 5:30 the black community?

the single most 5:32 obvious factor correlating with violent 5:33 crime is lack of fathers in the home. 5:36 according to the Institute for Family 5:38 Studies only 37% of black children are 5:40 living in a home headed by their 5:42 biological parents. 72% of black fathers 5:44 have had a child out of wedlock. studies 5:46 show the number of fathers in a 5:47 neighborhood can actually help alleviate 5:49 the problem of lack of fathers directly 5:51 in the home.

Yes, that is an obvious correlation. Even among Whites, fatherlessness is correlated with violent crime.

This is a typical conservative response. They want it to be true, because then society can be improved by encouraging marriage and stable families. Those things are also good for other reasons.

The most obvious factor is the possibility that Blacks have genes for violent crime. There is not much research on this, as people are afraid of the results.

Ben would probably say that there is a lot of research showing that fatherlessness is correlated with violent crime, and that is true across all races, so why even look at race?

It is possible that fatherlessness does not cause crime at all. Maybe the crime is caused by genes, and those genes are inherited from the mom and dad. And maybe the moms and dads with those genes have all sorts of traits that lead to divorce and unstable relationships. So the genes could be causing the fatherlessness and the crime.

I am sure it is not that simple, and crime has many causes. I am all in favor of improving fatherlessness, but it may not help the crime rate much.

Currently we have many laws and policies that favor fatherlessness. I agree with fixing them.

The London Guardian reports on a hot controversy:

Migrant charities and MPs have accused Yvette Cooper of pandering to racism and stoking the possibility of riots after the Home Office said it would publish the nationalities of foreign criminals in the UK for the first time.

The home secretary has ordered officials to publish the data, including the crimes that have been committed, by the end of the year. It is expected to lead to “league tables” of foreign nationals showing which nationalities are more associated with particular crimes.

Many people do not want to face reality. Britain is being repopulated with foreigners, and some are much more criminal than others.

Apparently education is not the cause:

Indeed, some studies show that Black women are the most educated demographic in America. ...

Despite stereotypes about African Americans, Black Americans in the United States are among those most likely to earn a postsecondary degree. For example, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that from the academic years 2000–2001 to 2015–2016, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded to Black students increased by 75% and the number of associate degrees earned by Black students increased by 110%.2 Black students are making headway in graduate education as well, with, for example, the number of Black students enrolled in master's degree programs nearly doubling between 1996 and 2016.

Cancel Culture Victim gets Payoff

A GiveSendGo fundraiser:

My name is Shiloh and I have been put into a very dire situation. I recently had a kid steal from my 18month old sons diaper bag at a park. I called the kid out for what he was. Another man, who we recently found out has had a history with law enforcement, proceeded to record me and follow me to my car. He then posted these videos online which has caused my family, and myself, great turmoil. My SSN has been leaked. My address, and phone number have been given out freely. My family members are being attacked. My eldest child may not be going back to school. Even where I exercise has been exposed.

I am asking for your help to assist in protecting my family.

This young Minnesota mom was harassed by Somalians who called her a racist. As I write this, she has raised $675,000.

Online bullies, including a Somalian named Sharmake Omar, have tried to get her into trouble with police and CPS.

On Monday, May 5, the Rochester Police Department said they had passed their findings to the City Attorney's Office to review for "a charging decision"

No, I did not donate, but I think it is great that this mom is successfully fighting back against the Somalians who are trying to terrorize her.

I would think that the police and CPS would be smart enough to see that there is not even a complaint that she broke any law. The Somalian filmed himself using the word N***er, baiting the mom into saying the word, and accusing a child of being mentally retarded. Maybe he should be deported.

Natural History Magazine goes Transgender

Natural History magazine is mostly known for publishing the pro-evolution columns from Stephen Jay Gould, and now it has bet its reputation on transgenderism.

It published an article saying that sex is a spectrum, and not binary, and then editorialized in favor of it. It said “the science behind Fuentes’s thesis. . . is solid.”

Biology professor Jerry Coyne remarks:

And Fuentes uses many of the bogus tropes employed to “prove” that sex is nonbinary, even showing a photo of a bluehead wrasse, a fish that forms polygynous groups. When the alpha male dies, one female gets rid of her ovaries and develops testes, taking over the top job. But there are still only two sexes! I have to say that you have to be either ignorant or tendentious to use this animal as an argument against the sex binary, and Fuentes isn’t ignorant. ...

The claim that “the number of mating types (often called “sexes”) has been variable over hundreds of millions of years, ranging from two and sometimes three in most animals, to as many as seven in single-celled animals. . ” is wholly misleading. Well, Dear Editors, all animals and vascular plants have just two sexes (which ones have three?), though single-celled organisms, algae and fungi can have more “mating type”, which I’m okay with calling “sexes”if you want. But Fuentes and the editors, are defending the thesis that animals, including our own species, have nonbinary sex. This is not true.

So there is a single-celled organism with seven sexes? News to me, but that tells us nothing about transgenderism in humans.

As far as I know, humans are 100% unambiguously male or female. I am no expert on this. If it turns out that there are some rare exceptions, that would have little or nothing to do with the transgender activism of today.

I am reminded of the evolution wars of 30 years ago, where leftist-atheist-evolutionists adamantly claimed to be on the side of science. Now they brazenly lie about basic biological facts. Some of them, anyway. I credit Jerry Coyne with coming clean on the facts, even when it does not match his ideology.

Trump takes Step towards Meritocracy

Heather Mac Donald writes:

Trump Takes His Biggest Step Yet Toward Restoring Meritocracy

The administration’s executive order eliminating disparate-impact theory restores the 1964 Civil Rights Act to its original meaning.

Measured in Trump time, it took them eons to get around to it, but the White House has finally taken the most important step it can to restore meritocracy to American society: eliminating disparate-impact theory from civil rights analysis and enforcement.

Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters.

Update: She explains herself on a long podcast.