The Trump administration even scammed ICE agents The story gets better too… The sign-on bonus was immediately taxed 35%, so ICE agents never received 50K. They got around 32-33K, BUT they still have to pay back the full 50K even though they never received the full amount. 😂

David is good at coming up with these erudite epistemic gems that are more deeply insightful than they first appear.

Your rights come from being a person, not from being a citizen. To say someone else has less rights than you is to say they are less of a person than you. It is literally dehumanizing.

My whole TL today.

Anyone see the Spaceballs 2 promo that the US Government is promoting? I’m telling you; that @MelBrooks is well connected & knows his marketing! 😉😝🤣

I listened to this today. I recommend you listen to it also. This is an extraordinary interview between two extraordinary men. I especially recommend other oncologists listen to it. Hear how new targeted therapies are buying from a patient perspective. It’s okay if you cry.

Nobody built the Mediterranean economy. It just happened. Around 1000 BCE, Phoenician merchants from cities like Tyre and Sidon started planting small trading posts along coastlines: Cyprus, Sardinia, Carthage, southern Spain. No emperor issued a decree. No central committee drew up a plan. Individual traders looked at a map, spotted a gap, and put an ancient version of a warehouse there because it made them money. This is spontaneous order in action. Complex, functional systems emerge from millions of individual decisions rather than top-down commands. Your local farmers market works the same way, except the Phoenicians were doing it across 2,500 miles of open water. Each post solved a local problem. Tin from Britain needed to reach bronze-smiths in Egypt. Purple dye from Murex snails needed buyers who could afford it. The trading posts became nodes in a price-discovery network, transmitting information about where things were scarce and where they were abundant. Prices did what no bureaucrat can manage: they coordinated strangers who never met. The Phoenicians had no navy protecting their trade routes, no tariff regime, no World Trade Organization. They had reputation. Merchants who cheated got blacklisted across ports from Carthage to Cadiz. Contract enforcement came from the community itself, not a court. Free market thinkers call this polycentric law: rules maintained by competing private interests rather than a monopoly state. You want to understand why the ancient Mediterranean grew wealthy? Forget the empires. It was merchants in small boats, calculating risk and reward at every harbor, building something extraordinary without once attending a planning meeting.

250 years ago today, the members of the Second Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. Congress approved the Declaration on July 4th, 1776. But the fancy parchment that is now on display in the rotunda of the National Archives was not ready until August 2nd. Although we consider the signing a watershed in human history, we know very little about it. The account in the minutes is brief, anti-climactic even: “The declaration of independence being engrossed and compared at the table was signed.” That’s all she wrote. All the delegates who were present that day—forty-nine of them—inked their autographs. The remaining seven signers added their names when they could. The last is generally thought to be Delaware’s Thomas McKean, who may have signed as late as 1781. Numerous stories have grown up around the signing—almost all of them apocryphal. Most first appear in the 1840s, during one of those periodic moments in American history, like the Bicentennial, when there was a blossoming of popular interest in the Founding. Still, the anecdotes are too good—and too famous—to ignore. So here are some: The president of Congress, John Hancock, was first to sign. When asked why his, well, his John Hancock was so big, he replied, “So King George can read it without his spectacles.” When it was Charles Carroll’s turn to sign, someone pointed out that he was fortunate to possess a common name. The British wouldn’t know which Charles Carroll to arrest. He added “of Carrollton” to his autograph so there wouldn’t be any uncertainty. Benjamin Franklin urged unity. “We must all hang together,” he said, “or we most assuredly will hang separately.” The Franklin story, with its talk of hanging, may have been inspired by the one account we have from someone who was actually there: Benjamin Rush. In 1811, he wrote to John Adams: “Dear old friend “The 4th of July has been celebrated in Philada: in the manner I expected. The military men, and particularly one of them, ran away with all the glory of the day. Scarcely a word was said of the solicitude and labors, and fears, and sorrows and sleepless nights of the men who projected, proposed, defended, and Subscribed the declaration of independance. Do you recollect your memorable speech upon the Day on which the Vote was taken? Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress, to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants? The Silence & the gloom of the morning were interrupted I well recollect only for a moment by Col: [Benjamin] Harrison of Virginia who said to Mr [Elbridge] Gerry at the table, ‘I shall have a great advantage over you Mr: Gerry when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.’ This Speech procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the Solemnity with which the whole business was conducted.” There’s just one problem with the story. Elbridge Gerry was in Massachusetts on August 2nd, 1776. And by the time he returned to Philadelphia in September and signed the Declaration, Harrison was no longer there. Perhaps Rush mixed up Gerry with some other slenderly-built colleague. In my humble opinion, the Declaration of Independence, with its clarion call, “All men are created equal,” its conception of individual rights, and its subversive notion that governments exist to serve the people, instead of the other way ‘round, was groundbreaking in an era when most nations were ruled by absolute monarchies. The freedoms it proclaimed unleashed the energies of millions of people to create, achieve, and build lives for themselves and their families, to rise or fall according to their individual vision and effort, and not the dictates of a ruler. The Declaration changed the world more than any document other than the Bible, the Quran, and the Sayings of Confucius. Today, it is fashionable in some circles to disparage the Declaration because the men who signed it did not always live up to what they signed. Many of them owned slaves. The governments they built limited the vote to white, male, property owners, at least at first. And yet, it is impossible to criticize the Founders on these points without relying on the precept that they taught us: that all men are created equal. They may have been fallible products of their time. But their principles laid the foundation for two and a half centuries of expanding freedom. It is no accident that throughout American history, every significant movement to stand up for the rights of marginalized human beings appealed to the Declaration of Independence. In 1848, 300 activists gathered in Seneca Falls, NY for the first women’s rights conference in America. On the second day of the conference, 68 women and 32 men signed a Declaration of Sentiments, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others, and modeled after the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” As with Jefferson’s Declaration, there followed a list of grievances, first and foremost that women were denied the vote. In 1852, anti-slavery crusader and former slave Frederick Douglass (who was at Seneca Falls BTW) delivered an Independence Day oration in Rochester, NY, titled “What, to slave, is your 4th of July?” “Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us?” he asked. “And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us? “Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions!” Douglass didn’t dispute the principles of the Declaration of Independence. On the contrary he called them “great” and “blessings.” But he demanded that they apply to everybody. There is a great deal of controversy over whether the Civil War was fought to preserve the Union or to liberate the slaves. I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole here. But I am going to remind you that when Abraham Lincoln got up on the field of Gettysburg and told us what he thought America was fighting for, he quoted the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.” Almost exactly a century later, at the Lincoln Memorial, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech epitomized the Civil Rights Movement. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,” he intoned, “they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. “But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt…. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Like Douglass, King was inspired by the inheritance of the Declaration of Independence—so much so that he insisted black people receive their share of that inheritance. The United States has come a long way in extending the promise of the Declaration of Independence to all people within her borders. And she’s not done yet. Justice Neil Gorsuch addressed that recently while plugging his own contribution to the Big 2-5-0, a children’s book called Heroes of 1776: The Declaration of Independence, co-written with Julie Nitze. Rather than “Quarter Millennial,” Gorsuch prefers the term “Semiquincentennial.” In an interview, he pointed out what that means: “halfway to 500.” America has come a long way on her journey. And still has a long way to go. And that’s okay. This is my last Quarter Millennial Moment. Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your support and for sharing them with me. If you’ve enjoyed these posts, and wish to be kept up to date on my future projects, please follow me at my personal page: nitter.net/MadMikeIsenberg I’d like to leave you with a few words about the high price the Founders paid to lay the foundation of our freedom and what they asked for in return. Two of our Founders, in particular. No American did more to get the Declaration of Independence through Congress than John Adams. We’ve seen over the course of these moments the burdens he and his wife Abigail suffered in that cause. Separated from each other, he in Philadelphia, homesick, lonely, and overworked, fighting an uphill battle against Congressional stonewalling and personal scandal, she in Braintree running the family farm and raising four small children on her own, beset by shortages and skyrocketing prices for the necessities of life, in constant fear of disease and Redcoat attack. On April 18th, 1776, as the Independence bandwagon finally started to gather momentum, John wrote a letter to his son John Quincy. This was unusual; typically, he wrote to Abigail, and she shared his letters with the little ones. Although the letter bore John Quincy’s name, it was really addressed to all his children. Arguably, it was addressed to all of us as well: “I hope you and your Sister and Brothers will take proper Notice of these great Events, and remember under whose wise and kind Providence they are all conducted. Not a Sparrow falls, nor a Hair is lost, but by the Direction of infinite Wisdom. Much less are Cities conquered and evacuated. I hope that you will all remember, how many Losses, Dangers, and Inconveniences, have been borne by your Parents, and the Inhabitants of Boston in general for the Sake of preserving Freedom for you, and yours.” Adams asked his descendants for one thing only in payment for the burdens he and Abigail bore: “I hope you will all follow the virtuous Example if, in any future Time, your Countrys Liberties should be in Danger, and suffer every human Evil, rather than Give them up.” I'm @MadMikeIsenberg, and that's the way it was, is, and shall be. Check out Quarter Millennial Moments on Spotify open.spotify.com/show/15PzSw… Previous QMM: The Blame Game nitter.net/TheBig250/status/20827… Illustration(s): The Declaration of Independence (Author photo) Source(s): John Adams, “Letter to John Quincy Adams,” National Archives, April 18, 1776, founders.archives.gov/docume…. J.L. Bell, “The Declaration of Independence: Did John Hancock Really Say That about his Signature?—and Other Signing Stories,” Journal of the American Revolution, June 2, 2019, allthingsliberty.com/2019/07…. “Declaration of Sentiments,” Wikipedia, updated May 5,2026, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declar…. Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, New York, Miller, Orton and Mulligan (1855), p. 441, archive.org/details/MyBondag…. Journals of the Continental Congress (1774-1789), Washington: Government Printing Office, vol. V (1906), p. 626, archive.org/details/journals…. “Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech in its entirety,” NPR, January 16, 2023, npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268…. Benjamin Rush, “Letter to John Adams,” National Archives, July 20, 1811, founders.archives.gov/docume…. #AmericanRevolution #Patriotic #DeclarationOfIndependence #JohnAdams #JohnHancock #CharlesCarrollOfCarrollton #BenjaminFranklin #ElbridgeGerry #BenjaminRush #FrederickDouglass #ElizabethCadyStanton #MartinLutherKingJr #SenecaFallsConference #Abolition #CivilRights #JohnQuincyAdams #Philadelphia

The late great Ann Widdecombe defending free speech at the Oxford Union. This is worth your time.

250 years ago today, Congress debated Independence. Again. On June 7th, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia had introduced a resolution, “That these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be. Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them, and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.” Congress debated the Lee Resolution on June 8th and 10th but found itself at an impasse. Seven colonies—a majority—supported Independence: all of New England and all of the South except South Carolina. The five middle colonies—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland—were either opposed or undecided. The delegates believed that the vote had to be unanimous. If not, any colony opposed to independence would feel itself forced to withdraw from Congress—and possibly secede from the Union. The delegates resolved to push off a decision until the first of July in order to give the legislatures of the middle colonies a chance to weigh in. After three weeks of intense lobbying, little had changed. Although Pennsylvania’s now-defunct Assembly had, as practically its last act, withdrawn its previous instructions to its delegates to vote against Independence, thereby freeing them to vote their consciences, their consciences were split four-to-three against, with John Dickinson leading the opposition. New Jersey had replaced its entire delegation with Independence supporters, but the new representatives were nowhere in sight. The Delaware legislature came out in favor of Independence but stopped short of requiring its delegates to vote for it. Pro-Independence Caesar Rodney, in addition to being a delegate to the Continental Congress and speaker of the Delaware legislature, was a brigadier in the colony’s militia. He had been called to Sussex County to quash a Tory uprising, leaving the remaining two delegates split: Thomas McKean for, George Read against. Maryland’s Samuel Chase was hard at work in Annapolis building grassroots support for the legislature to repeal its previous guidance against Independence and instruct its representatives in Congress to support it. But although the pro-Independence delegates in Philadelphia were optimistic he would succeed, the results had not yet reached them. South Carolina was still in the nay column. And no one knew what the hell was going on with New York. In short, as Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole to take up the Lee Resolution, the vote stood at seven to three, with two abstentions and one absence. No more unanimous than it had been on June 10th. Then some good news. Just as Congress was beginning “the great Debate,” as John Adams called it (sarcastically, as we’ll see), an express arrived from Annapolis with the new, pro-Independence instructions from Maryland. Eight to two, two abstentions, one absence. Alas, that was offset by bad news from New York. Their delegates revealed to the committee that their legislature, the Provincial Congress had unanimously passed a resolution on June 11th, “That the good people of this Colony have not, in the opinion of this Congress, authorized this Congress, or the Delegates of this Colony in the Continental Congress, to declare this Colony to be and continue independent of the Crown of Great Britain.” Still eight to two, two abstentions, one absence. The committee moved on to the debate, which Adams wrote to Chase, “took up the most of the day, but it was an idle Mispence of Time for nothing was Said, but what had been repeated and hackneyed in that Room before an hundred Times for Six Months past.” In his autobiography, he filled in the details: “I expected no more would be said in public but that the question would be put and decided. Mr. Dickinson however was determined to bear his Testimony against it with more formality. He had prepared himself apparently with great Labour and ardent Zeal, and in a Speech of great Length, and all his Eloquence, he combined together all that had before been written in Pamphlets and News papers and all that had from time to time been said in Congress by himself and others. He conducted the debate, not only with great Ingenuity and Eloquence, but with equal Politeness and Candour: and was answered in the same Spirit.” To Dickinson’s thinking, there were two main arguments in favor of Independence, and he took on both in turn. First that it would inspire the people in general and the army in particular. They would fight better if they knew what they were fighting for. Dickinson thought this was unnecessary. “The preservation of Life, Liberty & Property is a sufficient Motive to animate the People.” Second, it was argued that to win the revolution, America needed military and financial aid from the kings of France and Spain, who couldn’t be expected to support rebels against a brother monarch, but might render assistance to an independent nation. Dickinson argued they would be more impressed by wins on the battlefield than words in Congress. He still hoped for reconciliation with the mother country. “Great Britain after one or more unsuccessful Campaigns,” he said, “may be induc’d to…redress all the Grivances complain’d of in our first Petition.” “No Member rose to answer him,” Adams’s account went on, “and after waiting some time, in hopes that some one less obnoxious than myself, who had been all along for a Year before, and still was represented and believed to be the Author of all the Mischief, I determined to speak.” Writing thirty years later, Adams protested that he didn’t remember the substance of his address. And, since he hadn’t planned on delivering it, he had no notes. But presumably, he rehashed many of the arguments that had been raised previously, both the two that Dickinson mentioned, and a few others beside. That by oppressing her American colonies, Great Britain had already severed her ties with them. That there was no coming back from the brutality that the Redcoats had inflicted on the colonists; the ship of reconciliation had sailed. That by taking on responsibility for their own governments, the colonists were already de facto independent; the Lee Resolution merely acknowledged what already existed. Adams’s autobiography continued, “Before the final Question was put, the new Delegates from New Jersey came in, and Mr. [Richard] Stockton, Dr. [John] Witherspoon and Mr. [Francis] Hopkinson, very respectable Characters, expressed a great desire to hear the Arguments. All was Silence: No one would speak: all Eyes were turned upon me. Mr. Edward Rutledge came to me and said laughing, Nobody will speak but you, upon this Subject. You have all the Topicks so ready, that you must satisfy the Gentlemen from New Jersey. I answered him laughing, that it had so much the Air of exhibiting like an Actor or Gladiator for the Entertainment of the Audience, that I was ashamed to repeat what I had said twenty times before, and I thought nothing new could be advanced by me. The New Jersey Gentlemen however still insisting on hearing at least a Recapitulation of the Arguments and no other Gentleman being willing to speak, I summed up the Reasons, Objections and Answers, in as concise a manner as I could, till at length the Jersey Gentlemen said they were fully satisfied and ready for the Question.” Nine to two, two abstentions. The vote was taken. The Lee Resolution passed the Committee of the Whole. But not unanimously. It now went to the House proper for a floor vote. South Carolina’s Edward Rutledge was one of the most hardcore opponents of Independence. During the June debate, he was in forefront of arguing the nay side, and he wrote to John Jay, “The Sensible part of the House opposed the Motion…. No Reason could be assigned for pressing into this Measure, but the Reason of every Madman a Shew of our Spirit.” Now he rose to speak. And surprised everyone. He suggested that if the delegates had the opportunity to sleep on it, perhaps unanimity might be achieved. Congress accordingly pushed off the vote one more day. Rutledge and the rest of the South Carolina delegation had some soul searching to do overnight. As did the Pennsylvanians. The Lee Resolution was going to pass. Did they want to stand in the way of it passing unanimously—thereby rending the fledgling United States asunder in the very moment of its birth? While they were no doubt having animated discussions among themselves, there was still the matter of Delaware. McKean paid for an express out of his own pocket to rush a message to Rodney imploring him to return to Philadelphia immediately. How the next day’s session played out will be the subject of tomorrow’s Quarter Millennial Moment. I'm @MadMikeIsenberg, and that's the way it was. Check out Quarter Millennial Moments on Spotify open.spotify.com/show/15PzSw… Previous QMM: Going Home to his Wife nitter.net/TheBig250/status/20719… Next QMM: Free and Independent States Illustration(s): John Dickinson (1780) and John Adams (1791), both by Charles Wilson Peale Source(s): Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Cambridge: Belknap Press, L. H. Butterfield, ed., vol. III (1962), pp. 395-7, archive.org/details/worksofj…. John Adams, “Letter to Samuel Chase,” July 1, 1776, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/docume…. American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs, Washington: M. St. Clair Clarke & Peter Force, Peter Force, ed., 4thser., vol. VI (1846), pp. 1395-6, archive.org/details/american…. Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, New York: Knickerbocker Press (1914), pp. 29-32, google.com/books/edition/Aut…. Journals of the Continental Congress (1774-1789), Washington: Government Printing Office, vol. V (1906), pp. 504-5, archive.org/details/journals…. T. H. Leighty, “The Indelible Caesar Rodney,” Journal of the American Revolution, September 30, 2024, allthingsliberty.com/2024/09…. Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, Washington: Library of Congress (1979), Paul H. Smith, ed., vol. IV (1979), p. 388 n1, archive.org/details/letterso…. J.H. Powell, “Speech of John Dickinson Opposing the Declaration of Independence, 1 July, 1776,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. LXV, pp. 458-81 (October 1941), journals.psu.edu/pmhb/articl…. Edward Rutledge, “Letter to John Jay,” National Archives, June 8, 1776, founders.archives.gov/docume…. #AmericanRevolution #Patriotic #Independence #JohnDickinson #JohnAdams #EdwardRutledge #Pennsyvlania #Maryland #NewYork #Delaware #NewJersey #SouthCarolina #Philadelphia #CaesarRodney #ThomasMcKean

Remember that immunotherapy study that showed lung cancer response rates were better earlier in the day? Remember thinking it couldn’t be true? It probably wasn’t true.

This is biblical. A woman in her eighties. Ten years into Alzheimer's. Hadn't spoken a full sentence in five years. Takes one, 5 gram dose of psilocybin. She slept 19 hours and woke up and spoke for hours about her life, recognized family and held real conversations. She regained bladder control after five years, walked on her own. and dressed herself. Gains held for weeks.

Mundia & Modia: The two worlds in which we live We humans live in two worlds. One world, I call Mundia (derived from Latin "mundus", related to English "mundane"), is the world of immutable laws, e.g. gravity, electromagnetism, and supply and demand - it is the world that we see when we look out at the natural landscape. The other world, I call Modia (derived from Latin "modus", related to French "mode"), is the world of social relationships, e.g. love, hate, admiration, envy, loyalty, and gratitude - it is the world that we see when we look out at the social landscape. I believe that, while all of us live in both worlds, most of us live in one world much more than the other: we are Mundians or Modians, not both. Mundians look out at the world and see the natural landscape; Modians, the social landscape. This fact explains a lot of phenomena that have puzzled me for a long time. At the most basic level it explains this: when faced with a problem, what is the heuristic that we use for solving it? Mundians use a naturalistic model, while Modians use a sociological model. The nature of these two models is very different, often leading to very different conclusions. Mundia: The world is made of immutable laws. We can successfully manipulate the world by learning them. Over the course of our lifetime, we can gradually build up our knowledge of the world - our knowledge never goes out of date. We might get something wrong, and have to update our understanding of things, given new information, but the underlying world that our knowledge describes is fundamentally unchangeable; there is no such thing as old-fashioned knowledge. Moreover, the same is true for society as a whole: over thousands of years, we have gradually built up a knowledge of the world's immutable laws, and the best way for an individual to become knowledgeable is to learn this collective wisdom. If something is unknown, or if there is some disagreement about the way things are, the way to resolve it is to understand things better; whether by experimentation or by reason. The facts speak for themselves. Modia: The world is made of relationships between people. We can successfully manipulate the world by figuring out who is powerful, or by becoming powerful ourselves. We must learn to be responsive to people in the right way, or to act in a way which will elicit the response we want. How we look, dress, how we express ourselves, and even the opinions that we hold, are all factors in achieving success. Since power relationships are always changing, this world, unlike Mundia, is continually shifting, and knowledge about the world quickly goes out of date. Intelligent Modians use their wits to develop an acute sensitivity to the zeitgeist. They must know whether to support the powerful, in the hopes of being raised by association, or perhaps rebel in the hopes of joining (or starting) a new power center. They must know who, and what, is in or out, since a faux pas can lead to immediate loss of status. Finally, for the most part, the world of Modia, unlike Mundia, is a zero-sum-game: one person's gain is another's loss. Status relationships can never be win-win. Now, you might think that Mundia and Modia are non-overlapping magisteria. If only they were! I will give you an example of how they are not: the anthropogenic global warming debate. I am not, personally, knowledgeable enough about this issue to have an informed opinion about it. Most likely, neither are you. But, there is a good chance that you have an opinion, informed or not, and might even believe it very strongly! So how did you form your opinion? The answer most likely depends on whether you are Mundian or Modian. A Modian might say: "Obviously, there is anthropogenic global warming, all the right people believe it! There is consensus among the experts!" A Mundian might say, "Even though there is a consensus among experts on this issue, there are some experts who disagree. How do we know they are not right? Minority views have often overturned the scientific consensus. Since I can't distinguish between the two opinions through my own understanding, the jury is still out." Note that I'm not saying anything about the truth value of anthropogenic global warming! Only about the heuristic that we use to make decisions when we are not well-informed. You might also notice that being pro-AGW is generally associated with the political left, while being anti-AGW is associated with the right. I don't much like the terms "left" and "right" as political descriptions ("liberal" and "conservative" are even worse) because to most people they imply ideology. I don't think that ideology is consistent over time. When I look at the ideology of the left or right a hundred years ago, and look at it now, I don't see much continuity. Issues that the left or right supported a hundred years ago seem to have no relationship to issues that they support today. When I look at policy I see even less continuity. The continuity that I do see is the difference between Mundia and Modia. Why is it that Hollywood tends to be leftist, while farmers tend to be on the right? It is because success in Hollywood depends on successfully manipulating people, while farmers must manipulate nature. You can make a list of professions, and easily see that the more Modian they are, the more left-leaning they tend to be, and the more Mundian they are, the more right-leaning. Thus people who work in the media tend to be on the left, and engineers tend to be on the right. Business people tend to be on the right, because they are judged by objective standards of profit and loss. But those business people whose success depends on understanding fashion tend more to the left. Wherever you see objective standards, you see Mundians; wherever the the standards are subjective, Modians. All human institutions tend to become Modian over time, for the simple reason that they are made up of people. The more subjective the criteria for success, the more Modian the organization will become. Those institutions that have little or no exogenous criteria for success, like government, academia, or the non-profit sector, will inevitably come to be dominated by Modians, whatever their explicit goals may be. Businesses, which must make a profit to survive, are not immune to this tendency. Though they have exogenous criteria for success, it is not easy to propagate the objective criteria for success down through the ranks - at each level of decision making there will be some degree of subjectivity, and by the time we reach the bottom rank, decisions might be completely Modian. But in the business world, there is some good news for Mundians: those businesses that become too Modian will fail. Mundia and Modia explain why people tend to move rightwards as they age. We are all born Modians, knowing nothing about the world, but trusting our parents to inform us. Later, we learn from our teachers, and our peers. It is usually perfectly clear to us who has the right opinions in our society, and we accept their opinions as fact. But as we move away from the orbit of our parents, an interesting thing happens. We become acutely aware of the social hierarchy of our peers. It often becomes clear that the high-status opinions in this society are different, often diametrically opposed, to those of our parents. Which do we choose? Most of us still don't have a well-formed inner model of the world from which to make a Mundian decision, but most of us value highly our status among our peers, so it's an easy choice: we abandon the opinions of our parents, and embrace those of our peers. As we age, we gradually learn more about Mundia. Its immutable nature means that our knowledge about it is cumulative. Occasionally, we learn things that seem to contradict what we thought we knew, and we have to reconsider our ideas, but the direction is always forward. Nothing of the sort happens in Modia, at least at the level of society as a whole. Opinion-makers are always changing. Intellectual fashions go in and out of style. To a Modian, it seems natural to keep up with the latest fashion, and they are instinctively swept along. But a Mundian soon becomes disillusioned; the world is supposed to be immutable! When our personal experiences of the world contradict its social messages, Mundians rebel. And so, they gradually move to the right. You might have detected above my own personal bias. I am, I admit, a Mundian. But I do not believe that Mundians are always right, nor is Modia unimportant. In fact, Modia is probably more important than Mundia, even to Mundians! Mundians crave interpersonal success and status no less than Modians, and usually more than they crave success in farming, or building bridges that won't fall down. A typical Mundian mistake is to assume that success in Mundia will naturally lead to success in Modia. It might, but it might not. A successful movie star will always be more popular than a successful businessman. Knowledge of Modia is also important for success in Mundia. A good manager, for example, must be able to function in Modia. On the macro level, marketing is part of life, for better or for worse, and it's an important skill. In the arts, why not? Viva la Modia! Why not enjoy it? The problem comes when you use Modian skills to solve a Mundian problem, or vice versa. Everybody knows that Modian skills won't keep your bridges from falling down, but we still choose bridge-builders partly, at least, for Modian reasons. Everybody knows that truth isn't a popularity contest, but we still tend to view a recent scientific consensus as truth, and call dissenters unscientific. Conversely, Mundia won't help you get along with your spouse, your co-workers, or make you popular. In then end, we humans live in two worlds: Mundia and Modia. Enjoy the difference. --- Introduction Document 1 Version 2 #MundiaModiaDrafts I welcome feedback, both on the ideas, and on the presentation of the ideas.

The body of another child was found under the debris. Russia killed two kids and 14 adults in Kyiv today. It injured 57 more. I can't find words. I am aching and sorry for everyone whose lives were ruined by Russia. RIP.

Socialism doesn't replace greed, it transfers greed from the arena of production, where it is productive, to politics, where it is destructive

Senator Warren speaks with forked tongue. She helped block a merger that would have saved thousands of jobs, & given travelers more choices at lower prices. A merger between private companies that together make up 8% of the air travel market should be none of her business.

250 years ago today, the British fleet finally sailed out of Boston Harbor, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia. As we saw previously, the Redcoats evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776—eight years after they arrived to enforce the Townsend Acts. But they didn’t actually leave. They boarded their fleet of 170 ships and sailed a short distance to Nantasket Roads in the outer harbor, where they dropped anchor. In Braintree, old Josiah Quincy posted lookouts along the shore. Early on the morning of March 25th, he reported to Gen. Washington, “The Fleet still continues in Nantasket Road; and I can’t discern any Diminution of their Numbers….The Admiral has a Signal now flying at his main top mast Head: I wish it was in my Power to construe it.” At 11 AM, the mystery was solved and Qunicy updated his report: “This Moment an Explanation of the above Signal occurrs: Part of the Fleet are come to Sail.” By one o’clock, 50 ships had weighed anchor. The sun rose on the morning of the 26th to reveal that only a hundred remained. Almost all the rest departed on the 27th, leaving only a token force. The logbook for HMS Chatham, Admiral Molyneux Shuldham’s flagship, contained the following entries for the day: at 3 PM Made the Signal & Weigh'd, made sail & hoist'd in all the Boats… at 8 Boston Light House…fird 2 Guns & made the Signal for the fleet to come under our Stern. Aboard one ship, a group of Loyalists gathered on deck to watch the only home many of them had ever known slip away beyond the horizon. They were confident they would be back to bring the treacherous Rebels to their knees. “Gentleman,” merchant George Erving told them, “not one of you will ever see that place again.” A victorious George Washington promptly sent a dispatch to Congress. “I now beg leave to inform you that I just received Intelligence, that the whole of the Ministerial Fleet besides three or four Ships, got under way this Evening at Nantasket road, and were standing out for Sea.” There was one other loose end. The plan hatched by Quincy and Col. Benjamin Tupper to hurry the fleet on its way with a fire boat attack. Washington called it off. With the departure of the Redcoats from Boston, royal authority ceased to exist in the thirteen colonies—at least for the time being. No British troops were stationed anywhere within their borders. Every royal governor had been arrested, driven offshore, or simply sidelined, with the exception of Jonathan Trumbull in Connecticut, who embraced the cause of America and worked tirelessly to provide men and equipment in her defense. But independence was far from assured. Washington had his work cut out for him, preparing for the Redcoats’ return, which he expected to be at New York City. In the same letter where he announced the sailing of the fleet, he wrote, “I shall detach a Brigade of Six Regiments immediately from hence for New York, under the command of Brigadier Genl [John] Sullivan (Brigadr Genl [William] Heath having gone with the first) which will be succeeded by an other in a day or two, & directly after I shall forward the Remainder of the Army, except four or five Regiments which will be left for taking care of the Barracks & public Stores & fortifying the Town and erecting such Works for Its defence, as the Honorable General Court may think necessary, and follow myself.” On April 3rd, Mercy Otis Warren wrote to John Adams, “The sudden departure of the plunderers of Boston and the removal of the Continental troops from Cambridge occasions a temporary calm in the eastern region;…The first scene has been opened here, but time alone must determine when the tragedy will end.” I'm @MadMikeIsenberg, and that's the way it was. Previous QMM: The Death of Samuel Ward nitter.net/TheBig250/status/20371… Next QMM: The City of our Festivals Illustration(s): Departure of the British Fleet from Boston (ChatGPT) Source(s): David McCullough, 1776, New York: Simon & Schuster (2005), pp. 107-8. Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Washington: Government Printing Office (1968), William Bell Clark, ed., vol. 4 (1969), pp. 537, books.google.co.ke/books?id=…. Josiah Quincy, “Letter to George Washington,” March 25-26, 1776, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/docume…. Mercy Otis Warren, “Letter to John Adams,” April 3, 1776, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/docume…. George Washington, “Letter to Artemas Ward,” March 24, 1776, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/docume…. George Washington, “Letter to John Hancock,” March 27, 1776, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/docume….