What's the best book you've read over the last five years? Reflecting on this question, here is my selection: Escape from Rome. The most comprehensive, detailed, and convincing argument for why the industrial revolution occurred--and only could have occurred--in Western Europe.

Since people are talking about the meaning and implications of extremely low IQs, I'll add something I think everyone should understand: an IQ of 70 is used to indicate* mental retardation because of what it tends to be caused by in certain populations. This is a roundabout way

if you’re doing a PhD in a quantitative discipline you should print this out and hang it above your desk lkozma.net/inequalities_c…

So Macron appointed a center-right Prime Minister, which means that Le Pen's party will effectively play the pivotal role in the Assembly, because without the support of left-wing deputies the government will only be able to avoid a no-confidence vote as long as Le Pen allows it.

FIRE's new survey of 59k college students is out. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of them have disastrously illiberal ideas about free speech. - 32% said that using violence to stop a campus speech is acceptable to some degree — up from 27% last year and 20% two years

writing about sleep. i love dürer's pillows.

In 2021, Swedish researchers found that the majority of rape offenders had foreign background. This prompted a graduate student to complain, alleging they didn't have permission to test this hypothesis. This led to a lengthy investigation, which eventually was dropped in 2023.

That's correct. Publishers removed '1984' from our library. 🕳️

In Port a Prince Haiti, Secretary of State Antony Blinken makes clear he will not serve into a Harris administration if asked, saying that he "will relish spending a lot more time" with his kids after January 2025.

I just listened to this clip and, not only does Karp not say that Americans should scrap the First Amendment to target antisemitism, but he explicitly denies it and just says that people should use their First Amendment right to speak up against antisemitism. Once again, it

It's amusing that, although there is a kind of person who thinks Khrushchev and his successors were traitors to socialism for repudiating Stalin, they would actually have been chastised by Stalin for "petty bourgeois egalitarianism" for opposing wage inequalities, whereas under

Ever wondered how Baya Weavers build their intricate nests? Here's a quick video summary of their amazing nest-building skills & behaviour, offering a glimpse into their lives. Curious enough? Watch 'How to be a Weaverbird': youtube.com/watch?v=825gM9…

Non seulement les Français n'ont pas donné une majorité à la gauche, qui au contraire n'a jamais été aussi faible dans l'opinion, mais il faut vraiment être totalement déconnecté de la réalité pour croire que les positions anti-immigration de Barnier leur posent un problème 🙃

The Soviet Union had a tax to encourage people to have children, but dwarves were mercifully exempted.

Putting aside the fact that, though I'm no fan of Khasbulatov and Rutskoi, there were also excellent reasons to be critical of Yeltsin, it's crazy to suggest that the FBI should look into US citizens who support the "wrong" side in a political dispute in a foreign country.

The near-total absence of outrage in the US media about Israel, even when it kills a US citizen (which happens on a regular basis), is interesting because it's not as if the facts were not reported. They are for the most part, but it doesn't really matter because it doesn't

Narrator: "Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign did in fact seriously damage the health of Soviet revenue."