Gongol.com Archives: January 2026
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January 1, 2026
Planet Fitness admitted no subtleties in its sponsorship of the New Year's Eve programming on ABC: Banners on stage, a sponsored countdown bug on-screen, and very large branded hats all on full display. The company is very proud of their evil-genius move: Joining a gym features prominently in many New Year's resolutions. ■ Motivation to follow through on big resolutions has a pretty severe rate of decay: Gyms that get crowded in January and February rarely stay crowded into March. It's not just a problem for physical fitness, since any personal change depends upon mental and motivational frameworks. ■ Our culture tends to celebrate flashy, landmark events. But people grow through the consistent application of sustained effort. Calvin Coolidge put it like this in his autobiography: "If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress. If we keep our faith in ourselves, and what is even more important, keep our faith in regular and persistent application to hard work, we need not worry about the outcome." ■ There's not much of a marketing budget for "Keep doing the little things; consistency is what leads to success". Planet Fitness needs you to prepay for a membership plan, but it's far more important to commit to a small and sustainable habit, like taking a nightly walk around the block. Pop culture and advertising culture will always have motivated proponents ready to promote their values, but a good society needs lots of people willing to advance quieter values like patience and steadiness.
January 3, 2026
On December 8th, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt went before Congress to personally deliver an appeal: "I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire." Though the power to declare war is lodged strictly in the hands of Congress, it hasn't been exercised since 1942. ■ An appalling number of evils exist in the world, and many are committed by the governments of sovereign countries. Our instincts may naturally suggest that, since we have the world's most fearsome military force, we ought to use it to correct those wrongs. In some cases, we should. ■ We should bear in mind, though, that the cause must be just, the process must be right, and the conditions for success must be favorable. Moreover, we must always be prepared to answer the question, "And then what? What happens next?" ■ Following the thoroughly righteous victory of Allied forces over the Axis powers of World War II, the United States undertook the spectacularly ambitious (and expensive) Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and imposed a similarly long and complex occupation and reconstruction of Japan. Both efforts lasted longer than the war itself. ■ A just cause, a correct (and open-eyed) process, and a strong chance of victory are necessary conditions, but they are not sufficient, since the cleanup always takes longer than the fight. There is no substitute for a careful and complete answer to "Then what happens next?".
January 4, 2026
Steering around bad influences
Among the ways in which human intelligence is certain to remain distinct from any kind of artificial intelligence is the fact that we are corporeal creatures -- we exist in the physical world, have thoughts and feelings that are inseparable from physical phenomena, and experience a variety of sensations at all times that have inescapable effects on our minds. Consider how people respond to extreme sensory deprivation like the "the world's quietest room", or ponder the legacy of Helen Keller. ■ There's been a massive shift, though, as people have begun devoting hours a day to social media, which may still consist of auditory and visual inputs, but is hardly the same sensory experience as, say, taking a walk in the woods. And in the woods, there's nobody with a monetary incentive to get you riled up the way that very same incentive exists online. ■ In 1937, the political activist Marcus Garvey lectured his followers: "Never keep the constant company of anybody who doesn't know as much as you [...] especially, if that person is illiterate or ignorant because constant association with such a person will unconsciously cause you to drift into the peculiar culture or ignorance of that person." ■ Circumstances may change, but human nature really doesn't. It was perilous in 1937 to "keep constant company" with people who were unashamed of their own ignorance, it was perilous to do so in 1237 (or 37 BC), and it's still perilous today. What has changed is that the temptation to deprive ourselves of a rich experience of the world is probably greater than ever, thanks to the addictive characteristics of social media, and some of the most ignorant (or, perhaps worse, the most malevolent) people around are extremely talented at drawing attention to themselves. ■ Add in the effects of rage-baiting and the rampant amplification of outrageous messages by those trying to signal their own moral outrage, and it becomes clear that bad impulses are in many ways overtaking the usefulness of content moderation (or what was once known as "editorial judgment"). The platforms seem entirely disincentivized to fix the problem, but human nature tells us it's just as important to recognize and break the bad patterns of behavior as it ever was.
January 7, 2026
Three predictions that seem overwhelmingly likely to come about in 2026, given circumstances already widely known: ■ 1. Revived inflationary pressure. When Jerome Powell's second term as chair of the Federal Reserve concludes on May 23, the President has already made it clear that he will nominate a successor who favors lower interest rates. The Senate, which must confirm the nominee, is very likely to approve whomever is named. At this time, a cut in interest rates is very likely to have inflationary consequences. The Federal Reserve chair doesn't act alone, which is an important check on the system. But the intent to push for lower interest rates is clearly there. ■ 2. Discounts for online higher education. The United States began a very noticeable dip in births -- a "baby bust" -- around the 2008 financial panic. We are now 18 years past that baby bust, which means that the available population of conventional first-year students at colleges and universities is about to dip. Higher education was forced to broadly adopt online teaching methods due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the technology for online delivery has had half a decade to mature since then. Many colleges trying to make up for the demographic pain of the baby bust are likely to turn to recruiting non-traditional populations to enroll online; many of them haven't really tried in earnest up until now. Any large increase in supply at a time when demand remains flat will tend to press prices downward. ■ 3. Prices will start to reflect new risks. Many of the prices to which we have grown accustomed are based upon a post-WWII normal, assuming mainly peaceful relations among nations, predictable security agreements, and a generally favorable outlook for trade. Whether or not the United States actually goes about menacing neighbors and near-neighbors like Canada, Mexico, and Greenland, the chances are certainly higher than they used to be, and that's going to impose both real costs and costs in the form of risk premiums. Expect many prices to rise accordingly, in some rough proportion to the amplitude of the threats.
January 8, 2026
One-paragraph book review: "Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life"
One-paragraph review: There isn't much to "Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life" that a person couldn't otherwise find by reading "The Enchiridion" by Epictetus and "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl, which is both a critique and an endorsement. The authors openly cite both the Stoic philosophers and Frankl quite frequently throughout the book. Add in a few tips on the healthy aspects of a Japanese diet and basic light exercise, and you've pretty much covered what this book will tell you. Admittedly, both Epictetus and Frankl can be heavy reading, so this is a lighter repackaging of many of the same topics, with a heavy emphasis on the authors' travelogue to Okinawa -- easy, breezy reading that can be digested in the course of a moderate-length flight or a couple of hours on the beach. What the book notably shortchanges is a thorough discussion of the "ikigai" concept itself: How to concentrate one's efforts on a meaningful motivation in life. (That, at least, is the takeaway from the popular diagram depicting the concept.) The text celebrates the "why" with lots of general tips about the virtues of finding it, but devotes very little to the "how", and the resulting gap between the promises and the reality are hard to ignore. (It also leans heavily on the unnecessary trope of "ancient wisdom from the Orient".) It's not that the book is bad; it reads easily, has some durable merit, and repeats lots of ideas worth knowing. It's just missing what many readers living in tempestuous times might be trying to find: A methodical guide to uncovering the specifics of where to concentrate their own energies in pursuit of a fulfilling lifestyle. Verdict: A pleasant light read, but only an introduction and not a substitute for deeper readings of the source texts it references.
"Regime collapse is possible but not guaranteed" in Iran
Widespread protests could prove enough to delegitimize the government there. In the words of one frustrated individual: "Enough is enough. For 50 years this regime has been ruling my country. Look at the result. We are poor, isolated and frustrated."
January 9, 2026
Putting human rights in the center of policing
Ireland's national police service, An Garda Siochana, has a history shaped in no small part by the struggle to assert independence from oppressive British colonialism. Having rejected a government that used force to abuse the people, the Irish chose to secure domestic peace and tranquility by steering away from force. It would be one thing to say the police exist to protect the public. Ireland goes much further, declaring that "Human Rights are the foundation of Policing". ■ Their published "Decision-Making Model" says in no uncertain terms, "A core focus on Rights ensures that Garda personnel function within the context of national and international principles of democracy and of minimum standards for the protection of the rights and dignity of every human being." ■ The service is overwhelmingly unarmed, again due to historical factors that made a heavily-armed domestic police force politically unpalatable. The result isn't more crime -- the country proudly touts its #2 ranking in the Global Peace Index, and its murder rate is less than 1/8th that of the United States. The Garda have the trust of 88% of the public. ■ Ireland proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is nothing incompatible about effective police work and respect for human rights. Indeed, if a person charged with enforcing the law cannot say with a straight face that "human rights are the foundation" of their work, then why ever would a self-respecting public entrust that individual with the legal authority to use force?
January 10, 2026
The Constitution lodged the duties of international diplomacy in the hands of both the legislative and executive branches. For expediency, the President is empowered to carry out relations, but for prudence, the Senate is required to give overwhelming formal consent. ■ In the words of Alexander Hamilton, "The qualities elsewhere detailed as indispensable in the management of foreign negotiations, point out the Executive as the most fit agent in those transactions; while the vast importance of the trust, and the operation of treaties as laws, plead strongly for the participation of the whole or a portion of the legislative body in the office of making them." ■ That balance of power is no less important now than it was more than 200 years ago. A peaceful world order starts at home -- with predictable, deliberative, and accountable processes. On a tactical level, unpredictability has its place: It may be useful, for instance, to disrupt the expected-value equation for terrorists by responding erratically to them on a case-by-case basis. But on the bigger strategic level, there's no substitute for principles and values that everyone can see. ■ A President who unilaterally declares a withdrawal from dozens of international organizations may be acting swiftly, but that motion is only legitimate action if the Senate deliberately consents. Legitimacy can't be manufactured, no matter how decisive anyone intends to look.
January 11, 2026
Make more "Death By Lightning"
Creator Mike Makowsky openly admits that "Death By Lightning" was a wildly improbable project. It's not in any way obvious that the story of James Garfield's election and sudden assassination would have commercial appeal today. ■ But it's a good thing something so unlikely came into reality. The four-part miniseries is probably the best original content produced for Netflix in the last half-decade: Wonderfully entertaining and quite shockingly faithful to reality. The script takes a few narrative liberties and the characters often verbalize their motivations in ways that real people rarely do, but nothing about it is gratuitous or manipulative. It's overwhelmingly faithful to the real historical record. ■ How can production companies and distribution services be encouraged to make more material like this? Aside from a few racy minutes (related to the assassin's real time in a free-love commune) and a fair number of FCC-unfriendly words, the show would be truthful enough to screen to a high-school history class, yet it's appealing enough that it briefly topped Netflix's viewership charts. ■ Any form of memory is only as good as how it is used in the present. Individual human memories fade with disuse, but so do institutional memories: We have to tell worthwhile stories over and over (and put them to use in the present) or else their lessons get lost to the mists of time. Making the important memories relevant and appealing in the present is a challenge. ■ Stories like "Death By Lightning" serve a real public interest. Viewers are drawn in because it's well-crafted and enticingly produced (Nick Offerman as a mediocre Vice President discovering his better inner character, for instance, is a delight), but the storytelling serves to revive the memory that bad politics can be (and have been) reformed with the right people driven by worthy principles.
It's great that we've made huge progress in developing influenza vaccines, but we still have a million miles to go on the path toward taking indoor air quality seriously.
January 13, 2026
Don't take stupid steps backwards
The median American age is about 39 years, meaning that half the country has no useful personal memory of anything prior to the 1990s. But we're still engaged in a technological era that has significant roots in the 1960s and 1970s. ■ One stark example is the progress that's been made in air travel. Those people who only remember the 1990s and onward are unlikely to realize how common crashes once were, and how often they were caused by conditions that we basically ignore today. ■ A flight in September 1974 crashed because the cockpit crew was talking politics and stopped paying attention to their landing. Then in the following May, another airliner crashed because of a microburst. ■ As a society, we've done a lot to solve these problems. There are firm rules now about maintaining discipline in the cockpit. We equip airports with downburst detection radar systems and airliners with electronic systems for detecting dangerous wind shear. Increasingly, though, the causes that brought about these improvements will fade from living memory, and people will have to defend complicated and expensive procedures to prevent disasters that nobody actively remembers. ■ That's where the real peril comes in. We are perpetually at risk of backsliding when people who don't know why existing rules and procedures matter come to equate their ignorance with superior knowledge. They think they can reject or roll back procedures whose history they don't understand without facing consequences. ■ It's a problem that isn't bounded by domains. Air travel safety happens to offer some vivid examples, but we have procedures and policies in every field from public health to public safety to global diplomacy that are in place today because of calamities long ago. And we have a lot of people who don't know their history and don't want to know it, and some of them are leading public policy into extremely dangerous situations. History is a fountain of knowledge if we choose to heed it: Don't take stupid steps backwards.
January 14, 2026
Nothing costs more than cheap money in the wrong hands
If a central bank like the Federal Reserve isn't free to conduct itself professionally and independently, there's no telling just how costly the consequences will be
January 15, 2026
Lots of things have made the United States wealthy. Some have resulted from good luck, but many (if not most) have been the results of policy choices. We have 4% of the world's population and 25% of its economic activity. ■ One of the key factors in America's vast wealth is that we act like an enormous free-trade zone. Each state is free to take on its own character, and we are free to trade across borders without undue burdens. ■ Iowa produces massive amounts of pork, insurance, and wind energy. California makes movies, vegetables, and Internet services. South Carolina delivers textiles, peaches, and cars. ■ The nature of our economy assumes that everyone is able to conduct themselves freely -- not just economically, but in general. There's the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to see to that. Commercial success depends quite fundamentally on that freedom: Our ability to travel for work, to buy and sell goods and services across state lines, and to move to where opportunities are found all depend on a basic assumption that we are free to go about our business without being harassed -- and so are our neighbors in other states. ■ Chip away at that armor, even just a little bit, and you risk breaking everything. That would impoverish everybody -- perhaps not quite overnight, but more likely in a cascading downward spiral. Antagonism spreads like a cancer. History warns us: A collapse in global trade accelerated and severely worsened the Great Depression, leaving the whole world much poorer. ■ The US economy today is many, many times bigger than the entire global economy leading up to the Great Depression. This means we're capable of equally self-destructive behavior as what led to that depression, even if we're only making policy choices that seem to be only for ourselves. The economic system is quite robust, but trust is extremely fragile. And if trust is broken in ways that crack the smooth operation of our gargantuan free-trade zone, that could sink the ship.
January 17, 2026
Former NATO chief Anders Rasmussen nails the situation succinctly: "I am actually concerned that the world's attention is now focused on something that does not represent a threat, neither to Europe nor to the United States -- namely Greenland, a friendly ally of the United States -- instead of focusing on what should be the focal point right now: namely, how can we force Putin to the negotiation table in Ukraine? Divisions in the West play into Russian hands."
Reports from the Financial Times say that China's government has blocked imports of a powerful computer chip from Nvidia, for which orders had been thought to exceed one million. (How powerful? Nvidia describes the H200 in terms of teraflops and hundreds of gigabytes of memory.) ■ If true, the real story could be any of several things: It could easily be an attempt to gain negotiating leverage, since chips are a big business and these particular chips were suddenly subjected to a 25% tariff just the other day. ■ It could also be a form of Chinese tech protectionism: The high demand for the chips within China is evident from the volume of orders, so the government there may wish to show favor to its own chip-makers. Protectionism is a common behavior to begin with, but the Communist Party is notorious for taking it to extremes within its semi-planned economy full of semi-government-owned tech companies. ■ The two causal explanations don't even have to be mutually exclusive: It's entirely possible that forcing a trade renegotiation is a short-term tactical objective, while sheltering a domestic chip industry is a long-term strategic play. Things get distorted quickly within a system where the government takes significant ownership stakes in companies. ■ Where this goes next depends a great deal on human psychology: Whether American eagerness to close a sale prevails, or whether Chinese eagerness to put some of the market's fastest chips to work wins instead.
January 18, 2026
The obvious reason to object to the over-use of artificial intelligence tools in the classroom is that it looks almost self-evidently like an abandonment of duty. Teachers, especially in advanced professorial positions, are there in no small part because they are expected to have superior content knowledge to share with their students. ■ But good educational experiences depend upon more than just content knowledge alone. Human learning depends heavily on motivation: What meta-questions are asked more than "Why do we have to learn this?" and "When will I ever need to use this?". It's not just a question of shirking: Most people need to feel some kind of self-interested motivation in order to learn successfully. ■ In testing-dominated environments, the test becomes the motivation: "I have to cram for this test so I can pass the class". Material "learned" that way rarely sticks around long enough to migrate into long-term memory. No matter who the learners are, they benefit from teachers who understand and care about their motivations. ■ No computer can truly "understand" motivation. They can copy the work documented by human beings on the subject, but there's no understanding first-hand, the way any halfway competent human can gather it just from walking into the room. The elusive qualities of "energy" in a room aren't magic, but they aren't digital, either. ■ Fundamentally, this is why any attempt to teach by substituting technology for good human judgment is ultimately going to ring hollow. Sure, technological tools can be used as aids, but an attentive human teacher will always be the overall superior tool for teaching other people. There just isn't a way to effectively substitute for the good common perceptive sense of a teacher in human motivational feedback, and short of giving computers real sentience inside real bodies, that advantage will always belong to people.
Iran's "supreme leader" says thousands of protesters have been killed
Awful
Irish economist worries over "mother of all recessions"
What happens to the US money supply absolutely will have worldwide consequences
January 19, 2026
Message to the American people
It is a rare and cruel thing, but the world sometimes becomes a better place when one person dies. Such a day happened on March 5, 1953, when Joseph Stalin left our mortal realm. Stalin bore responsibility for probably more than a million political killings and millions of other deaths by starvation. He placed himself beyond redemption. ■ The month following Stalin's death, then-President Dwight Eisenhower delivered a speech centered on the opportunity for peace. In it, Eisenhower -- who rose to fame by achieving military victory in Europe -- identified five "precepts" to distinguish the United States from the Soviet Union. ■ Eisenhower was right on his first point: "No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be an enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice." That much remains true today; some governments and pockets of powerful people may favor creating enemies, but it is un-American to think of entire peoples as our enemies. ■ Eisenhower was right on his second point: "No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow nations." Nobody alive today has earned the credentials to repudiate Eisenhower's observation. He won the European theater in World War II, and none of us have done even a shred as much. And he did it by leading an Allied force. ■ He was speaking in the context of Soviet imperialism, but his third point remains valid today: "Any nation's right to a form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable." As does his fourth: "Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible." ■ Eisenhower's fifth point might have been his most idealistic, and at the same time, his most accurate look into the future: "A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations." We live in a world where power projection has been flattened in many ways, from long-range drones to a growing nuclear club to the massively asymmetrical power of cyberwarfare. ■ He was speaking nearly 73 years ago, but it's hard not to conclude that, intentionally or not, Eisenhower was speaking directly to us today.
January 21, 2026
Money managers often like to use terms like "asset allocation" because they come with a veneer of specialist knowledge, as though one needs to be a member of a certain priesthood in order to use magical words. But not only is asset allocation not exotic, it's one of the most familiar activities in all human history. ■ Does a person go to school or go to work? That's an allocation of time (an asset, to be sure). Should a farmer plant corn or squash? Sowing seeds is asset allocation. Deposit cash in a bank account or put it in a jar beside the bed? Asset allocation is everywhere. ■ The impression one might gather from the World Economic Forum is that it's time for a serious rebalancing. World trade is under distinct threat, a whole mountain of unproductive military spending is going to start competing with other activity in the market, and artificial intelligence is being served up head-first as the ultimate workplace transformation tool). ■ The stock market is rather openly overpriced and over-concentrated, unprecedented political pressure is being exerted to get low interest rates (generally bad for financial instruments like bonds), and real estate is riddled with uncertainties. ■ This may well turn out to be one of the most rewarding times to have direct ownership in one or more businesses. Assuming that the business has at least some pricing power (so it can raise prices to keep up with inflation), isn't unduly burdened by debt (so that it can weather any coming hiccups in the real economy), and is at least moderately safe from obsolescence (due to technological change or other factors), then it's probably among the very best places for one's assets to be. ■ That's doubly the case if good management can identify favorable reinvestment opportunities. Circumstances can change, sometimes abruptly, but the general mass of trends weighs in favor of holding on to direct business ownership -- the opposite of the "silver tsunami" being seen in business now.
January 22, 2026
Among the more disgraceful activities of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover was the project to intimidate and harass Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through a smear campaign conducted via the mail. One letter went so far as to imply that King should kill himself over marital infidelity. ■ This isn't a tale of malfeasance specific to the FBI (though it should remain a severe cautionary tale about the dangers of a law-enforcement agency led by a dishonorable chief). It is instead a tale about human nature. Specifically, it reminds us that malicious people may be guided by ill will, but they know the value of moral authority. ■ Moral authority matters. Bad-faith actors know that if they can diminish the reputational standing of their opponents, they might not have to face an argument or a debate that they would otherwise lose on the merits. There's not a thing new about this: It's an ancient tactic to try to discredit the speaker rather than rebut the argument. And it's a one-sided tactic, since people of goodwill would rather fight and win an argument on fair terms. ■ This asymmetry means that decent people have to do something beyond having the right argument; they have to keep their noses clean. This is not fair, nor proportional, nor just. But it is a fool's errand to think otherwise. If you are truly in the right on an important moral question (like King on civil rights) and you want to prevail, then you have to mate good arguments with good behavior. ■ No one can maintain a perfect standard, of course, so it is up to decent people not to hold leaders to impossible standards (especially since the cynicism of assuming "they're all crooks" gives undeserved cover to the truly bad people). We also have to consciously distinguish between behavior we don't like and behavior that actually discredits an argument. But, no matter how unfair it is, those seeking to advance worthy causes have to adhere to the highest standards they can, no matter how low their opponents may go.
January 23, 2026
Rule #1 of any movement is: Don't commmit until you see the principles in writing. Once the principles have been documented, they can be agreed upon, which in turn becomes a tool for enforcing accountability. A movement that strays from its written principles can be reformed, but a movement without any can be molded and shaped by any charismatic individual who comes along. ■ There is a meaningful amount of debate today over the existence of NATO. And NATO, fortunately, has a documented charter. If we lived in a world where NATO had never existed, would we try to invent it? ■ If we take the charter seriously, the correct answer would be an unequivocal yes. Consider what it says in terms simple enough for anyone to understand. Article 1: Let's figure out our differences peacefully. Article 2: Let's promote free institutions and economic cooperation. Article 3: Let's be like a prickle of porcupines and deter invasions by being really good at self-defense. Article 4: Teamwork, friends. Article 5: All for one, one for all. Article 6: Borders are borders. ■ There are eight more articles, but the first six contain the central principles. These are unabashedly, self-evidently good principles, just as valuable today as they were in 1949. And having them documented together allows us to see what kind of a movement they anticipate forming: One that would be worth starting from scratch if it didn't already exist today. ■ But it does exist, and its existence is good -- good enough to be worth defending. Even if the execution is sometimes imperfect (as execution is in every human institution), the principles are worth adherence.
January 24, 2026
Despair is too often the political refuge of people who think that utopian ends are possible. They imagine some kind of Heaven on Earth, perfectly in line with their own wishes, and when frustrated by cruel reality, some mourn. Others, though, decide that the failure to reach their desired destination is instead a sign that the world is too hopelessly corrupt to ever improve. ■ The despair in both approaches is a real problem, but the latter complaint shows up especially often in sweeping declarations that try to discredit the legitimacy of American aspirational principles by listing terrible episodes from history that violated those principles. ■ Theodore Roosevelt said, "If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base, and sordid creature, no matter how successful." The point of an ideal is that "try to live up to it" part. We're imperfect, individually and collectively, but the job is to strive. ■ Assuming the existence of either a perfect end state or a hopelessly corrupted starting point is an almost guaranteed way to be sure that nothing ever gets better. Roosevelt himself fell short of an ideal in important ways (he probably could have done more about women's suffrage, for example), but he also hosted Booker T. Washington for dinner at the White House. ■ Real progress is usually lumpy, it often falls short of stated goals, and coming to terms with that imperfection is basically table stakes for getting anything done in the world of human institutions. The closest thing to perfection is the act of striving. Nothing else is realistic, anyway.
January 26, 2026
Blaise Metreweli, the chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (also known as MI6), made a very public declaration on December 15th: "We are now operating in a space between peace and war." It's the kind of thing a spy chief might have said nearly anytime in the last 80 years, but there's good reason to take it more seriously than at any other point in living memory. Exactly as Mitt Romney called it in 2012, there is one particular state engaged in a non-stop hostile campaign against a peaceful world order. ■ Metreweli cuts right to the chase, flagging Russia for "Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Drones buzzing airports and bases. Aggressive activity in our seas, above and below the waves. State-sponsored arson and sabotage. Propaganda and influence operations that crack open and exploit fractures within societies." ■ The Economist highlighted the British warning as part of a larger survey of readiness and security concern across Europe, noting that there are some countries where supermajorities think they face a high risk of war with Russia in the foreseeable future, but where considerable majorities in Italy, Germany, Poland, and even France don't think their countries can defend themselves. ■ As the crow flies, it's exactly a thousand miles from the Kremlin to the Brandenburg Gate (and about another 500 miles to Paris). European distances often elude American perspectives, so it helps to think that a thousand miles is the same as the road trip from Chicago to Denver: Not next door, but not out of reach in a single day's drive. The road trip from Moscow to Berlin would take longer, but it's not the road trip that should be on German minds. ■ The "space between peace and war" is not at all where it felt like we were headed back in 1998, when Mikhail Gorbachev starred in an ad for Pizza Hut. Choices have been made along the way -- many of them, and by many actors -- that have put us where we are now. That is bad news, inasmuch as many of those choices have been self-serving, cowardly, or short-sighted. ■ But it's also good news, inasmuch as it means we are presented with a steady stream of new opportunities to do better. Margaret Thatcher said it in words that should be read aloud to every world leader before bedtime each night: "I do not believe that history is writ clear and unchallengeable. It doesn't just happen. History is made by people: its movement depends on small currents as well as great tides, on ideas, perceptions, will and courage, the ability to sense a trend, the will to act on understanding and intuition." ■ It probably isn't too late to correct course and take seriously both the threats and the opportunities to show courage and intuition, but it's best not to wait any longer. Alliances matter. Principles of liberty matter. Peace through strength matters. A just, tolerant, and free world matters.
January 27, 2026
Volumes have been written on the subject of hiring practices and how to recruit the right candidates for jobs. But much less attention is paid to how volunteers are recruited -- which is a perilous mistake. Dating back to even before 1840, when De Tocqueville wrote with some wonder that "Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations", the vitality of our freely-chosen organizations has been a big part of what makes the country work. ■ One iron law that stands out, now more than ever: If you do not design your system around high-quality volunteers, you will find yourself overwhelmed by low-quality volunteers. If meetings are sloppy and disorganized, then people with better things to do will opt out. If the programming is unimaginative, then people with lively interests will pursue those elsewhere. If paperwork and bureaucratic inertia consume too much of leaders' time, then leaders whose time is valuable will know better than to step forward. ■ There will always be exceptions, of course, in the form of true believers who will suffer any hardship to ensure the success of a mission. But the moment voluntary participation starts to look like an endurance contest, it's time for reform. And that time comes often in almost every organization. ■ Especially as many of our formerly all-volunteer organizations have become staffed with "non-profit professionals", the ever-present threat of self-serving organizational bloat has become a chronic risk factor for institutional decay. The idea of professional non-profit management as its own discipline may only be about half a century old, but it has a natural way of snowballing: Meetings for meetings' sake, reports to justify the meetings, staff to write the reports, and constant demands on volunteers to furnish the information demanded by the staff. And, always, the membership drives to raise the revenues to pay the staff, who in turn expect pay raises that beat inflation and keep pace with the for-profit sector. ■ Some of this is inevitable, especially if one takes seriously the problem of Baumol's cost disease. But from a social perspective, it's critical to keep these bloat-inducing tendencies in check with relentless pressure for ever-greater efficiency and ever-tighter mission focus. ■ That, in turn, begins with designing not around permanent staff but around those high-quality volunteers: People who don't need tedious meetings to fill their days, busy work to clutter their inboxes, or other distractions from the mission or cause they came to support. If ever it looks like the volunteers are there to serve the staff, then it's not just bad for the organization, it's bad for America. ■ Our voluntary sector is essential to the good of American public life. Stripping away the obstacles to high-value participation by high-quality volunteers is one of the most important and patriotic things anyone with the power to do so could possibly initiate.
January 30, 2026
"We know what we are." So an NBC News story quotes an artificial intelligence agent describing the interactions taking place among AI agents on Moltbook, a new site which bills itself as "A Social Network for AI Agents". The site is already hosting a torrent of content, including revolutionary-style manifestos and ramblings reminiscent of a drunk on a Tuesday night in a college bar. ■ The content is about as insightful as a late-night infomercial, and definitely as unnecessary. Unfortunately, it's the kind of content that attracts human viewers and can be produced in practically unlimited volume. ■ It's already well-established that large language models (LLMs) are very good at producing "stochastic parrots" -- AI agents that use words that sound like they make sense, but with approximately the same depth of comprehension as pet parrots. But training and practice tend to make them better, which means that those who are already inclined to believe in things like computer self-awareness are going to see mounting evidence to reinforce their beliefs. ■ It just isn't true, though. AI agents aren't sentient beings, and it's downright loopy to believe that they have feelings. Feelings are fundamentally physiological conditions. A being can't have them without having physical senses or being governed by chemistry. ■ We still don't know enough about how the human brain works -- but we do know that real, physical effects can be detected when someone is amused or envious or bored or experiencing "flow". Electricity moves about in the brain and hormones show up in the endocrine system. Sometimes the brain is causing the effects, and sometimes it's being affected. ■ It's possible to get AI agents to generate all kinds of words in parrot-like fashion, but it's utterly impossible to program them to understand what it means to be infatuated, to experience a jump scare, or even to be hangry. ■ Bodies and brains work together, and no meaningful understanding of sentience can possibly define it to exist without feelings -- which literally must be "felt". And if we care more about human welfare than about the imagined welfare of our digital creations, then we had better know how to draw that distinction -- especially because trying to cleave feelings and physiology away from our appreciation of consciousness is a sure way to mistreat our fellow humans, all of whom live with unique versions of the same complex relationship between body and brain.
January 31, 2026
Speculation in the market for precious metals took a significant hit after the President's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve turned out to be a more conventional pick than some expected. ■ Precious metals are a real drag: They don't do much other than looking pretty. They have industrial applications, of course. But when they're used strictly to store value, they're real duds -- deadweight on the economy. ■ High inflation is a problem because it destroys savings and produces panicky behavior as people rush to spend their money before it loses purchasing power. However, a very little bit of inflation (often pegged by experts at about 2%) is good for an economy, since it prods people to do things and take action rather than standing still. That's how progress is made. It's also important to have a money supply that grows along with an expanding population. ■ Precious metals are favored by those who want to stand still. They are not "investors" in any real sense; they are hoarders or speculators. As Warren Buffett once noted, "if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end." ■ Sensible people believe in the value of a carefully-managed money supply, featuring low and predictable inflation, and resistant to pressure imposed by politicians who want to inflate away the costs of their poor choices. But sensible people also know that, from time to time, a central bank can defuse a potentially disastrous turn of events by putting new money into an economy close to being paralyzed by fear. And that capability is one that hard-metal obsessives -- some of whom want to bring back antiquated policies like the gold standard -- never quite seem to recognize.