iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

And before anyone gets too excited about this. Remember to look at the inflation takeoff that immediately followed the 1972 cash injection, while the economy declined. The beginning of a decade of stagflation.

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These are still some of the most amazing graphs ever published in a political science book. From: Edward Tufte. 1978. Political Control of the Economy. Princeton University Press.

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More generally, pundits who interpreted 2024 as a permanent public embrace of Trumpism were wrong. Anyone a major party nominates can win. Power will alternate between the parties. No party will win long-term supermajorities. fiftyplusone.news/polls/approv...

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 21/09/2026

The idea that Latino voters were experiencing a long-term realignment toward Trump in 2024, which was put forth by many reactionary pundits urging acquiescence to the Trump regime, turns out to be false. As some of us argued at the time, they are just very reactive to national conditions.

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Habeas corpus rights are guaranteed by Article I of our Constitution, which lists Congress's powers. Only Congress can determine that an invasion or rebellion is underway and suspend the writ. Hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional. constitution.congress.gov/constitution/

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 21/09/2026

The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn't some loophole in our habeas corpus rights. This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people's habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...

Jailors were forbidden to move prisoners from one prison to another or out of the country to evade the writ. In case of disobedience jailers would be punished with severe fines which had to be paid to the prisoner.[5][6]

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 20/09/2026

The idea that national economic prosperity comes from founders "manifesting" it "through sheer force of will" is supported by no school of economics, but is sadly widespread in certain circles. Stable rules-based government, human capital, physical capital, natural resources. These build prosperity.

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 19/09/2026

Of course. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_...

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 19/09/2026

Virginia Heffernan reviews Steven Pinker's new book. www.thenerve.news/p/steven-pin...

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 18/09/2026

1) It's hard to express how poor this reasoning is and also 2) This is how a manipulative cult leader talks www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Humanity, today, is in its adolescence. Most of a teenager’s life is still ahead of them, and their decisions can have lifelong effects. Similarly, most of humanity’s life lies ahead – an estimated 118 billion people have already lived, but vastly more people, perhaps thousands or even millions of times that number, are yet to be born.

And some of the decisions we make this century will impact the entire course of humanity's future.

Contemporary society does not appreciate this fact. To mature as a species, we need to embrace a perspective called longtermism – a way of thinking that differs greatly from the prevalent mindset today.

Longtermism is the view that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. It's about taking seriously the sheer scale of the future, and how high the stakes might be in shaping it. It means thinking about the challenges we might face in our lifetimes that could impact civilisation’s whole trajectory, and taking action to benefit not just the present generation, but all generations to come.

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talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/ai-fr...

Before getting into that, a subsidiary point. When you starting digging into debates about AI you realize there’s just a wild cast of characters, groups, movements all arrayed around this technology, some boosters, others critics. A lot of AI critics point to the fact that a number of the leaders, particularly at Anthropic, are part of the so-called “rationalist” community, adjacent to “effective altruism.” And these folks have kind of a cottage industry or cottage subculture which is rife with predicted future extinction events. Is this part of the driver of all these claims about being in a race with AI to make sure it doesn’t decide to exterminate us? I’m really not sure. But it does seem to play some role. (This “rationalist” world — no I’m not totally sure how they got possession of this word — are big in the Valley.) Meanwhile, you’ve got another faction in the tech world, which thinks all that talk of extinction events is a bunch of culty nonsense and/or basically a ruse to allow companies like Anthropic to lock in their dominance as a kind government cartel.

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Times/Sienna now finds Americans preferring the Democratic Party on immigration by 7 points. The pundit claim that Americans should acquiesce to ICE secret police murdering Democrats in the street and disappearing people to secret camps because it's what Americans want and will always want was wrong

Regardless of how you might vote, please tell me which party you trust to do a better job handling each of the following:

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So many vibe shift/realignment interpretations of the 2024 election have aged like cottage cheese. I believe the correct interpretation is that it was an election result driven by national conditions/retrospective voting. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

If the 2026 general election for Congress were held today, which party’s candidate would you be more likely to vote for in your district?

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 14/09/2026

I'm glad to see acknowledgment that Yglesias and D. Shor were wrong in their main electoral advice for the past 7 years: American voting is not primarily Downsian (ideological and spatial). That is only one cause among many. My motto is to always take yes for an answer. So I'm happy to hear this.

Vibe Shift 2: Thermostatic Opinion Strikes Back
Voters think Democrats are too left-wing, gonna vote for them anyway to check Trump.

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This Michelle Goldberg column is very good. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/o...

In a series of private speeches last year, Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and Silicon Valley thought leader, said that the young activist Greta Thunberg represented the spirit of the Antichrist. It was more than just a hyperbolic slur. Thiel was expressing a Promethean theology, one that sanctifies technology and expansion. In Thiel’s worldview, the forces of dynamism must struggle against the evils of stagnation, represented by Thunberg’s leftist environmentalism. “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science,” said Thiel.

Thiel’s philosophical assumptions might sound bizarre to outsiders, but they appear to be widely shared among the tech elite. “A.I. and its capabilities represent something analogous to the Second Coming,” Jeremy Nixon, a founder of an A.I. hub called A.G.I. House, said in May. The technology, some tech titans believe, will allow humans — at least some humans — to escape the bounds of earth and even perhaps the inevitability of death. It represents liberation from hopelessness and decay.

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And I would endorse this. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/monit...

Clearly, we need some oversight and regulation. The present situation is a bit like if instead of having a Manhattan Project, we just subcontracted it out to a few private companies and set up a prize of a trillion dollars for who could build a nuke first, without any safety rules and with a general agreement that no one in the government was allowed to see what any of these guys were doing, what safety precautions they were taking, or anything else … because they’re private businesses. It can’t be the way. But at the moment it does seem to be the way. And the trillion dollar prize means that speed to get there is inevitably the overriding priority.

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Gary Marcus has a helpful list of plausible serious global problems that could result from AI-level computers.

AI elevates the risks of bioweapons attacks by making it easier for terrorists to figure out how to develop and implement such attacks.

AI may conceivably elevate the risks that someone will develop a dangerous new virus or other bioweapon.

AI elevates the risks that disinformation will disrupt democracy, by reducing the cost of generating disinformation and increasing the quality (e.g, with ever-better deepfakes)

AI appears to be elevating the risks of serious cyberattacks that could hobble things like banking or electrical grids.

AI introduces a new vector for authoritarians around the globe; by influencing training sets and so forth, authoritarians can influence LLMs in ways that subtly influence their users.

AI also serves as a back door for surveillance, at a scale beyond what Orwell envisioned.

AI is already harming the educational system by leading students into despair and by seducing them into a faux substitute for learning that is easy to use but that ultimately leaves them with poorly developed critical thinking skills.

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Gary Marcus seems to be producing some of the wisest analysis of this issue. He points out that while premise #1 is certainly true on some timescale, premises #2 and #3 are not guaranteed. In fact, you could argue they are unlikely. garymarcus.substack.com/p/no-anderso...

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 10/09/2026

Among those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, was Georgetown public policy professor Leslie Whittington. She and her entire family (husband, Charlie Falkenberg, and their daughters Zoe, 8, and Dana, 3) perished when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

Leslie Whittington and husband, Charlie Falkenberg, and their daughters Zoe, 8, and Dana, 3.

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A third of gay and lesbian Americans are Christians. www.pewresearch.org/religious-la...

People who are gay or lesbian
Among adults who are gay or lesbian …

Religious composition

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 09/09/2026

Yes. www.liberalcurrents.com/the-end-of-h...

Looked at this way, Fukuyama’s argument is significantly less radical than it first appears. He’s essentially arguing that if one defines history as the dialectic that produces better and better ideas for a political system, then we essentially already have its end: the best idea, liberal democracy. The next struggle is to make that idea work for all, and to defend it from inevitable challenges.

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 07/09/2026

@michellegoldberg.bsky.social's appreciation for Gloria Steinem reminds us that one of Steinem's big beliefs about social change was the importance of in-person social groups. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/o...

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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 07/09/2026

Some horrible Antisemitism and Holocaust denial here.

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One thing I'll mention about Gloria Steinem is that she realized that a political movement needs a media strategy that takes control of its message and image. Founding Ms Magazine was a masterful piece of movement strategy.

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Plaque listing people buried in Kings Chapel Burial Ground and discarded Dunkin cup. #Boston

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Seven clergy from Methodist, Quaker, Episcopal, United Church of Christ, and Unitarian churches were arrested while protesting an ICE facility in Vermont. (Here are mug shots, via @jackjenkins.me) religionnews.com/2026/09/04/s...

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