2025-06-26
everything to nothing
Stephen Skolnick claims to have found the cause of schizophrenia in the gut bacteria Ruminococcus gnavus.
Rob Kurzban on sociopathy as an evolutionary strategy to defect against the group.
Bentham's Bulldog on the likely effects of climate change versus the rhetoric.
Matt Yglesias notes that raising taxes is hard, so you should clearly think about where the extra money should go ahead of time. Related to this piece by Byrne Hobart on what “cost” means to an economist and how nothing is really free.
Lionel Page with a status-based explanation for why people in low-income distributions are trending towards the political right. Personally, I think this attention-focused picture by Kyla Scanlon is more convincing. It’s less a shift to any coherent political position as the desire which has always been there for one’s leaders to personally see and represent them, and these dynamics lead to more polarizing candidates1. On that note, lots of takes on Zohran Mamdani’s primary win. Nate Silver and Noah Millman write about the failure of the Democratic establishment in once again endorsing an unpopular candidate, and even optimistic takes like by Ross Barkan mention that the governance of New York will be a test for how well the progressive wing can govern. My personal opinion is that the progress and abundance people probably don’t have to worry too much about socialism ruining New York, since politicians who win on the power of popular appeal are highly sensitive to losing their appeal2.
John Milbank has an interesting framing of marriage as an egalitarian institution. Somewhat related, Cate Hall describes 37 things that people like about her husband Sasha Chapin.
Lilian Selonick with pictures and descriptions of cold noodle dishes.
I wonder if this means the political comeback is over. If you’re hiding while waiting for a scandal to die down, by definition that also means you aren’t getting any attention during that time. When you return, you’re either still tainted, or now just the same as anyone else.
This might be a hot take, but I think relative to the power he has, the actual amount of damage Trump has caused is actually pretty low, and to a large extent exactly because he cares about being popular. Unfortunately, the majority of the population is wrong about things like PEPFAR and deportation. But in New York, exactly because the population is as a whole more educated, the available avenues for damage should be limited.