RFK, JR Death Challenges Us
When people die, they leave a big hole in you, and that hole really doesn't get any smaller. What our job is is to grow ourselves bigger around the hole by building character. And we do that by taking part of the best virtues of the person who died, and trying to incorporate those into our own character. And that way, we make ourselves larger, and the hole gets proportionally smaller.
Working and Eating
When I was a teenager, all of my friends and I assumed that If we don't work, we won't eat. We did not assume that anyone had a duty to support us with food, housing or anything else. Based on my observations in recent years, that is no longer the case for many young adults. Hence ...
Eric Weinstein’s Proposal for Recreating a Moderate Left
Eric Weinstein's proposal for a moderate left:
Make markets somewhat fairer for working families.""Protect nature! Up to a point!"
"Welcome, to a managable number of actual refugees."
"Make Trans accepted and EXCEEDINGLY rare."
"Manage M1 but do not print your way out of debt."
"Accept Gays and Lesbians...but don't promote kink. Also...after LG the whole alphabet thing can change into something else entirely if you go out far enough."
"A little Spanish can be useful! But learn English."
"Vaccines are a great idea, but need to be watched like a hawk."
"Let's be more empathic without sticking it to men, the rich, Christians or people of European descent."
"Let's acknowledge our problematic history and also take pride in how awesome we became in so many ways."
"Let's be tolerant as a rule of thumb, but not of the intolerant."
"Let's house the homeless, and not confuse them for the drug-addicted and souls suffering from mental illness"
"Love who you want! But for god sakes, have kids and raise them to be normalish."
"Racism *remains* a problem...but much much less than it used to be!! Let's take our wins people. Great job!"
"White Christian European men did a lot of bad things...just like everyone else. The problem was that they were so good at doing things that they did bad things at scale. And MAN did they pull off miracle after miracle. Hats off to our founding fathers. Warts and all!!"
"Let's acknowledge that markets do not work perfectly people as their zealous supporters claim!! But damn...what an amazing idea for lifting people out of squalor!!"
"Worship almost however you wish to worship. But don't be a murderous or intolerant lunatic about it. Just chill bro."
"Don't use mean language when you can avoid it. But don't be a pussy or go around being a killjoy-nanny-policeman either when you can avoid it. Use judgement."
"Your identity deserves to be celebrated! Briefly. Because it is interesting...but not that interesting. Everyone has one."
https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1940000994500518350
Our Demon Haunted World
Carl Sagan:
I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)