Education
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A Nation of True Believers
“Lots of Americans are also frustrated. Their putative leaders have infantilized them through decades of paternalistic laws that try to micromanage their lives. It is beginning to dawn on them that election results are unlikely to change anything under our duopolistic, or revolving monopolistic, political system.” ~ Robert Wright
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Question the Mask Mandates, for Reasons of Science
“CDC guidelines regarding the use of cloth masks have seen a complete 180-degree inversion over the last two months. With rapid changes like this we see the human side of science, we see the social and political aspects of the scientific process.” ~ Diana W. Thomas and Michael D. Thomas
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As Trust Withers, So Will Humanity’s Progress
“Government is tearing asunder a network of human relationships, a network of exchange fueled by love and trust. For the sake of humanity, by our choices, we must put it back together by our uncoerced and mutual regard for people.” ~ Barry Brownstein
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The World Health Organization Was Against Quarantines Only Last Year
“The real problem is epistemic: who is to decide what is normal, mild, moderate, or severe pandemic? Leave that decision to politicians and bureaucrats, and you have a problem. They do not know, and, as we’ve seen, immediately adopt the most extreme measures and go beyond them.” ~ Edward Peter Stringham
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The Intellectual Harm of Safe Spaces
Colleges and universities (and, increasingly, high schools) are prescribing exactly the wrong kind of treatment for students confronted with ideas they don’t like.
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The Unacknowledged Logic of Radical Environmentalism
A common fantasy is that the internet would survive and keep us all together but is exactly that – a total fantasy. Already the internet produces as much carbon emissions as the airline industry.
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Even In a Crisis, Student Loan Forgiveness Is Bad Policy
We should help those who are struggling right now. And we should do so quickly. Student loan debt forgiveness does not do that very much or very well.
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After the Virus, Universities Will Survive
Attracting students to a bricks-and-mortar campus requires a mix, or bundle, of services that cannot be easily replicated, even piecemeal, and which nowhere are available as a bundle with such convenience.
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It’s Not Capitalism Bringing Us Deaths of Despair
In recent years, authors left and right have tried to draw our attention towards the ills of the white working class, the “losers” of globalization. Here is a look at the latest work of Princeton professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton: Deaths of Despair.
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The Future of Academic Publishing
Given the extent of the competition in modern academics for publication space, and the breakdown of the process of physical publication and dissemination on paper, we are nearing a state of crisis.
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What It Means to Have a Teachable Spirit
Unleashing fury upon those who express views with which you disagree will only jeopardize your credibility, and might just empower the ideas you’re seeking to discredit. Ideas that appear taboo or transgressive often spread when powerful forces seek to suppress them.
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Harvard Finally Stands Up to Academic Duplicity
A new profile of Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in the New York Times contained a fascinating revelation about the ongoing academic reception of their work. Late last year, Zucman was being courted for a faculty appointment by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Although the department voted to approve the hire, Harvard’s…
