Ideas, opinions, politics, humanities
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Jesus! What the Bible sounds like in the first person
The Bible is not Jesus’ autobiography. The Gospels are narratives about Jesus, written largely in the third person, while also containing speeches attributed to him. That distinction usually goes unnoticed because readers are accustomed to the biblical style. But imagine something different. Suppose Jesus himself were narrating the Gospel story. Take passages about him, mechanically…
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Can a face reveal a psychopath? The myth of physiognomy
Zohran Mamdani! Look at that face. Look at the eyes, the nose, the beard. A Muslim? A Middle Eastern type! He must be a terrorist—or at least a supporter of terrorism. Absurd? Of course. Mamdani is Muslim, but he is not even Middle Eastern: he was born in Uganda to Indian parents. More importantly, neither…
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Can social media destroy the historical Jesus?
Social media cannot prove Jesus never existed. But it can destroy something else—the widespread assumption that the historical Jesus is an overwhelmingly documented fact. This is not an academic argument. It is an act of cognitive disenchantment. The mainstream position in historical scholarship is that a Jewish preacher named Jesus did exist and was crucified…
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Conspiracy AI: Pinpoint the evidence for the puppet masters
Let us be precise from the start. There is no secret cabal of one ethnicity, one bloodline, or one club that runs everything. That formulation is a strawman, and it is deliberately kept alive because it is easy to debunk. Once you debunk the cartoon version, the rhetorical move is to declare the entire subject…
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AI will revolutionize psychiatry
Psychiatry may be the branch of medicine that needs artificial intelligence the most. For decades, psychiatry has faced an uncomfortable reality. We have medications that can save lives, suppress psychosis, reduce depression, stabilize mood and control anxiety. Yet our understanding of why severe psychiatric disorders actually develop remains remarkably incomplete. Allen Frances, one of the…
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What would Franz Kafka think about Israel and Gaza?
Franz Kafka died in 1924. The State of Israel did not yet exist. The Holocaust had not happened. Neither had the Arab-Israeli wars, October 7, or the destruction and enormous human suffering in Gaza. Yet Kafka’s life, politics, Jewish identity and literature make him a fascinating figure through whom to examine Israel and Gaza. He…
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Bill Gates warns humanity could lose control of AI
Bill Gates has spent most of his life believing that technological progress ultimately improves human existence. Artificial intelligence is making him reconsider how safely that assumption can be applied. The Microsoft co-founder has dramatically intensified his warnings about AI. He argues that the technology is developing faster than governments and societies are preparing for it.…
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Lower IQ in psychiatric populations: A complicated relationship
I once discussed intelligence among psychiatric patients with my former psychiatrist. My impression was simple: people with psychiatric disorders seemed, on average, to have lower intelligence than the general population. He disagreed. At the time, my argument was largely anecdotal. Since then, however, I have had considerably more contact with psychiatric populations. I spent time…
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Czech Republic had a lot of significant people. They weren’t Czech
The Czech lands have produced an impressive number of scientists, writers, composers, philosophers and other intellectuals. Yet there is a historical complication that modern national narratives can easily obscure: many of the most internationally famous people born in what is now the Czech Republic were not Czech in the modern ethnic or linguistic sense. They…
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The worst things feminists have ever said
Feminism has been one of the most consequential movements for human rights in modern history. Women gained political representation, greater economic independence, reproductive rights, protection against discrimination and vastly greater control over their own lives. None of this should be controversial. But feminism is not a single doctrine, and supporting equality between women and men…