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Self in Society Roundup 63
Murders, free speech, trans rights, antitrust, liberal socialism, feminism, Schelling points, vaccines, education, human skulls, and more.
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2025
Michigan Church Assault: Colorado's large Mormon (Latter-Day Saint) community undoubtedly is reeling from news of the horrific attack. Reports suggest the perpetrator targeted the place specifically because it is an LDS church. Any such assault anywhere is horrific; an assault on a church also tears at more of our most fundamental freedoms. A photo circulating shows the perpetrator (previously) wearing a T-shirt that reads, "Trump 2020: Make Liberals Cry Again." Should this be used to demonize all Trump supporters? No, obviously not. Any more than the murder of Charlie Kirk should be used to demonize transgender people, leftists, or whomever.
Dallas Murders: It seems clear the Dallas murderer was motivated by anti-ICE sentiments. Such violence is inherently wrong. What's more, the perpetrator murdered an immigrant, illustrating how violence often inflicts unpredictable damage and backfires. The proper course is to loudly criticize ICE for its rights-violating activities; seek to rein in the agency through legal means; and, where appropriate, criminally prosecute ICE agents when they violate people's rights.
Trump's War: Kamala Harris warned us: Trump would show up in Washington with his enemies' list. He is now seeking to unleash the federal government against left-wing groups. The DOJ has indicted James Comey.
Steven Zansberg Sounds the Alarm: "Our country stands on the precipice of becoming an authoritarian dictatorship."
Free Speech: It's not like Democrats have been champions for freedom of speech, as Robby Soave reminds us: "Biden White House Digital Strategy Director Rob Flaherty, for instance, repeatedly pressed social media companies to take down content that was contrary to Biden's interest." Elsewhere, Ben Bayer and Mike Mazza discuss "Trump vs. Kimmel: The Tribal Weaponization of the FCC against Free Speech." Ilya Somin says abolish the FCC. FIRE refutates Pam Bondi's nonsense on "hate speech." Chris Matthew Sciabarra writes, "Just as Rand was correct to note that it was the conservatives who shaped the original legislation that gave us the FCC, so too, today's 'conservatives,' those on the reactionary right, are using the FCC as only one constituent of their brutal top-down assault on free expression. Claiming that they are at war with 'far-left groups,' they are engaged in threats and in the outright extortion of media, law firms, universities, and corporations. Their goal is to silence dissent—by any means necessary."
Protect Trans People: Cowen: "One of the most dangerous collectivist arguments in the wake of Kirk's murder is to blame the 'trans community.' . . . Constitutional rights, anyone? The right for peaceful individuals to avoid involuntary incarceration? How about basic toleration?" I was also pleased to see Dave Kopel say (and the Colorado Times Recorder quote), "There is no legal basis to ban firearms ownership simply because a person is trans. . . . A gun ban would be a severe violation of the federal statute and of the Second Amendment. A ban would be challenged immediately by pro-gun organizations, and almost certainly held unlawful in the courts."
Immigration Courts: Immigration courts should be set up under the Congress, not the executive, argues Margaret Stock. Makes sense to me.
Visa Fees: Tracinski: "Trump's 100K Fee Hike for High-Tech H-1B Visas Is Illegal, Unconstitutional, and Corrupt."
Taiwan: Washington Post: "Russia is helping prepare China to attack Taiwan, documents suggest." What could go wrong?
Apple and Antitrust: Marek Michulka: "A judge . . . ruled against Apple under the state-level antitrust statute California's Unfair Competition Law (UCL) for blocking outside-payment links and thus preventing 'informed choice.' . . . This law and ruling represent a total inversion of justice. Apple built its App Store platform, and therefore owns it."
Liberal Socialism: Matt Zwolinski reviews Matthew McManus's book on "liberal socialism." The first problem is redefining "socialism" to mean, not a centralized economy in which the state nationalizes the means of production, but social welfarism. But social welfarism cannot function without substantial capitalism; without production there can be nothing to "redistribute." And I continue to think that, not only are forcible economic interventions inherently illiberal, they tend toward greater illiberalism. For example, look how America's right has weaponized the welfare state against immigrants. Zwolinski writes, "McManus describes 'methodological collectivism' as a rejection of the classical liberal view, which allegedly sees individuals as 'atomized,' self-interested, and 'fundamentally competitive' (p. 18)." But that's just a ridiculous characterization of classical liberalism, which eagerly embraces family, mutual aid, unions (in the context of markets), nonprofits, and so on.
Feminism: I watched the first twenty minutes of a discussion on feminism between Bryan Caplan and Holly Lawford-Smith. I think Lawford-Smith makes a great point that it's not enough just to compare who gets the better or worse deal, men or women. My take: I'm a feminist in that I want to help protect the rights of women and help establish fair conditions for women. This is not in conflict with wanting to protect the rights of men and help establish fair conditions for men. Every person is an individual! But I have yet to read Caplan's essay on the matter, so perhaps I'll circle around later.
Pinker: "Sometimes things that people do make sense because other people do them, and that's all you need." Pinker discusses veiled language, plausible deniability, Schelling points, market pricing, enforcement of norms, global conflicts, cryptocurrency, path dependency, censorship, humor, and more. He points out that there can be a huge difference between everyone knowing something and everyone knowing that everyone knows something. Tyler Cowen also interviews Pinker and doesn't just ask the softball questions that Shermer prefers! There, Pinker talks about how tribalism, deference to authority, and conformity can eat away at enlightenment values, which after all are not always super-intuitive. He also talks about linguistics and AI models.
Hep. B: Unsurprisingly, Trump also is wrong about hepatitis B vaccines: "Hepatitis B is a virus that attacks the liver. The disease has no cure and chronic infection can lead to serious outcomes such as liver cancer, cirrhosis and death. And the risks of these outcomes are much higher for people who get infected as infants," reports NPR. Anyone who takes medical advice from Donald Trump is an idiot.
Drug Approval Reforms: Matthew Yglesias hopes the Trump administration will "reform the clinical trial process in ways that should make it cheaper and easier to get safe and effective medications to market." But, he adds, Trump's attacks on Tylenol, and his politicization of autism, are idiotic: "It's dangerous to have the White House and H.H.S. controlled by people with terrible epistemics."
Operation Redshirts: Amesh Adalja: "The new members are in the same mold as those RFK Jr. has appointed in the past. They are individuals who are not qualified to sit on this committee and are being put in place in order to undermine vaccine science at the upcoming meeting. The ACIP is an organ of vaccine misinformation and anti-vaccine propaganda." The Trump-approved plan to bring us fast Covid vaccines was called "Operation Warp Speed." Now RFK is warring against mRNA vaccines as such, including the Covid vaccines. I asked ChatGPT what would be a good name for RFK's campaign, and it appropriately recommended "Operation Redshirts."
Failing Schools: Natalie Wexler drawing on the New York Times: "Many high school graduates don't have the 'fundamental reading and math skills' needed for jobs in fields like health care and construction—jobs that often don't require a college degree."
Schools and Control: Agustina Paglayan: "The expansion of primary education in the West was driven not by democratic ideals, but by the state's desire to control citizens."
Make Your Kids Hard to Lie To: That remark by Ian Underwood is gold. (I don't agree with some other things he says.)
Propaganda Schools: Texas is bringing on Christian nationalist David Barton to consult on social studies curricula. Shameful.
Political Schools: Volokh: "Court Upholds Three-Day Suspension of 'Third-Grade Math and Science Teacher' for Maintaining 'LGBTQ+'-Themed Books in Classroom." The books were just present; the teacher didn't use them in class. That anyone got upset about this is ridiculous. "Oh my god the books are so scary!" That this became a court case is doubly so. But we can't dare talk about freedom in education!
Cradle to Grave: Given that K–12 schools in New Mexico are some of the worst in the nation, obviously New Mexico government needs to expand government control over children's education down to toddler age, largely using oil and gas money. See also the governor's media release. Here's how you can tell this is a scam: Government insists on using the funds (sources say $12,000 per family per year) on government-managed child care rather than just offer the families in question the cash. This is just incentivizing low-income mothers to give up care of their children to the government.
Substack: I left Substack and I'm not sorry. Yes, my current system is clunkier, but in exchange I have fine control and no one screwing with me. Brad DeLong discusses some of the concerns.
Old Human Skull: Scientists think a human skull they're studying is related to Homo sapiens, Homo longi, and around a million years old, leading them to think our species is older than previously thought. But these conclusions rest on correctly identifying the skull and accurately dating it.
Mongrel Sapiens: Harvard Gazette: "Harvard geneticist David Reich said . . . increasingly sophisticated analysis of genetic material made possible by technological advances shows that virtually everyone came from somewhere else, and everyone's genetic background shows a mix from different waves of migration that washed over the globe. . . . Human populations have been in flux for tens of thousands of years since our emergence from Africa. The details of the still-developing picture are complex, but the overall theme is one of increasing homogenization since human diversity fell from the time when modern humans lived next door to Neanderthals, two strains of Denisovans, and the diminutive Homo floresiensis of Indonesia."