I really don’t understand true greed. If I was worth $1 trillion, you’d have to physically stop me from solving as many of the world’s problems as possible. Everyone would have a home, food on the table, proper healthcare, happiness. I just don’t get it.

Gifted and Talented, or G&T, programs have long been a perennial subject of debate, particularly in New York City, where it has bedeviled mayors for years. Some parents have already washed their hands of the whole G&T business, refusing to participate in what they view as a corrupt system of segregation. But countless others still place significant stock in the G&T designation and what it offers and are comfortable relying on cognitive testing, should it be required, to determine whether a child qualifies. “When your intelligence is the foundation of your self-perception, failing to achieve feels like soul death,” writes Katie Arnold-Ratliff. But if the limited amount of information we have about gifted kids long-term is any indication, most lead, at best, ordinary lives of modest accomplishment. A 35-year study of 677 gifted children found that by age 50, only 12.3 percent had reached a level of “eminence,” defined as “full professors … Fortune 500 executives … judges and lawyers, leaders in biomedicine, award-winning journalists and writers.” This means 88 percent never did. Arnold-Ratliff digs into the myth of the gifted child, and how our notions of intelligence may be inherently flawed: nymag.visitlink.me/9mc2Wh

It feels like progressivism is post-ideological at this point, that they no longer have a narrative for why they should hold power, it’s just degrowth nihilism like this which is functionally more akin to a mood disorder than a legitimizing rationale to govern.

I thought you were a serious journalist. What makes you think US elections are even remotely vulnerable? For 6 years we've been waiting for evidence of fraud in 2020, and so far nada. So why are you amplifying the Trumpian notion that IS elections are ripe with fraud?

For those of us (nearly everyone) who recognize Woke 1.0 as a failure, what’s something specific you’re willing to say it got wrong? Here’s mine: the practice of describing policies that were, like, Kerner Commission recommendations as “prison abolition” to get attention was dumb

Why is it so hard to reform institutions even with great intelligence? It's because when functional institutions are built in the first place, they are designed with multitudinous failsafes and killswitches to prevent them from being changed (and thus also from being reformed).

The USDA has kept raccoon rabies out of the central United States for over 30 years by air-dropping fish-flavored ravioli from helicopters. Each one is a small packet coated in fishmeal with an oral rabies vaccine inside. Raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and skunks find them by smell, bite through, and swallow. Many animals that consume the bait develop immunity, helping build a protective barrier across populations. The bait is generally considered safe for pets and tested in many non-target species. The USDA's Wildlife Services has been running this since 1995. Without the bait program, raccoon rabies very likely would have spread much further west. A federal program you've probably never heard of is protecting your pets and your kids by feeding wild animals ravioli from a helicopter.

Everyone is always rooting for you. Your parents want you to be a great son. Wife wants you to be a great husband. Your boss wants you to be a slam dunk hire. Every first date you’ve ever been on they’ve been rooting for you to get laid. Every time you started to tell a joke people hoped it would have a hilarious punch line. Your proximity to anyone is a reflection of themself, meaning the deck is never stacked against you, and your failures are completely your own

In a recent speech, Justice Clarence Thomas made clear what he thinks of Progressivism, saying it  “was the first mainstream American political movement—with the possible exception of the pro-slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War—to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration.” He went on to link Progressivism to the worst crimes of the 20th century, claiming that it “led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of Progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our Declaration are based.” Numerous scholars of the Progressive Era argue that Thomas offered up a distorted version of the movement. Read more about Thomas’s claims and the subsequent scholarly backlash: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/fN…

The word “Nakba” (catastrophe) wasn’t invented by Palestinians to describe Jewish “ethnic cleansing.” It was coined in 1948 by a Syrian Arab historian, Constantin Zureiq, in his book The Meaning of the Disaster. He used it to describe the humiliating failure of the Arab world — their leaders’ arrogance, their lies to their own people, their military incompetence, and their refusal to accept a Jewish state. Zureiq wrote that the Arabs had “imaginary victories” and put their public “to sleep” with boasts — until the real disaster hit: they couldn’t wipe out the Jews. The original Nakba wasn’t about refugees. That a rebrand from several decades later. It was about the Arab leaders’ catastrophic decision to launch a war of extermination ... and lose. They’ve spent 77 years rebranding their own failure as Jewish guilt. That’s the only real "Nakba" they can’t forgive.

Every decade in modern American history can be identified and defined by its own style, its own approach to music, film, fashion, its own aesthetic. That seems to have stopped right around 2010. The 2010s don't really have their own unique feel, even in retrospect. The 2020s certainly don't. We're more than halfway through the decade. What are the movies, music, style, and trends that this decade will be remembered for? It's like we fell into some kind of cultural blackhole 15 years ago.

We are facing down what is plausibly the biggest change in the material conditions underpinning the relationship between labor and capital since the Industrial Revolution Our response so far is plugging our ears & shouting “fake and gay! Fake and gay! You suck robot cock lmao”

Even if true, is this a reasonable response?