The Biggest Inflection Points

Posted on Tuesday 20 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Big picture: What we know about how life arose: a good summary by NYT’s science writers;
  • Relatively trivial items: Vance lies about gas prices; men in groups; Edsall on Trump’s real agenda; Krugman on how Trump actually hates America and what it stands for; Reich criticizing the NYT for its false equivalencies; and Heather Cox Richardson on charges from a decade ago that Trump is Putin’s puppet.
  • Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.
– – –

Decent summary. Not sure of the occasion.

NY Times, William J. Broad, Kenneth Chang and Carl Zimmer, yesterday 19 Oct: How Did Life Arise? [gift link]

Subtitled: “Where did it start? How did it grow complex? Why did it get big? Three moments in Earth’s early history when evolution suddenly, inexplicably turned up the dial.”

Apparently this is part of a NYT series called “Unknowns” — “A special project exploring unanswered scientific questions — the big mysteries about ourselves, our origins, our world and our universe.” — that also included that item about whether babies are conscious a couple weeks ago.

I’ll quote the intro:
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Speculations on a New World Order

Posted on Monday 19 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Speculation on a new world order;
  • Tom Nichols on how Trump has abandoned the Western order;
  • Reconsidering what business schools promote;
  • Fareed Zakaria’s essay;
  • How Fox News peddles “fear porn”;
  • How the Trump administration is discouraging even legal immigration.
– – –

What might this new order be?

NY Times, opinion by Serge Schmemann, yesterday 18 Oct 2026: The Old World Order Is Over. This Is What Could Come Next.

Opening:

By now it is clear to most of America and much of the world that America and what it stands for have changed. The dominant face of that change is President Trump and his determined and deliberate efforts to accumulate greater powers than the Constitution apportioned to the president, to create a cult of personality based on grievance and vengeance and to challenge every aspect of the postwar global order, demeaning allies and courting autocrats.

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Placeholder

Posted on Sunday 18 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

This post from Oct 18 was a placeholder containing content originally compiled from Oct 4 to Oct 6. To represent them fairly, I’ve created separate posts for those three days, and set the publish dates accordingly.

 

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If Humanity Doesn’t Have a Grasp on Reality, Does It Matter?

Posted on Saturday 17 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Wondering if it matters that humanity doesn’t have a grasp on reality, via recent politics about James Talarico.
  • And today: posted page Notes on Meaning, (and Wisdom and Purpose and Progress), part of my grand plan to identify broad philosophical themes and how they relate to science fiction;
– – –

A thought piece for today.

Slate, Molly Olmstead, 16 Oct 2026: A Hoax About James Talarico Went Viral and Then Fell Apart. What Happens Next Will Tell Us a Lot About Politics in 2026., subtitled “Texas just set up a natural experiment on the power of conspiracy theories—and whether it matters if they’re debunked.”

Title on homepage: “Texas Just Accidentally Set Up a Great Experiment About Whether Facts Matter at All in 2026”

If humans cannot engage in reality, what hope is there for our race?

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Posted in Human Nature, Philosophy, Politics | Comments Off on If Humanity Doesn’t Have a Grasp on Reality, Does It Matter?

Along the Spectra

Posted on Friday 16 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • In the context of the Tom Cruise film Digger, thoughts about the difficulties of thinking about climate change;
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson wonders if humans are intelligent enough to understand everything;
  • Fareed Zakaria on why Marco Rubio thinks the West is great because of pre-Enlightenment values;
  • A similar piece by Ishaan Tharoor;
  • And how a Kansas GOP candidate seems to literally believe in witches;
  • The running theme: the limitations of human cognition, perhaps one spectrum among several others.

Site is back up after a couple weeks repairs from hacker attacks. Here are some items from today and yesterday. Over the next few days I’ll post items I’ve collected over the past two weeks.

\\\

From a review of Digger, the Tom Cruise climate change movie that I haven’t seen, some perspective on how difficult it is for many people to grasp the scope of the problem. This goes to themes I’ve been calling scale-blindness, and the difficulty of long-term thinking.

NY Times, opinion by Jayson Greene, 14 Oct 2026 (but in today’s print paper): Tom Cruise’s Big Flop Is a Secret Masterpiece

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Posted in conservatives, Human Nature, Human Progress | Comments Off on Along the Spectra

Something New and More Modern

Posted on Thursday 15 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Key points of a Democratic Project 2029;
  • Brief items: Kimberly Guilfoyle is out because she embarrassed Trump; Trump claims he doesn’t call people names (followed by a long list of names he’s called people); Trump keeps claiming that schools kidnap kids and force them to transition; Florida’s new science standards downplay evolution and climate change (of course).
– – –

The Democrats have a Project 2029.

Vox, Zack Beauchamp, today 15 Oct: The radical Democratic plan to change the government for good, subtitled “The party is finally mounting an aggressive response to Trump’s slash-and-burn second term. Could their ideas for a rebooted, reimagined Washington actually work?”

Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Politics | Comments Off on Something New and More Modern

Lying About the Economy, and Everything Else

Posted on Wednesday 14 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The GOP has never been the better party on the economy, and Trump lies about everything else, too;
  • Paul Krugman fears what Trump and MAGA will do if they lose in the upcoming elections;
  • A church wants to instruct the government on hate speech;
  • And a MAGA pastor wants to execute Mike Huckabee.

(Posted 19 Oct from items collected 14 Oct)

– – –

“Because he’s a businessman” isn’t the argument they think it is.

Salon, Kirk Swearingen, today 14 Oct: The biggest GOP lie isn’t about elections — it’s the economy, subtitled “For 50 years, the GOP has told Americans they are better on the economy. That was never true”

As Krugman and Brin and many others have been pointing out for years. His followers seem not to have noticed this, either:

Donald Trump lies. Telling untruths is not merely second nature to him; it is of the first order, automatic. He lies as naturally as he breathes.

From his claim to being a great businessman and dealmaker to calling himself not the worst president in U.S. history — which he is, by far — but the best, Trump has spewed a firehose of falsehoods to the public. But he has never reserved his lying only for his political opponents.

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Posted in conservatives, Economics, Religion | Comments Off on Lying About the Economy, and Everything Else

Actions vs. Beliefs

Posted on Tuesday 13 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Do your beliefs or your actions define your religion?
  • Hemant Mehta on plans for the live-streamed execution;
  • Two takes on Marco Rubio’s speech in Greece appealing to pre-Enlightenment, pre-Scientific Revolution ideas about humanity and society;
  • Comments from Allen Clifton about what Republicans say they are about versus what they do.

(Posted 19 Oct, from items collected 13 Oct)

– – –

Several items that seem to align today.

I know that the various religions disagree on this point — some say only belief (faith) matters, others that actions count as much or more — but the take here is on how this philosopher would *define* religions. (Also, I just noticed that this regular contributor to Big Think has his own substack.)

Big Think, Jonny Thomson, 12 Oct 2026: You’re a Christian and a Buddhist (whether you like it or not), subtitled “Is religion defined more by beliefs or practices?”
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When the Barbarians Are In Charge

Posted on Monday 12 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A Republican *had* to use fake footage [i.e. lie] in an ad in order to attract voters;
  • Whatever the meaning of life, people are more desperate to find it as they near death;
  • Fill the government with barbarians, and you get a government that would conduct executions in public;
  • How progress in science is often made when you don’t know what you’re looking for.

(Belatedly posted 19 Oct, items collected 12 Oct)

– – –

LGBTQNation, Alex Bollinger, today 12Oct: “AI slop”: GOP ad uses fake footage of opponent saying he supports men beating girls in sports, subtitled “The Republican behind the wildly transphobic ad said he had to do it to get Latino voters.”

He *had to do it* — use fake footage — in order to attract voters. Because his moral priorities apparently transcend mere lying.

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Posted in Conservative Resistance, Meaning, Science, Tribalism | Comments Off on When the Barbarians Are In Charge

Clapping for Stupid Things

Posted on Sunday 11 October 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Items about censorship in Texas, Trump saying stupid things, David Brooks on the soul, and how “polarization” is about sexists and racists on one side and those are aren’t on the other. (Belatedly posted 19 Oct 2026, items collected on 11 Oct.)

The Atlantic, Adam Serwer, today 11 Oct: All the Things You’re Not Allowed to Say In Texas, subtitled “The state now controls what professors can teach.”

Because AIs now evaluate what professors plan to say.

It flags anything that might violate new rules laid out by the university chancellor, including a prohibition on the “advocacy/promotion of race or sex-based prejudice,” and a requirement—now Texas state law—that “only two sexes, male and female, are recognized.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Human Nature, Philosophy | Comments Off on Clapping for Stupid Things