- Neil deGrasse Tyson on aliens, and his new book;
- Paul Krugman explains how MAGA will kill many Americans;
- Jesse Bering on karma;
- And short items about Trump’s health, aliens, the ballroom, the upcoming cage match, and “low T”.
Heralding a new book by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
NY Times, Neil deGrasse Tyson, today: Neil deGrasse Tyson: Give Us the Aliens [gift link]
Ever since childhood I’ve wanted to be abducted by aliens. Now, as a professional astrophysicist armed with the knowledge of the size, age and composition of the cosmos, I know that nothing prevents any of us from imagining a universe teeming with life.
So the impending release of U.S. government files on aliens and U.F.O.s is a good thing, even if it feels like a distraction from other important files we’ve all been waiting to be disclosed. I expect the alien files will be anticlimactic. After a parade of alien insiders and whistle-blowers testified under oath to Congress in 2023, 2024 and 2025, what’s left to learn?
Personally, I’d be delighted if the files were accompanied by an actual alien. Alive or dead or undead. Preferably alive. Is that too much to ask for?
Tyson can be sarcastic, and mocking, but there’s a serious undercurrent to his thinking. (He reminds me of Penn Jillette that way.) He finishes:
If we look more deeply into our own alien stories, there’s a persistent plotline that aliens are evil and want to kill us all. I suspect those fears are based not on what we believe about aliens but on what we know about humans.
In the history of our species, there’s no shortage of technologically advanced cultures that commit rampant violence against less-advanced ones. Within what we call civilization, humans oppress — or kill — one another over which creator of the universe they worship, or who they sleep with, or what side of an arbitrary line on Earth’s land masses they’re born, or how absorptive their skin is to sunlight, or what set of sounds comes out of their mouths.
Upon bearing witness to our irrational ways, any visiting alien that might have accompanied the release of the alien files surely long ago escaped back home to report, “There’s no sign of intelligent life on Earth!”
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The current administration keeps changing policy to favor business, at the expense of health.
Paul Krugman, today: MAGA Will Kill Many Americans, subtitled “Greed, willful ignorance and mortality”
Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration broke with previous policy and approved the sale of blueberry and mango-flavored vapes, dismissing long-standing concerns that making sweet-flavored vapes available will lead to increased smoking, especially among young people. A White House spokesman claimed that this policy U-turn reflected “Gold Standard Science,” but the decision came after Donald Trump — who suddenly became pro-vaping in 2024 after meeting with a “leading vaping lobbyist” — personally put pressure on the FDA commissioner. Trump is reportedly hoping that support for vaping will win back support from young men.
This happens over and over again.
And then the report about how “the Trump FDA has been suppressing research that refutes disinformation from anti-vaccine activists.”
Does MAGA want to see thousands of Americans die prematurely from smoking and refusal to get vaccinated? Yes.
Then stepping out to the relatively big picture.
Let’s back up for a minute. Most Americans appear to be unaware of the fact that life expectancy in the United States is substantially lower than in other advanced countries; we’re on a par with poorer nations in Europe like Albania. Surely even fewer people know that this wasn’t always true. In the early 1980s Americans lived about as long as citizens of other rich nations. Now we die substantially earlier:
What changed in the 1980s? The obvious answer is politics: The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 heralded a sharp U.S. turn to the right. And there is a strong correlation between right-wing politics and increased mortality — stronger than many of the statistical associations that guide public health policy.
“And there is a strong correlation between right-wing politics and increased mortality.” Well, I would say, in part because conservatives don’t “believe” in science, like vaccines.
More discussion and charts follow.
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Briefly noted.
- Bering in Mind, Jesse Bering, 1 May 2026: Karma’s Not a Bitch. She’s Not Even Real., subtitled “But people’s belief in karma has real effects on prosocial–and antisocial–attitudes and behaviors.”
- Of course karma isn’t real, any more than “everything happens for a reason” is true.
- Bering is the guy who wrote THE BELIEF INSTINCT, one of my foundational books, reviewed here.
- JMG, from Associated Press, today: Kennedy: Trump Could “Breeze” Through 50-Mile Hike
- Nonsense. Just look at him. Shameless blowhards.
- JMG, from Christian Post, today: Televangelist Claims That Trump Officials Have Briefed Pastors On Upcoming Revelation About Aliens Existing
- Nonsense. Why would they brief churches first? Because they’re the most gullible?
- Heather Cox Richardson, today: May 5, 2026
- A summary of how Trump keeps changing his story about his ballroom. At one time, donors would pay for it; now Republicans are authorizing $1 billion of taxpayer money to pay for it.
- JMG, today: Trump Boasts About “Violent” UFC Cage Match At WH
- He’s bragging about how it’s going to be violent! MAGA! These are people who want to live by the law of the jungle. Might makes right.
- This event might embarrass and humiliate the US before the world like nothing else before. Americans, it will be seen, are barbarians. Rude, wild, uncivilized.
- JMG, today: Gorka: Opponents Of Iran War Suffer From “Low T”
- Again, for the Republicans and conservatives in power, it’s all about swagger, not principles of conscience. Tribal, primitive thinking. And America was once thought to be a beacon of a better world of principles.
But perhaps the race will never overcome this.
