We Few

 

Grace

 Grace begins only after self-justification ends.  Michael Woodruff.

Robin Dunbar on Friendship

 From Robin Dunbar's book Friends .  

Why Do Friendships Fracture?

One of the seminal studies of relationships and and relationship breakdown was undertaken by the legendary British social psychologist Michael Argyle (with whom, in the 1960s, I had classes as a student). During the 1980s, he and his collaborator Monika Henderson ran an extended series of experimental studies examining the rules that underpin friendships. They identified six rules which were essential for maintaining a stable relationship. They identified: standing up for the friend in their absence; sharing important news with the friend; providing emotional support when needed; trusting and confiding in each other; volunteering help when it is required; and making an effort to make the other person happy. Breaking any of these rules, they suggested, was likely to weaken the relationship, and breaking many was likely to lead to complete relationship breakdown.

Two points.  This is particularly useful in viewing ourselves when we know that the other person broke three of these, which prevents us from noticing the one we broke. Second, there is nothing in here about who did what first.

Algorithms Are Not Always Bad

This judge shows up in my feed a lot because I like him. The internet is a wonderful thing and can be a source of joy.

 

Recent Links

 Two kind of exogamy in Central African tribes.  One tribe insisted on tribal exogamy, the other required males to travel long distances to find a wife.

Reforming Non-Profits with pricing. WRT a diversion program:  Adam is developing workarounds because the system as a whole is very difficult to reform. Here’s one idea: how about asking people in the system what they need? People in the justice system generally can’t vote with their wallets, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get a vote. He has piloted a program in which—gasp!—he asks people what they need to stay out of trouble down the road. If you are going to be released in six months, what do you need to get a job, find a place to live, support yourself? What is your biggest pain point? How can the resources available be used to solve this problem?  

Lisa Britton at the Institute for Family Studies on Girlboss Messaging being a problem in and of itself, hurting working class women who can least afford to live that way. She got exactly the inaccurate pushback you would expect, of people claiming she was saying something else.

The growing acceptance of "snuck" v, "sneaked."  Such things are not unusual in themselves, but this one has a twist. It is based on a Proto-Germanic form that somehow still just sounds right to us

 

 

Suspicions Confirmed

I wondered if people on the pro-Palestinian side of the news got their news more from pictures than from text. I asked Gemini, which thinks that is true, but not even the half of it. Of the many things that jumped out at me, the Social Media Reliance (bolded in section#2) has general relevance. Consumers of social media see those sources as more real, because those people are there, and individual. Text media people prefer somewhat more anonymous, institutional information. The importance of algorithms driving people to preferred sources I should have thought of on my own.

 do pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sides get their news differently?
Yes, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sides generally consume, interpret, and experience news in fundamentally different ways. This divergence isn't just a matter of preferring different TV channels; it spans entirely different media ecosystems, reliance on specific platforms, divergent terminology, and distinct psychological framing.   

The differences manifest across several major areas:

1. Primary Media Ecosystems
Pro-Palestinian News Sources: Audiences sympathetic to the Palestinian cause often look beyond traditional Western media, which they frequently critique as having an institutional pro-Israel bias. Instead, they rely heavily on non-Western international networks like Al Jazeera English, independent outlets (such as +972 Magazine, Mondoweiss, or The Electronic Intifada), and direct first-person accounts from local journalists and citizens on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank.   (Italics mine)

Pro-Israeli News Sources: Audiences sympathetic to Israel frequently consume mainstream Western news outlets (such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, or the BBC) alongside major Israeli publications (like The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, or Haaretz). They also follow updates and briefings directly from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and established political advocacy organizations.

2. The Social Media vs. Legacy Media Divide
The demographic and ideological divide is starkly reflected in where people look for information:

Social Media Reliance: Pro-Palestinian messaging is exceptionally prominent on visual, algorithm-driven social platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Because international journalists face tight restrictions or outright bans on entering conflict zones like Gaza independently, local content creators sharing raw, unfiltered video footage have become primary news sources for millions of younger, pro-Palestinian viewers globally.   

Curated Frameworks: Conversely, the pro-Israel side often relies on more structured reporting environments, emphasizing official state declarations, intelligence briefings, and historical context regarding regional security threats and antisemitism.

3. Terminology and "Linguistic Realities"
Even when watching the exact same event, the vocabulary used by different media outlets fundamentally alters how the news is received. This creates two parallel realities:   

The Pro-Palestinian Lens: News is consumed using an active framework of systemic oppression. Terms like occupation, apartheid, displacement, resistance, and genocide are standard. Military actions by Israel are viewed as systemic aggression, and casualties are reported with an emphasis on the asymmetric nature of the conflict.

The Pro-Israeli Lens: News is framed around national defense and security. Terms like terrorism, counter-terrorism, self-defense, human shields, and existential threat dominate. Military operations are viewed as targeted reactions to hostile acts, with a heavy emphasis on the events of October 7, 2023, hostages, and the actions of groups like Hamas or Hezbollah.

4. Media Bias and Cognitive Framing
Academic and media studies consistently highlight that both sides consume news through distinct psychological frameworks:

The Identifiable Victim Effect: Research indicates a disparity in how human suffering is framed. Pro-Israel news consumers are often presented with deeply individualized portraits of victims (names, hobbies, family histories), which builds intense personal empathy. Conversely, non-Western or independent media focusing on Palestine emphasizes the massive, collective scale of displacement and civilian casualties, which pro-Palestinian audiences view as an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe that mainstream Western media downplays.   

The Passive vs. Active Voice: Media critics note that consumers of different outlets read different versions of accountability. For example, a pro-Palestinian reader will look for headlines that actively attribute blame ("Israeli airstrike kills civilians"), while mainstream Western coverage has frequently used passive phrasing ("Civilians die following explosions"), which critics argue shields Israel from direct accountability.   

Ultimately, these differences create a "filter bubble" effect. Rather than just disagreeing on the solutions to the conflict, pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian sides are often consuming entirely different sets of facts, vocabulary, and visual evidence, making a shared understanding of current events incredibly difficult to reach.

Heredity Simplification

I linked to Razib's interview with Greg Cochran, but let me highlight it further.  I am uncertain about so many things because the experts hedge so much around political issues, and I take people at face value. Cochran is blunt, and thus controversial and one of the naughty researchers. He will call you a loon if you're a loon. He has tried hard to be nice to me when I'm being an idiot, even saying "look, I'm being as nice as I can." He is something of a paleoconservative who insisted that Iraq could not have weapons of mass destruction and we shouldn't even invade, much less stick around. Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute published the pivotal paper in 2015 that we had interbred with Neanderthals, which amazed everyone. Cochran, Harry Harpending, and John Hawks had been saying it for a decade before, purely from genomic data, (still largely) uncredited and ignored. 

If you think I say the quiet part out loud, Greg really says the quiet part out loud.  Steven Pinker eases you into the idea of racial differences, David Reich tells you that we will find racial differences but not to worry, because he will be there to supervise and make sure nothing racist gets out.  Cochran acknowledges that they have to say those things to get funding for their research, but says they are flat out lying - which I suspected but didn't want to say, as it would be a terrible thing to be wrong about.  I worried about Sasha Gusev's ultra-high bar for signing on to heredity, which boils down to "not until absolutely proven." 

Cochran's response is that Gusev needs to try and teach AP Calculus to Australian Aborigines for five years before speaking again.

It's refreshing, if you can take it.  Greg will tell you when he was wrong, which is seldom, and takes no prisoners on the data. Listen to interview to learn what is going on that you are not supposed to hear.

Psalm 22 and 23

 Psalm 23 is much the better known of the two psalms.  It is taught to children because it is short and comforting.  Psalm 22 is mostly known as the one that Jesus starts quoting on the cross "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?"

The two go together. Psalm 22 is I am abandoned and miserable, please listen to me. Then Even so, I trust you to care for me and rescue me.  Psalm 23 is The Lord has cared for me and rescued me.

There Has to be a Catch

 I don't think I've tried to put up an Instagram before.  We'll see. If it doesn't work, this is the link.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FunAnimalFacts (@fun.animal.fact)

There is a catch, now that all of you are considering getting a meerkat. Because they are very social, to keep them as pets you need twenty of them, minimum.  

Do Teachers Need Advanced Degrees?

 Probably not. There is some benefit in the hard sciences for high school students. Little else.

 Ladd and Sorensen’s seminal 2015 paper on this topic used administrative data from North Carolina to assess the effects of teachers earnings Master’s degrees with fixed effects for teachers, students, and schools. With these fixed effects, it’s possible to estimate the effect of Master’s degrees after accounting for things that are constant among these groups. Thus, the question from this study is less ‘Do teachers’ Master’s degrees correlate with their success?’ and closer to ‘Does being conferred a Master’s degree make teachers more successful?’ The answer is a resounding ‘no’, with the only effect being on rates of high absenteeism among the kids, for some reason.

Neither Here Nor There

In NH there are "towns" which straddle the border between two towns.  Pinardville is a section of both Manchester and Goffstown; Suncook has the border between Pembroke and Allenstown down the middle of it; Penacook is part Concord, part Boscawen. All three are heavily French-Canadian, or were when they were first founded. It makes for confusion of school districts, fire department coverage, Post Offices, and even telephone exchanges. A medical office will ask me which pharmacy I prefer, and it still offends me to have to say it's Hannaford in Manchester, because it's not in Manchester. It's a mile over the border, firmly in Goffstown in that Pinardville section which French-Canadians settled long after the town centers were built.

I'm not blaming the immigrants from Quebec. That's where the affordable land was and ethnic groups like to cluster together. The Yankees created the situation and have no call to kick about it now. Yet it does make for multiple answers to the question of "where are we, anyway?"

Remembered For the 250th

 

Whether you think rescuing the flag is a big thing or just an above-average thing, Monday's comment at the end is worth keeping in mind. You never know when the moment is going to come. A had a friend who ran back into the house to rescue his 12 year old stepson and a sleepover friend from fire and was permanently scarred himself.  He remembers it had been a boring, rather irritating day before that, no hint that it was going to be the most significant of his life. The best and worst events of our lives often come with no warning even minutes before. 

Simeon didn't know the Messiah would come that morning, nor that it would would be a baby. Simon of Cyrene was a spectaor at the crucifixion but was forced to carry the cross, which was not in his dayplanner that morning.  He was just a visitor from North Africa who happened to be there. He was the father of later disciples Rufus and Alexander. 

Company Destroyed by Wellness Influencers

 This Company Was an American Success Story. Until MAHA Influencers Sank It. by Laurie P. Cohen at the Free Press. 

At Apeel’s peak, 60 percent of the avocados sold in American grocery stores were coated with Apeel. The number is now zero. Almost all of Apeel’s revenue in the U.S. has disappeared, and the company was forced to lay off most of its employees. Rogers was replaced as CEO in 2024.

“I love the product. It’s a pity it’s not out there,” said Debora Langston, a consultant who spent months testing Apeel for Limoneira, comparing it with the wax coating used for decades. Friends in the food industry warned that Apeel was dangerous and could cause cancer. She expected poor results but reached the opposite conclusion. Her customers in Europe still use Apeel...

Robyn Openshaw, a wellness influencer who markets herself as GreenSmoothieGirl, published over 60 anti-Apeel posts on social media and her own website from July 2023 to May 2025. She wrote that Apeel’s coating was made with heavy metals and solvents, including chemicals found in gasoline, and encouraged her “Green Smoothie Girl Army” to protest by phone and email and in person.

In June 2024, Openshaw called Edwards, the Limoneira CEO, on his personal cellphone, asking him if the company was selling Apeel-coated products. He replied by text: “Hi Robyn, We tested Apeel but never sold any products (avocados or lemons) with Apeel on them. We stopped when the market told us it doesn’t want Apeel.” She published a blog post with the headline: “GreenSmoothieGirl Gets Apeel Shut Down at Billion-Dollar Produce Company.” A video on YouTube boasted that she got Limoneira to “quit using Apeel products.” 

I get a lot out of Instapundit, which is mostly pro-MAHA. But they are too pro-MAHA, never giving you both sides of the story. Every mention of it is positive now. 

The Environment Leads the Gene

I think of myself as someone who keeps those who are interested in Indo- Europeans and Ancient DNA up-to-date on developments, and up until a few years ago that was true-ish. But it is all happening and changing so quickly these days that I would have to devote much more of my life to it than I choose to. Yet I still listen and hear interesting things, so I will link to those and bring up some points that intrigued me. 

Dwarkesh Patel has a lengthy interview with David Reich about what has been happening the last few years, in particular a paper headed by Avi Akbari that has been discussed in preprint for three years and now out as a paper in Nature. Why the Bronze Age was an Inflection Point in Human Evolution. I am not symmarising that paper but am drawing from it.  Razib also makes extensive reference to it in his 10,000 years of selection in Western Asia monologue and his interview with Greg Cochran.  I'm reading the new JP Mallory, just read Proto, and I'm no summarising any of those either.  For openers, I'm not sure I understand any of them well enough to get them right. But here are some interesting bits.

You will hear it asserted that there has been very little selection over the last 50,000 years in the human genome, and the differences between us then and now are small.  You will also hear that selection has been intense and recent, creating significant group changes.  Both are true in their way. 98% of the genome isn't moving much. 2% is under intense evolutionary pressure.

Immunity tends to be the area of greatest change.  When groups interbreed, the variants that keep people alive have the biggest effect, withnlittle explanation needed. The genes tend to be fewer, or even individual, such as genes for Down Syndrome, Tay-Sachs, or Cystic Fibrosis. Africans have an enormous number of variants offering partial resistance to malaria and other insect-borne diseases. They would have fullresistance, but the diseases change their chemistry to live off humans, and it is an ongoing competition.  The studies that show the various blood types or those with more Denisovan ancestry having more covid resistance are remnants of those same battles a quarter-million years ago.

Behavioral and psychiatric traits are more polygenic, so while they are also under heavy selection compared to the 98% of the genome, it is less strong than immune selection.  Cognitive ability, height, and BMI are more polygenic still.  There are a thousand places to be a little taller or smarter, and a hundred versions of slight improvement at each place. There is no overall tall gene except for diseases like acromegaly, which kills you early, like Andre the Giant. 

Oddly, the selection for the cognitive traits has not been strongest in the last 2000 years, but the 2000 years before that. The genes which correlate with educational attainment now became more concentrated long before anyone had formal education.  But those genes also correlate with age of first birth for women and value of grave goods for men, which one can see might be associated with better planning and better self-control in both social and financial situations. The biggest changes were 2-4000 y/a, the second biggest 4-6,000 y/a, but our last 2000, which one would think held the big ticket items for cognitive traits, are not as dramatic. There is a lot more than in most of human history, but not as dramatic as the move from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The researchers expected to see the biggest changes with the beginning of agriculture, but the genetic changes did not happen until well after. There are signals that it was not the beginning of agriculture but the final end of foraging in a society that put the pressure on. The genetic patterns needed for foraging held on in selection long after they disappeared in the skeletal and burial evidence. As long as they were still needed occasionally, they persisted.

We picture tribes moving into a colder place because they have slightly better adaptation to cold, but that is cart before horse. They move first, then adaptations slowly come in. Tribes are likely driven by necessity to keep on milk longer, eat riskier food, or move into the cold before they are ready. Desperation is the driver, not slight advantage. At that point, a hundred tiny improvements might keep one person alive a little longer, and those accumulate over time.  It's not a single big improvement, but a slight one, then a slight improvement in that.

A lot of extra material that has nothing to do with cold or dairy comes along as well. If someone has a mutation of slight advantage, when the DNA helix folds on itself, it doesn't do it only at that one spot. a bunch of other genes on either side of it get pulled in as well. It can be tough to tell which of the hundred SNPs in a chunk are the advantageous ones and while are only along for the ride, or even deleterious for some other trait. From a single ancestor, each child and each grandchild will have that helical twist at a different place, but it will still take generations to isolate the one with 1% cold tolerance advantage, and six in the area that increase the likelihood of curly hair will be associated accidentally.

Eh, I'm done for now.  That's only one small point and I've taken forever.  I have just demonstrated by bad example why teachers who can package such things clearly and compactly onto a greenboard or into a single analogy are so valuable.

Whatever isn't clear, ask.  I might be able to answer rather than sending you to the pros to do your own research. 

Punchy Writing

 Paul Shearer: "Short sentences. Punchy. To the point. Sounds like efficiency. Serious. Muscular. Yet. Not saying anything. Not this part either. Still haven't said anything. Nope. Not yet. But they sure are punchy. M&M sentences. Dorito sentences. Pringles sentences. Once you pop. You don't stop."

Secret Medieval Tunnels

In Central Europe there are narrow erdstals estimated to have been carved out between 900-1200AD. We haven't figured out why and Weird Medieval Guys thrive on telling us about this stuff. There are theories, of course, but most are tentative because none cover all the facts.

No theory has yet been able to account for:

    The number and distribution of the erdstall

    The similarities between the many erdstall

    The inconvenience of accessing the erdstall

    The secrecy with which these tunnels were built and guarded

    The complete lack of artefacts found within 

Fun stuff. Great site. We don't know why knights in medieval texts fought so many giant snails, either. 

Surgery

I have rotator cuff surgery tomorrow.  I am not apprehensive, but I am also not all that optimistic.  The most likely outcome is mild improvement in range-of-motion after months of rehab. There is some chance of greater recovery, but there is also some chance of none at all. 
 

Yet a hundred years years ago I would just have been a guy with a bad shoulder for the rest of his life, so this isn't terrible, really. Also, it's my left shoulder, which I use less often anyway.  There are many things like that these days.  Health care is much more expensive now because we can do magic compared to then. Any D&D gamer knows that magic is expensive. My mother died in 2000 of a third diagnosis of cancer and my father a couple of years later because of congestive heart failure. If medicine had been this far along in 1990, both would have probably gotten another decade of life, anyway. As I know the events that occurred until 2010, it's interesting to think of that.

Fanny Brice

 

Closed Captions

My wife has always relied more on context than on my actual spoken words to read me. This seems unusual for a woman who reads more than anyone you know, but there it is. If I say that dinner will be in half an hour, she will ask ten minutes later if dinner is ready - because she sees me setting the table, and that is the stronger cue for her. As I don't expect this to get any better as her hearing gets worse, it occurred to me that a technology which provided closed captions for all our speech might be useful. Women might object to the discomfort of having the words be below their necks, but fine, have what you want.  Having my words be visible as well audible sounds great to me. 

I do see immediate problems. It might be considered rude to turn it on or off at "wrong" times according to some artificial standard imposed on us by teenagers who are the first adopters. But still, I see great possibilities here, especially for my audience friends. 

Kind Vs Wicked

 I had not heard the kind versus wicked distinction between systems  A Hungarian psychologist raised three daughters to priove that any child can become a chess grandmaster through early specialisation. It's a fascinating article, showing that in kind domains, early specialisation works, but in wicked domains (which is most of real life), it stops working after initial success.

 The Polgar experiment is one of the most famous case studies in the history of deliberate practice. Laszlo Polgar wrote a book before his daughters were even born arguing that geniuses are made, not born. He homeschooled all three girls in chess from age four. By their teens, Susan, Sofia, and Judit were dominating tournaments against grown men. Judit became the youngest grandmaster in history at the time, breaking Bobby Fischer's record. The story became the gospel of early specialization. Pick a domain young, drill it hard, and you can manufacture excellence.

There is the usual failure to note that the three daughters all shared the genes of the chess-playing father, but I'm used to that by now.  I just point it out to refute the constant claim of the environmentalists that all the experts acknowledge the influence of heritability on ability and behavior, and even quote them saying over and over that they do take that into consideration.

They don't. 

But the article is still worthwhile for what it is. 

The Shadow Cabinet of Soros

Data Republican is a new treasure, who knows how to find information and convey it. The Shadow Cabinet of Soros confirms what conservatives have long asserted with only partial information and intense suspicions. She puts the names, the dates, and the millions of dollars out for everyone to see. For those who suspected that the Biden presidency was mostly Obama III, for foreign policy, at least, here is the data.  Politicians and operatives working behind the scenes is nothing new, and not necessarily illegal.  But secrecy in such matters is never a good sign. The shadow cabinet of Obama officials oversaw the withdrawal from Afghanistan, just as one example.

National Security Action launched with approximately seventy people (in 2017, funded entirely by Soros)— sixty advisory council members and ten staff. Its advisory council included Tony Blinken, Avril Haines, William Burns, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Denis McDonough, Alejandro Mayorkas, Wendy Sherman, Wally Adeyemo, Kurt Campbell, Colin Kahl, Kathleen Hicks, and Jon Finer. Tom Donilon — Obama’s former national security advisor — served on the advisory council.

Forty-six of seventy roster members — 65.7% — received Biden administration appointments. Sullivan became National Security Advisor. Blinken became Secretary of State. Burns became CIA Director. Haines became Director of National Intelligence. Power ran USAID. Thomas-Greenfield became UN Ambassador. McDonough ran the VA. Mayorkas ran DHS. 

 Ioffe found the same wall of opacity: “Nobody — not even the various comms people working for N.S.A. — would tell me who is on the organization’s board or confirm that the group’s funding comes from Soros.”  

But Data Republican tracked the numbers. 

 

 

Unhinged Classics

I could argue with this woman all day, but really, this essay was a lot of fun.  5 "Boring" Classics That Are Actually Unhinged. She starts with Moby Dick.

Why It’s Unhinged:
Ahab isn’t a tragic hero. He’s a cult leader. He manipulates his crew into joining his death wish. He knows the whale will kill him. That’s the point. He wants to die destroying the thing that maimed him.

And the whale? The whale is just... a whale. It’s not evil. It’s not symbolic. It’s an animal that defended itself once, and Ahab has projected his entire existential crisis onto it.

She also has a series on "Wholesome" children's books that traumatised entire generations, includes Charlotte's Web, Watership Down, Black Beauty, and others that you gave to your own children.

This bears some relation to my post years ago on Folk Music Vs Rockers. Which is more traumatising, really? 

 

High Profile Murders

When the boys were younger and were acting up I would sometimes deadpan "LOCAL FATHER GOES BERSERK. SLAYS TWO IN BIZARRE DINNER INCIDENT.  Broccoli dispute rumored."  It seemed funny at the time. I did not use that with the two Romanian sons or with Kyle who arrived last.  My oldest son had daughters, who are gentler creatures and might not have found it funny.

Maybe no one would find it funny now.