Robert Wright's Nonzero

Do you have to be tribal to have a big following? ... Identity politics and its discontents ... What made Trump's xenophobia an electoral winner? ... Michael responds to Mark Lilla's critique of the left ... The Intellectual Dark Web as a branding exercise ... How delicately should the left approach the subject of race? ...

The Intellectual Dark Web and the MSM ... How does one join the IDW? ... Bret: Critics on left and right want the IDW to go away ... Is the IDW right wing? ... Why is socialism resurgent? ... Why Bret considers himself to be on the left ... Bret blows Bob’s mind with some grand evolutionary theorizing ...

The quest to reboot the Syrian civil war ... Why toppling Assad would be a catastrophe ... How the Syrian civil war got started ... Some dubious groups the US has armed in Syria ... Assad and chemical weapons ... The reliance of western journalists on rebel PR ...

Tamler's new book, Why Honor Matters ... Why human dignity is not enough ... Collective honor vs. individual honor ... The difference between honor and courage ... In defense of fighting in sports ... Tamler explains the idea of restorative justice ... Fighting Ted Cruz by calling him dishonorable ...

Is the anti-Trump sentiment of scholars biasing their research? ... Busting demographic myths about the 2016 election ... Status threat vs. economic anxiety as sources of Trump's support ... Do liberals have a deep need to see Trump voters as creepy? ... The many strategic mistakes Clinton made ... "Negative intersectionality" as a problem for Democrats ... Musa gives Trump good odds for 2020 ... Musa: A return-to-normalcy campaign by Dems won't cut it ...

Steve's new book, Enlightenment Now, and Bob's critique ... Cognitive biases that undergird tribalism ... Bob wants to crowdfund a meditation retreat for Steve, who is uncooperative ... How Al Gore’s climate change activism may have hurt his own cause ... Is it crazy to suspect that there’s a larger purpose unfolding through the workings of nature? ... Has our growing grasp of computation and cognition made consciousness less mysterious or more so? ...

Damon wonders whether international law is hopeless ... Bob: America would be better off if it respected the UN Security Council ... How legitimate is international law? ... Damon: There's no real judicial system in international law ... United Nations 1.0 vs. United Nations 2.0 ... Why do chemical weapons outrage us in a way that bombs do not? ...

Chris’s experience as a humanist chaplain at Harvard and Yale ... Secular community with a moral tone ... Atheism, anti-theism, and humanism ... What Richard Spencer doesn’t like about the Abrahamic faiths ... Atheism and tribalism ... Atheistic fervor as a response to religious trauma ... An inspirational atheism ... Does some New Atheist rhetoric encourage bigotry? ...

Jonah's new book, Suicide of the West ... Children of the affluent who hate affluence ... Jonah criticizes the Howard-Zinnified view of history ... The problem with Alinskyite conservatives ... Capitalism and its (white conservative) discontents ... The trouble with being a measured conservative critic of Trump (i.e., being Jonah) ... Jonah’s plan for Western Suicide prevention ...

David: American conservatism is basically white cultural resentment ... Is the left as tribal as the right? ... The "war on Christmas" as a case study ... Is pluralistic democracy contrary to human nature? ... Maybe nothing can unify Americans as a nation any more ... So whom should the NYT op-ed page hire? ... The one thing Trump could do to alienate his base ...