The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 stands as one of the most spectacular vindications of free market principles in modern American history. Before deregulation, the Civil Aeronautics Board controlled every aspect of commercial aviation: routes, schedules, and most critically,… pic.twitter.com/thdjhS7uQv
— Handre (@Handre) April 19, 2026
Yale’s long-anticipated report: Elite universities, including Yale, played major roles in degrading themselves. It urges Yale to recommit itself to protecting free speech zealously, but also cautions that fixing academia’s toxic culture will be neither easy nor quick (Clip: NYT). pic.twitter.com/rWMbFW7jGg
— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) April 15, 2026
The great social evil now is relative poverty. Having succeeded in eliminating the mass hunger and life-threatening conditions in which so many once struggled to survive, we must finish the job and go on to abolish inequality which is the great injustice of our own age. The inference is that some people being relatively less well off than others is the precise moral equivalent of people starving to death while others feast.Ironically, it is the great success of free market economics and the unprecedented mass prosperity it has produced which brings this reckoning. The economic system that has delivered more people from poverty than any previous one in human history is now attacked for failing to bring everyone’s lifestyle to the same standard all at once. There are some real problems with this. If everybody must be equally well-off all the time, there can be no significant movement up or down. That would rule out what might be seen as a natural trajectory from less successful to more successful, or from early struggle to affluent independence, perhaps involving personal resourcefulness or a climb up a professional ladder.Relative poverty, so long as it is not permanent, is the obverse – the other side of the same coin – of social mobility. If there is a political guarantee of economic equality, as there was supposed to be in the old Soviet societies, the possibility of individual self-improvement is lost. For some people to be better off than others is not, in itself, morally unacceptable: their affluence may be a reward for talent, effort and risk-taking. (The argument that such traits are themselves unfair advantages is beyond ridiculous: it is positively pernicious.) Of course, they might have achieved their success through unscrupulous means, but that is the kind of moral affront which laws and social disapproval are intended to prevent.The idea that anyone who is significantly better off must be, by definition, immoral is what lies behind the logic of a wealth tax – which is, in effect, a success tax. This is the real crux of the matter. Personal achievement and self-improvement are among the greatest satisfactions life has to offer. The possibility of moral agency and the scope for taking individual responsibility are probably the defining attributes of emotional maturity. We have spent a generation or so arguing about whether the government should guarantee equality of opportunity – which would provide as many people as possible with the chance to experience these things – or equality of outcome which would, by definition, eliminate them.Relative poverty – which is to say, being less well off than some other people – is not, in itself, a bad thing, so long as it is temporary and remediable. It should be something that you can escape, leave behind, look back on as a formative time. (You may have guessed that I speak from experience here.) But the possibility of it must exist.
Only one chance in this lifetime…
— Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) April 19, 2026
Like watching sunset at the beach from the most foreign seat in the cosmos, I couldn’t resist a cell phone video of Earthset. You can hear the shutter on the Nikon as @Astro_Christina is hammering away on 3-shot brackets and capturing those… pic.twitter.com/8aWnaFJ69c
This is a bit like my wife and me meeting to discuss the unsuitability of a particular lunar landing location. https://t.co/OYM8Avtb54
— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) April 17, 2026
For the 2025 Math SAT, 189,177 students scored 700-800. Of those test-takers, 63% were boys (118,890) and 37% were girls (70,287). Stated differently, there were 169 boys scoring 700-800 on the Math SAT for every 100 girls.
— Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) April 16, 2026
The male math advantage has persisted for generations… pic.twitter.com/OHYwo266il
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffeehouse, for the voice of the kingdom. The city coffeehouses have been for some years filled with people, whose fortunes depend upon the Bank, East-India, or some other stock. Every new fund to these, is like a new mortgage to a usurer, whose compassion for a young heir, is exactly the same with that of a stockjobber to the landed gentry. At the court end of the town, the like places of resort are frequented either by men out of place, and consequently enemies to the present ministry, or by officers of the army: no wonder then if the general cry, in all such meetings, be against any peace, either with Spain or without; which, in other words, is no more than this; that discontented men desire another change of ministry; that soldiers would be glad to keep their commissions; and that the creditors have money still, and would have the debtors borrow on at the old extorting rate, while they have any security to give.
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffeehouse, for the voice of the kingdom.
今日のセミナーで紹介されていた論文。「親になると良い人間になるのか？」母親だけでなく父親も、妊娠が分かってから有意に犯罪率が下がって、生まれた後も低い水準に留まる。セミナーでは、SNSの投稿も減って、より良いことを投稿するようになっていると報告。子育てから人間学ぶことも多いらしい。 pic.twitter.com/agetu5Ejay
— Kosuke Uetake (@Chanman_ECON) April 16, 2026
Like just to show how insane this was--British garrisons in Sierra Leone had a 40% annual death rate. This is *twice as bad as Dachau*; it's about the same as the first-year mortality rates of newly-arrived slaves in Haiti. Getting stationed here was basically a death sentence! https://t.co/Gm1Ie2kRId pic.twitter.com/ZxC35RzOLz
— Aminadad Mercilesse Butcher (@OttokarHochman) April 17, 2026
Minnesota is so retarded
— Jason Robertson (@JRobFromMN) April 15, 2026
We give hundreds of Billions of dollars to daycares and autism centers and they don’t verify they are an actual business or have kids or clients there
Meanwhile,
I’m getting my kitchen remodeled.
My licensed and insured contractor had to get a permit… pic.twitter.com/k2Z3CE4D1u
The physics of a pendulum wave
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) April 17, 2026
📹Marcel Clemens pic.twitter.com/zHd4W8AbhY
In Japan, police and local government officials conduct a joint exercise with anti-bear patrol teams for when the bears come out of hibernation.
— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) April 16, 2026
They literally send a guy out in a bear suit while the team drills him with practice darts. Incredible. pic.twitter.com/3MXAumydLG
In double-blind placebo-controlled trials, 'gluten-sensitive' people who *think* they're going to eat gluten have reactions.
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) April 16, 2026
But if they don't expect gluten, there's no reaction.
Expectancy has a bigger effect than actually eating gluten! pic.twitter.com/Kdqc6kQc1Y
Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.
That the US Civil War began and ended on the properties of the same man.
— Richard 🇺🇸 (@Richard79139714) May 23, 2026
The X post replies to a prompt for favorite historical facts by claiming the US Civil War began and ended on properties of the same man, later identifying him as Wilbur (a minor misremembering of Wilmer McLean).Wilmer McLean's Virginia farmhouse near Manassas served as Confederate Gen. Beauregard's headquarters in July 1861 during the First Battle of Bull Run, where a cannonball struck his kitchen.McLean moved to Appomattox Court House to escape fighting, but in April 1865 Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of his new home there, effectively ending the war.
Andrew Jackson had an African grey parrot that swore so much at his funeral it had to be removed because it wouldn’t stop screaming obscenities, I love this one because I also have one that swears and I hope she does the same when I die lmao.
— Courtney (@CourtneyWRocket) May 23, 2026
I also love that Australia had an…
Andrew Jackson owned an African grey parrot named Poll (sometimes called Polly). It originally belonged to his wife Rachel and was acquired around 1827. After Rachel's death, Jackson kept the bird.[en.wikipedia.org]At Jackson's funeral on June 10, 1845, at The Hermitage in Tennessee, Poll reportedly caused a scene by swearing loudly. Reverend William Menefee Norment, who attended, later recalled (as quoted in Samuel G. Heiskell’s Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History):"Before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering, a wicked parrot that was a household pet, got excited and commenced swearing so loud and long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house."The bird was removed to restore order. African greys are excellent mimics, and Jackson was known for his colorful language, so the parrot likely picked it up from him or others in the household.[jacksonianamerica.com]This is an anecdotal story based on a contemporary eyewitness account, but it's widely accepted as credible (though not 100% proven with multiple independent sources). It's documented in historical books, the Presidential Pet Museum, and Snopes rates the core claim as true based on the reverend's recollection.
Women: "Do men even have feelings?"
— Jash Dholani (@oldbooksguy) April 17, 2026
Meanwhile men: pic.twitter.com/A0DJ3EiIxB
A single accountant stole $53 million from her employer over 20 years and nobody noticed
— Uzi (@UziCryptoo) April 16, 2026
Rita Crundwell was the comptroller of Dixon, Illinois with a population of 15,000
She opened a secret bank account called “Reserve Sewer Capital Development Account”
For two decades she… pic.twitter.com/puqRzoYL2Z
These are vintage lightbulbs from the 1930s pic.twitter.com/B2ZaiZWVjK
— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) April 17, 2026
There were five murderers in Fairfax County this year. Three were illegal immigrants and one was a Democrat lieutenant governor
— Luke Rosiak (@lukerosiak) April 16, 2026
VA Democrats are now trying to arrest ICE and ban guns, while exempting legislators from the gun laws.
For people without access to the Nature paper who want more than the abstract, this is a nice summary.
— Charles Murray (@charlesmurray) April 16, 2026
But something needs publicizing: Little in this paper is new.
In 2010, Cochran and Harpending correctly described the basics of recent evolution in The 10,000 Year… https://t.co/vAYpBBUJUC
So thick the confusion,
Even the cowards were brave.
How Many Timesby ArchilochosHow many times,How many times,On the grey sea,The sea combedBy the windLike a wildernessOf woman’s hair,Have we longed,Lost in nostalgia,For the sweetnessOf homecoming.
In 1955, Algeria had 1 million Catholics and 140,000 Jews. Today there are 8,000 Catholics in Algeria and fewer than 200 Jews.
— Daniel Greenfield - "Hang Together or Separately" (@Sultanknish) April 16, 2026
Christians and Jews had lived in Algeria since Roman times. Now they’re gone.https://t.co/BvwwQ15dYk
"An absolute pacifism that denies the law any and all coercive measures would be capitulation to injustice, would sanction its seizure of power, and would abandon the world to the dictates of violence." - Pope Benedict XVI on Islamic terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons pic.twitter.com/OY39r7HtC5
— Kaitlin Bennett (@KaitMarieox) April 15, 2026
Scientists discovered the world’s largest spiderweb, covering 106 m² in a sulfur cave on the Albania-Greece border.
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 17, 2026
Over 111,000 spiders from two normally rival species live together in a unique, self-sustaining ecosystem—a first of its kind.pic.twitter.com/LPLKVElSNv
"Spouses who don’t share a surname divorce at about a 50% higher rate than those who do share a surname, and their divorces come about 30% earlier in their marriages." Striking new divorce research from @lymanstoneky reinforces my earlier research on marital quality & naming: https://t.co/RnZuCgHOh0 pic.twitter.com/oijqyg4P4n
— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) April 16, 2026
Hipponax alone among the archaic poets, we are told, had as sharpened a stylus as Archilochos, and Hipponax is remembered for a black little distich:Woman is twice a pleasure to man.The wedding night and her funeral.
A distich is a literary term for a stanza, strophe, or poem consisting of two lines of verse, typically forming a complete thought or rhyming couplet. It is derived from the Greek distichos ("having two rows") and often refers specifically to classical elegiac couplets (one hexameter and one pentameter line) or similar two-line structures.
One of my favorite stats that serves as a reality check for people:
— Alec Stapp (@AlecStapp) May 9, 2026
The median American took zero flights last year. https://t.co/SsRHHEQeCo
What percent of Americans fly at least once in a year?
Depending on the year and the specific survey methodology, between 43% and 52% of American adults fly at least once a year.The most comprehensive data comes from the annual Air Travelers in America survey conducted by Ipsos for Airlines for America (A4A). Their recent tracking shows the following stability in annual air travel:2023: 43%2024: 46%2025: 45%By contrast, independent polling by Gallup historically puts the normal baseline slightly higher, tracking near 48% to 52% in peak non-pandemic travel years.Key Data Insights
- The "Super-Users" Distort the Average: While roughly half of the population does not step onto a plane in a given year, total passenger volumes remain massive. This is because a small segment of frequent fliers (roughly 8% to 10% of the population) takes five or more round trips per year, heavily skewing the total number of flights taken.
- The Five-Year Window: If you expand the timeline slightly, about 64% to 68% of Americans report flying at least once within a 5-year period
- Lifetime Flight Data: Flying is overwhelmingly common over the course of a lifetime; 86% to 87% of all Americans have flown on a commercial aircraft at least once.
Lebanon was a beautiful, metropolitan paradise known as “The Jewel of the Levant” and in fact, had a Christian majority population too.
— Kosher (@koshercockney) April 15, 2026
What happened?
Oh yeah Palestinians and then Hezbollah. pic.twitter.com/bY3KI8jNLa
What the NYRB article about Passage leaves out is that the publishing industry has become utterly DOMINATED by women and leftist sensibilities.
— Lomez (@L0m3z) April 16, 2026
Any meaningful correction to that is going to look reactionary to the people swimming in the fishbowl (NYRB’s editors, eg). https://t.co/mKXiqRM2bK pic.twitter.com/ckeda0eK1k
"In the country of the backward-walking, the forward-walker is king." https://t.co/bFj9XUIfZb
— Armand D'Angour (@ArmandDAngour) April 17, 2026
I’ve never seen anything more accurate pic.twitter.com/9QcLM1JAzy
— Out of Context Human Race (@NoContextHumans) April 16, 2026
"The heritability of IQ varies, but in wealthy, industrialised countries, it approaches .80 in adults, which indicates that 80% of individual differences in IQ are associated with individual genetic differences."https://t.co/9yG8oVzJ7U pic.twitter.com/IyFjYZRjZl
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) April 15, 2026
Those who, like them, become rulers through their own abilities, experience difficulty in attaining power, but once that is achieved, they keep it easily. The difficulties encountered in attaining power arise partly from the new institutions and laws they are forced to introduce in order to establish their power and make it secure. And it should be realised that taking the initiative in introducing a new form of government is very difficult and dangerous, and unlikely to succeed. The reason is that all those who profit from the old order will be opposed to the innovator, whereas all those who might benefit from the new order are, at best, tepid supporters of him. This lukewarmness arises partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws on their side, partly from the sceptical temper of men, who do not really believe in new things unless they have been seen to work well. The result is that whenever those who are opposed to change have the chance to attack the innovator, they do it with much vigour, whereas his supporters act only half-heartedly; so that the innovator and his supporters find themselves in great danger.In order to examine this matter thoroughly, we need to consider whether these innovators can act on their own or whether they depend upon others; that is, whether they need to persuade others if they are to succeed, or whether they are capable of establishing themselves by force. In the former case, they always fare badly and accomplish nothing. But if they do not depend upon others and have sufficient forces to take the initiative, they rarely find themselves in difficulties. Consequently, all armed prophetsa succeed, whereas unarmed ones fail. This happens because, apart from the factors already mentioned, the people are fickle; it is easy to persuade them about something, but difficult to keep them persuaded. Hence, when they no longer believe in you and your schemes, you must be able to force them to believe.[snip]Such innovators, then, have to confront many difficulties; all the dangers come after they have begun their enterprises, and need to be overcome through their own ability. But once they have succeeded, and begin to be greatly respected (after they have extinguished those envious of their success), they remain powerful, secure, honoured and successful.I should like to add a less important example than the eminent ones already discussed. But it certainly is worthy of mention in this context, so let it suffice for all the others like it: I refer to Hiero of Syracuse. From being a private citizen, he became ruler of Syracuse. He enjoyed a fine opportunity but, apart from that, his success owed nothing to luck. For when the Syracusans were in desperate straits, they chose him as their general; afterwards he was deservedly made their ruler. And even in private life he showed so much ability that it was written of him ‘quod nihil illi deerat ad regnandum praeter regnum’. He disbanded the old army and raised a new one; he abandoned the old alliances and formed new ones; and as soon as he possessed his own troops and had reliable allies he could build any edifice he wanted upon this foundation. Thus, it was very difficult for him to attain power, but not to keep it.
Where Marx really went wrong was — and I know this sounds flip, but I’m as serious as cancer — being born in 1818. He lived his entire miserable life in a world where “labor” really was a physical thing. The richest robber baron of the Gilded Age lived a far different life, materially, than the poorest serf-in-all-but-name working in his factories……but the robber baron knew he needed the serfs. Their relationship was purely dialectical. Without his factory hands, no robber baron. And in a strange but very real way, the higher up the food chain your Gilded Age robber baron went, the more he was dependent on his serfs for his lifestyle. J.P. Morgan is usually credited as being the first guy to become a Robber Baron purely through finance. Carnegie, Rockefeller, all those guys had most of their wealth in financial instruments, of course, but those financial instruments rested on control of a physical product — Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil.I’m probably being unfair to Jay Cooke, the Michael Milken of his day, but since more people have heard of J.P. Morgan let’s roll with it. Even though Morgan’s wealth was entirely on paper — he was nothing but a securities trader — his lifestyle utterly depended on a battalion of servants. In a very real way, you yourself, right now, live much better than J.P. Morgan did in his heyday. And not just because you have aspirin, antibiotics, and air conditioning, three taken-for-granted things ol’ J.P. would’ve given half his kingdom for. But because you have more time. If you’re hungry, you can open the fridge or the microwave and have all the food you need in a matter of minutes.J.P. couldn’t. J.P. had to deploy an army of servants every time he wanted a snack, and those servants were constrained by things like “availability of ice” and “when is the fishmonger at his stall.” You’re hungry at 2am, you jump in your car and get some Taco Bell. It takes ten minutes. J.P.’s hungry at 2am and it’s tough titty, J.P., your ass is going hungry. Because even though you’re the richest man in the world and have legions of manservants at your beck and call, Taco Bell just isn’t there. Even if someone had had the brilliant idea to create a Gilded Age Taco Bell, it still would’ve taken hours:Wake up the manservant. Wake up the groom and stableboy. Hell, wake up the horse, then saddle the horse, ride to the drive thru window… which in this case means “the house of the guy who runs Gilded Age Taco Bell.” At which point he has to fire up the oven, start pounding the tortillas, send his own legion of valets and stableboys and whatnot out to get the refried beans…And that’s the other thing, J.P. — you’d best not pull that shit too often, because those people know where you live. Not only do they know where you live, they live with you. Literally under the same roof. You want to sleep easy? You’d best not beat the servants too often, buddy.There’s only so much “class consciousness” one can develop in that world. Oh yeah, J.P. thought of himself as one of the Masters of the Universe, there’s no denying that. But J.P. lived in what was still a brutally physical world, in a way we PoMo people really can’t grasp. If you can’t imagine what it would take to get some Gilded Age Taco Bell, maybe geography will do the trick. Ever seen Gangs of New York? Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably heard the name “Five Points.” The worst slum in America in the 19th century, and 19th century American slums were world class….That was right down the street from Wall Street. Literally. I am not in any way joking, and if I’m exaggerating a little for effect when I say “J.P. could’ve hit Five Points with a five iron from his swanky digs on Central Park West,” I promise you I’m not exaggerating much. You can look it up for yourself. The main reason the Union rushed troops straight from the Gettysburg battlefield, and no-shit shelled parts of the city with gunboats, during the Draft Riots was because Five Points (et al) was right fucking there, and they might’ve gotten it into their heads to lynch a few Masters of the Universe. Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight, right? Let’s see how you like it, you bankster bastards…The PoMo “information economy” removes all that. The other day I joked about colleges like Bennington and Goucher. I cracked some jokes, yeah, but I wasn’t really joking. Those places aren’t for us. Wall Street is still a physical location, but it might as well be on the dark side of the moon for all any of us have access to it. J.P. couldn’t beat the servants too hard, or too often. The modern equivalent of J.P. isn’t even aware that he has servants. He just clicks on a website, and stuff appears at his door. Like magic. Hell, it IS magic for all he knows, and he surely doesn’t care, because all that shit is his by right. He went to Bennington, after all. He has achieved full class consciousness.
Lapis lazuli has one of the longest, most geographically expansive histories of any gemstone. The oldest known mines, Sar‑e‑Sang in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, were already active by the 7th millennium BC, supplying a deep blue stone so rare that Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures… pic.twitter.com/TJP0NaEbc1
— Dr. M.F. Khan (@Dr_TheHistories) April 17, 2026
Philip Tetlock's results in the early 2000s were the most important in the history of political science: on average, subject-matter experts didn't beat random guessing—and did worse than simple heuristics.
— Werner Zagrebbi🇦🇿 (@zagrebbi) April 16, 2026
If this isn't part of your worldview, you're ngmi pic.twitter.com/KGCA7PVriO
The perfect take off for this swan pic.twitter.com/o7ua6HlJVL
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) April 17, 2026
Like I keep telling you they're actors. Nothing less, nothing more. https://t.co/SRAPltzLfi
— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) January 29, 2026
Trump is the most libertarian president we've had in decades and libertarians will never forgive him for it https://t.co/WHPme4lwhB
— Matt Forney (@mattforney) April 15, 2026
316 lb stone from Ancient Greece with the inscription: “Bybon, son of Phola, has lifted me over [his] head with one hand.”
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) April 16, 2026
The only known reference to Bybon comes from a single inscription carved into a sandstone block discovered at Olympia.
The stone features two deep grooves,… pic.twitter.com/FYCcunMmVC
UAE executed while many in the west called it impossible. The UAE had no nuclear engineers. No regulator. No nuclear history. In 2009, it decided to build four nuclear reactors anyway.
— James 🌸🏴🇦🇺 (@comical_engr) April 16, 2026
By 2024, all four were operating. Delivered on time, on budget, and cleaner than almost… pic.twitter.com/tsPgUBkdjT
After the Battle of Marathon (490 BC), Miltiades offered his helmet to Zeus. On the helmet you can read the inscription: "ΜΙΛΤΙΑΔΕΣ ΑΝΕΘΕΚΕΝ ΤΩΙ ΔΙ" which means "Miltiades dedicated this to Zeus"
— Homer Pavlos (@HomerPavlos) April 16, 2026
Miltiades’ helmet was found at Olympia, in the sanctuary of Zeus, 2.400 years later pic.twitter.com/x9FTSxIHal
Pam Luongo bought six plastic flamingos at a garage sale in March 2019. She stuck them along her front walkway in Beaufort, South Carolina, and forgot about them. By September, seventeen real flamingos were standing in her yard. Wildlife officials couldn't explain it. Caribbean… pic.twitter.com/ijmXFiERlP
— Mr PitBull Stories (@MrPitbull07) April 16, 2026
Researchers successfully cloned a single mouse and then repeatedly cloned its descendants for 58 generations over two decades, producing more than 1,200 animals from one original donor.
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 15, 2026
Yet the experiment ultimately ended in failure when the entire lineage collapsed due to… pic.twitter.com/e8WEm1Eabw
The Pope cites Lebanon as an example of peaceful “coexistence” between Christians and Muslims.
— Dr. Maalouf (@realMaalouf) April 16, 2026
Fun fact: Lebanon was literally created to be a homeland for persecuted Christians in the Middle East. And it was for a few decades.
The moment Muslim invaders thought they had the… pic.twitter.com/eQIRwTXU3g
Had a fun day today.
— MeanHash ₿ ✪ (@MeanHash) April 15, 2026
2 weeks ago an Indian (US Citizen) IT employee called ICE on his own department because he heard that many of them were here on fake H1-B Visas. 25 employees were arrested out of 100ish.
He was correct. After talking to his leadership he also informed them…
Twitter sometimes can suck. But sometimes it helps people realize things like their grandfather liberated a concentration camp and someone else pipes in that *their* grandfather was liberated from that very camp. pic.twitter.com/OvdqwrAhMW
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) April 16, 2026
I think a left-wing appeal to Catholics would work better if the left stopped attacking nunshttps://t.co/eMvrDsn6lB https://t.co/DcYC6kZDYz
— PoIiMath (@politicalmath) April 15, 2026
Source of figures is Shalev's 100 Years of Nobel Prizes, 3rd ed (Los Angeles, 2005) 57–61. Here is a rough graph of percentage of agnostics and atheists over the 20th century worldwide. https://t.co/Ml1KhcMjYi pic.twitter.com/fH0UfFUsbv
— Antigone Journal (@AntigoneJournal) April 15, 2026
apparently the territory of the roman empire didn't grow back to peak roman population until the early 19th century and didn't hit roman living standards until the mid 18th century pic.twitter.com/rjoDaylwGi
— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) April 15, 2026
“Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.”
— Hesse Philosophy (@HermannHessed) April 15, 2026
―Yasunari Kawabata pic.twitter.com/8Zo2siODbT
Umarell are men of retirement age in Italy who spend their time watching construction sites, stereotypically with hands clasped behind their back and offering unwanted advice pic.twitter.com/z1tidsrJe1
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) April 15, 2026
Shocking that as soon as USAID is gutted and eliminated the entirety of South America starts rejecting Leftism
— Pub (@PubWanghaf) April 15, 2026
Huh…
🚨 Pope Leo XIV just praised 99% Muslim Algeria’s “rich diversity” and claimed everyone gathers there in “unity and peace”.
— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) April 14, 2026
Algerian Christians who actually lived under that regime tell a very different story.
Pastor Nourredine Benzid, former General Secretary of the… https://t.co/L0JqJHXuVV pic.twitter.com/crRt0iBQjw
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
that's actually what literally happened.
— Fool (@NonyaBidne94503) April 14, 2026
the Reconquista began with the muslims bringing forth a Bishop, Don Opas, who urged Don Pelayo to make peace with the invaders, and to live in comfort.
it fell to Don Pelayo to correct the clergyman. https://t.co/ryMcEhQEEV pic.twitter.com/NW4O9vPTeA
"Women's fertility does not drop off rapidly after age 35. That's a myth caused by faulty data. The decline is earlier & more linear."
— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) April 15, 2026
It is really a scandal we don't tell women this.https://t.co/BiOXaaLsW2
This is so fascinating.
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) April 15, 2026
That tree branch pattern shows up in so many places in science and nature--blood vessels, nerve branches, river deltas, and on and on and on.
It's almost like some supreme being has certain patterns He relies upon. 😉 https://t.co/I7lKpsscJr
Student journalists and comedy writers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have gotten death threats after an April Fools’ day article and a Saturday Night Live-style video skit—both satirizing issues of race, class, and immigration status—caused a massive uproar… pic.twitter.com/rGlS2zynlH
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) April 14, 2026
IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits. It's nearly as heritable as physical traits like height. And the only other psychological traits with similar heritability levels are psychiatric conditions like autism and schizophrenia.https://t.co/zrpwtm9kwv pic.twitter.com/h2bLrtGfkT
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) April 14, 2026
Who Learns My Lesson Complete?By Walt Whitman (America, 1819-1892)Who learns my lesson complete?Boss, journeyman, apprentice, churchman and atheist,The stupid and the wise thinker, parents and offspring, merchant,clerk, porter and customer,Editor, author, artist, and schoolboy—draw nigh and commence;It is no lesson—it lets down the bars to a good lesson,And that to another, and every one to another still.The great laws take and effuse without argument,I am of the same style, for I am their friend,I love them quits and quits, I do not halt and make salaams.I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons of things,They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.I cannot say to any person what I hear—I cannot say it to myself—it is very wonderful.It is no small matter, this round and delicious globe moving soexactly in its orbit for ever and ever, without one jolt or theuntruth of a single second,I do not think it was made in six days, nor in ten thousand years,nor ten billions of years,Nor plann'd and built one thing after another as an architectplans and builds a house.I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman,Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman,Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.Is it wonderful that I should be immortal? as every one is im-mortal;I know it is wonderful, but my eyesight is equally wonderful, andhow I was conceived in my mother's womb is equallywonderful,And pass'd from a babe in the creeping trance of a couple ofsummers and winters to articulate and walk—all this isequally wonderful.And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect eachother without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps tosee each other, is every bit as wonderful.And that I can think such thoughts as these is just as wonderful,And that I can remind you, and you think them and know themto be true, is just as wonderful.And that the moon spins round the earth and on with the earth, is
equally wonderful,And that they balance themselves with the sun and stars is equallywonderful.
Just over 100 years ago, Jacques Lartigue photographed his partner ‘Bibi’ (Madeleine Messager), quietly reading in a sunlit corner at the Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc, Cap d’Antibes. She lives on reading here forever... (1920) pic.twitter.com/SNSUBlBwdj
— Journal of Art in Society (@artinsociety) April 20, 2026
1) Pod Save America gives Hasan Piker softball opportunity to say he can't actually *mean* it when he says Hamas is "1,000x better" than Israel
— Oren Kessler (@OrenKessler) April 14, 2026
2) Piker declines opportunity: "I mean it"
3) Headline of Ezra Klein's NYT op-ed, "Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy," mysteriously changes pic.twitter.com/dbdWtHzZWz
Birds can literally see the Earth’s magnetic field thanks to specialized light-sensitive proteins in their eyes.
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 14, 2026
Migratory birds possess one of nature’s most remarkable superpowers: the ability to navigate thousands of miles with incredible precision. At the center of this… pic.twitter.com/b45qR3q1zs
Buddy Hackett tells his duck joke on Johnny Carson https://t.co/8DPG8uM3JM via @YouTube
— Charles Bayless (@CharlesBayless) April 15, 2026
What’s impressive about this is that the education system didn’t just eliminate virtually all conservative thought as it moved toward left wing extremism, they got rid of almost anyone who was in the middle too. Anyone who doesn’t fully comply with the groupthink isn’t welcome. pic.twitter.com/1pvNKCGqxW
— Ian Miller (@ianmSC) April 14, 2026
A scribe hoists up a psalm verse he forgot to copy onto its right place.
— Magister Johannes Josephus (@nassaujuan) April 14, 2026
From a 14th-century English psalter-hours, Walters Art Museum. pic.twitter.com/YvQqsZTrB3
Japan spent 30 years throwing everything at economic stagnation: zero interest rates since 1999, endless stimulus packages totaling over $6 trillion, quantitative easing that ballooned their central bank balance sheet to 130% of GDP. The result? Three decades of economic… pic.twitter.com/Kf7JPqk73f
— Handre (@Handre) April 14, 2026
Gustav Klimt, Vienna Art History Museum pic.twitter.com/HVjO9kxf4e
— Impressions (@impression_ists) April 27, 2026
Peak Macron.
— Michael Lucci (@Michael7ucci) April 14, 2026
France will lead a European coalition to secure the Strait of Hormuz...after the U.S. has secured the Strait of Hormuz.
They won't invite the U.S. to the party. They will ask permission from Iran.
For now, they will hold a Zoom meeting. https://t.co/Uw65NUwQsp pic.twitter.com/V7juDTRoV2
What is less commented on is the third possibility, ideas that could have been discovered much earlier but which were not, ideas behind their time.
Hume’s is/ought distinction: the idea that you cannot derive a normative conclusion from factual premises.Hume’s problem of induction: past regularities do not rationally guarantee future regularities.Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance: the principles of justice should be derived without knowing one’s own particularities of class, race, gender and so forth. Seems obvious as an idea.The Trolley Problem: similar ideas can be found earlier but the clean distinction between killing and let die or more generally omission and commission could have come much earlier. One might also think of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in this category of ideas or constructs that cleanly isolate an otherwise present but opaque idea.The analytic/synthetic truths distinction: some things are true by definition, others are empirical. Obvious and it can be found before say Kant, yet a clear earlier statement would have resolved many issues and seems well within say Aristotle’s capability.Aumann’s Agreement Theorem, technically, this requires Bayesian machinery and is difficult to formulate with precision, so I would not say the actual theorem was behind its time. But the underlying idea—that disagreement itself, not merely the arguments offered, should cause one to question and refine one’s own beliefs—could have been developed in Athens.I’d also nominate a package of ideas like abolitionism, equal rights for women, and religious toleration–each of these is tendentious as examples yet the basic package seems fairly obvious as a category and yet late. (Perhaps if the veil of ignorance had been thought of earlier so would these ideas!)Note, that I am not arguing that abolitionism or equal rights for women could have happened much earlier only that these ideas were behind their time–the ideas were morally obvious even if not institutionally feasible.
Abolitionism as an idea dates back to at least the patristic era, if not Zoroaster. Religious toleration was not just an idea but Achaemaenid policy. Equal rights for women was largely opposed by women (it wasn't until WWII that majority of woman actively mobilizing on Woman's Suffrage were women), but it was policy among the Shakers, if not the Beguins.The distinction between killing and let die dates back to at least Hammurabi. The Talmud explicitly condemns suicide, but allows one to undertake actions that lead to someone else killing you.The veil of ignorance was proposed and rejected as incompatible with an all knowing god.Hume, likewise, hcas historical antecedents (e.g. Socrates), but runs into trouble whenever people accept personalized or personalistic god(s).And that is the big problem for a lot of this. It is not that folks didn't consider such ideas, but that their proponents were usually heretics who worried the establishment that their whole philosophical package would lead to a decay of morals, the dissolution of the people and the waning of its military power, and lead the populace to forsake the proper worship of the divine.You can find all manner of folks who took positions that spring readily from the idea that any deity is remote and not informing people how to live. But that idea package has a terrible historical record. Rising copies of Stoicist literature, for instance, is associated with some pretty nasty demographic troubles. The Minha gave rise to a bloody rationalist persecution followed by a counter purge.In a premodern world you need blindingly high birth rates, extremely high willingness to violently oppose interlopers, and a willingness to risk death for the community to stand up to the invasions on the horizon.The folks who adopted the precursors to these ideas, generally, were crushed meretriciously by those who didn't. And the folks willing to be violent enough to uphold these sorts of concepts against the hordes of true believers? Well since the French Revolution that has typically been bloodier than their contemporaneous religious counterparts.The real magic sauce here is not that these ideas might come about, it was that there existed societies confident enough and overpowering enough that they could indulge the whole project without either demanding a Socratic suicide or be overrun by some place more willing to do what was needed to sustain greater violence.The Protestant West was weird. It tolerated heretics of numerous stripes without falling into demographic death spirals, too much internal conflict, or any of the very common failure modes that saw enterprising humanistic philosophers get executed by their compatriots or those beyond the borders.I am exceedingly doubtful that any of these ideas could ever reach wide sway for centuries in other societies. The Inquisition would root such folks out and, at minimum, ostracize them. The Islamic world tried this and had one of the more famous purges in its history. Even among the Chinese, this sort of setup gave rise to incredibly harsh Legalistic practices.And as an aside it is blindingly hilarious for Alex to invoke Bayes without at least considering the option that paucity of societies that endured with some of these concepts might bespeak something about their survival utility (at least under ancient conditions).
Neat:
— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) April 4, 2026
Tattoos went from being a thing for a small percentage of men to being a thing that about half of women have done. https://t.co/IohZyU1Bdy
The 2nd-3rd century CE bronze votive hand from ancient South Arabia (modern-day Yemen), specifically representing a dedicatory offering to the deity Ta'lab Riyam. pic.twitter.com/A3JwE6iZ9U
— HerodotusWave (@HerodotusWave) April 15, 2026
This is just amazing. https://t.co/2RbLQO6KSf pic.twitter.com/vs9uTwrESp
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) April 4, 2026
Dansçıların birbirleri ile değil ritimle senkron olmaları apayrı bir seviye. Görsellik şahane. pic.twitter.com/rhrCQoeAgl
— Mesut Çevik (@mesutcevik) April 28, 2026
Defiant Trump Nails Copy Of ‘The Art Of The Deal’ To Vatican Door https://t.co/s9JCkHYO3Z pic.twitter.com/6kZpRD29B5
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 14, 2026
“A motorcyclist who traveled 15 miles every day for a year had an astonishing 1 in 860 chance of dying. A person who took a 500 mile flight every day for a year would have a fatality risk of 1 in 85,000.”https://t.co/UFq48cVqig pic.twitter.com/CmB4Ivox0k
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) April 12, 2026
