America In Decline as It Pursues Perfection

I saw a t-shirt the other day that gave me a chuckle. It read: “I may be old, but I saw the USA before it went to sh**.” It stopped being funny when I thought about the differences between 20th and 21st century America.

Standards are the Raw Materials of Virtue: He Who Controls the Standards, Controls Behavior

Standards are the Raw Materials of Virtue: He Who Controls the Standards, Controls Behavior In one sense, virtue is how a society controls and manages behavior. Some systems and societies use virtue to produce beneficent outcomes, while others use virtue, at least as the societal standards define it, to produce power and control. Religions historically …

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Critical Thinking and Policy Development and Analysis

Critical Thinking and Policy Development and Analysis This blog builds upon Part 4: Policy Development. It is the opening part of a series on critical thinking and policy development and analysis. It provides the framework, as shown in the opening figure, for policy development and analysis. Following parts will use this framework to assess some …

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PayPal Announces It Will Debit $2,500 from Users’ Accounts If They Hold the Wrong Opinion

PayPal

PayPal recently notified users they may be sanctioned up to $2,500 for promoting “misinformation” over the internet or if the company determines they “present a risk to user safety or wellbeing.” The amendments to their “Acceptable Use Policy” will take effect on November 3. The full list of “Prohibited Activities” can be viewed here. The update …

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Reconstructing History, Part 4: Multiple Punctured Equilibriums

Since 2020, the US has gone through a series of trigger events that upset the established order. The two events in 2020, COVID-19 and the George Floyd death, broke a strong path dependency in American history, opening the way for Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project to re-write American history. Then the Virginia elections in Fall 2021 called that newly emerging equilibrium into question. As Americans were starting to sort out these issues, Russia invaded Ukraine, adding further complexity and uncertainty.