The General Assembly of the UN, a theater in which every country has an equal voice, is often ludicrous, but the organization does tremendous good work (peacekeeping, disaster relief, disease elimination, global datasets, conflict resolution) that no other organization can do. It

"It’s a pity that all of this substantive work often gets overshadowed by the performative political theatre that grabs headlines. But to some extent, UN officials only have themselves to blame. The UN chief recently congratulated Iran’s mullahs on the anniversary of the 1979

Generation Z is often dismissed as lazy, entitled, unambitious. But perhaps their behaviour is a revolt against a culture that turns every moment into labour and all of life into a performance. Read more The ‘do nothing’ generation mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/sunday-…

Trump´s decision to fight the Iranian jihadist regime is Historic. But he has to finish the job. For the sake of America and the region. My column in today's New York Post nypost.com/2026/03/12/opi…

Dear followers, I’m happy to share this new academic paper on how even capable AI can lead to deterioration of collective knowledge in society

Civilisational narratives often emphasise the Bhagavad Gita's statement that varna is based on guna & karma. Critics respond that in practice, most classical texts and historical evidence treat social status as inherited. Read more... deccanherald.com/opinion/can-a-…

From THE GOD DEBATE: Me: The more religious the society, the worse the problems are. And if you don't believe it, consider some of the world's most irreligious societies, like Norway, Netherlands, and New Zealand. They're pretty nice places to live. Now consider some of the

An Open Letter To Rahul Gandhi Dear Rahul ji, I write with candour, yet with due regard for the office you occupy as Leader of the Opposition in the #LokSabha. In any parliamentary democracy, this office is not meant merely to oppose, but to scrutinise rigorously,

Rubio’s Mystical and Racist View of the West is Anti-Civilization In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Don Watkins and Sam Weaver discuss Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent speech at the Munich Security Conference and the tribal conception of Western

If thought were independent of language, we wouldn’t have any use for language, because the whole point of language is to convey ideas. So it’s not independent, but it’s not the same thing as language. We know it’s not the same thing for many reasons. One of them is: how would

"I’m fascinated by the tremendous power of verbs — language’s little fireballs — to shape how we understand the world. Verbs rule communication. Many linguists go so far as to see sentences as extensions of verbs with other accouterments." I'm one, having written a technical

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. What verbs tells us about the concepts of causality & agency; what tense markers tells us about time and responsibility ("It depends on what the meaning of is s"); what swearing tells us about emotion; what innuendo

Learnability and Cognition, new edition with an appendix "The Secret Lives of Verbs," including a theory of why taboo verbs for copulation are transitive, and lend themselves to metaphors for exploitation (f***ed me over) and damage (SNAFU). For an analysis of the strange syntax

Methane is portrayed as a ticking time bomb hidden in the seabed. Methane is largely neutralised by the ocean itself before it ever reaches the air, thanks to seafloor methanotrophic bacteria that 'eat' the gas, oxidizing it into CO₂ and water. By the time methane bubbles

Why are Liberals more anxious, depressed, and diagnosed with mental disorders than Conservatives? Musa al-Gharbi Musa al-Gharbi reviews the hypotheses and evidence - American Affairs Journal americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to…

Constitutional Morality (again)

A common experience: Many brilliant scientists cannot grasp elementary philosophical distinctions. Last night I could not get a colleague to understand the difference between the "hard" (sentience, subjectivity, experience) and "easy" (reportability, information access) senses of

Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Stupidity: The ‘Jagged Intelligence’ of AI is said to be "reframing" the debate, but many cognitive scientists have noted it from the get-go: any implementation of intelligence is not a magic wand that can solve all problems, but a gadget

Our Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard ‘⁦Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard⁩ is looking into the kangaroo courts and hanging judges that “investigate” blunt and controversial faculty. thecrimson.com/article/2026/4…

What to make of ‘AI psychosis’? — Harvard psychiatrist John Torous warns against the panic that LLMs are literally making people mad: "I feel comfortable saying that AI as a catalyst of psychosis is very rare." news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/…