“Toward a Better American Dream.” I make a very Porchy argument as part of the series that the Dispatch is running to mark America’s 250th anniversary: “George Washington’s favorite Bible verse seems to have been Micah 4:4, in which the prophet envisions life in the New Jerusalem where every man ‘shall sit … under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid.’ This image represents one version of the American dream: widely distributed, useful property that enables good work, ordered liberty, and secure communities. . . . The continued success of the American experiment depends on renewing and adapting Washington’s vision of the good life and making it possible for Americans to own productive property and to undertake meaningful work.”
“Soiled Work.” Adam Gustine articulates the value of an ordinary life doing ordinary work in an ordinary place: “I spend a good deal of my energy guiding college students toward a life of substance and meaning, helping them consider their contribution to the common good. Most of my students are in passionate pursuit of a life (and career) that “matters.” They have incredibly high hopes for themselves and, in the main, view their education as a vehicle for achieving something worthwhile. They have a concrete desire that borders on existential angst: to be known for something. That desire is starting to worry me, particularly because the desire for legacy and impact often manifests as worry or fear. When my students tie their ideals and ambitions to their sense of the good life, they effectively render the good life contingent on corresponding levels of success and advancement.”
“Baa, Ram, You?” Elizabeth Stice reviews Luke Burgis’s new book, The One and the Ninety-Nine and ponders how we develop into persons who can belong well: “This book explores the forces at work in shaping us, often pushing us to a pseudo self, and the opportunities for the emergence of a solid self. Burgis treads expected and unexpected ground. As you might expect, Burgis writes about tribes and the political self. More unexpectedly (and despite some pages with QR codes), this book is not all about technology and social media and all the ways the twenty-first century is especially scary. Those things come up, but Burgis is not fixated on them.”
“Games Gone Wild: How Metrics and Gamification Distort Reality and Capture Values.” Joshua Pauling reviews C. Thi Nguyen’s new book The Score, which celebrates the beauty of games and warns against trying to make everything a game: “Nguyen argues that the very things that make games so enjoyable, and even beneficial, can have the opposite effect when we keep score of things that aren’t meant to be scored. Games are great—for things that are meant to be games. This is the book’s driving concern, and one that deserves our attention: the effects of metrics and measurement on our values, social incentive structures, and even our self-conception and relationships.”
“Japan is Gripped by Mass Allergies. A 1950s Project is to Blame.” Nithin Coca describes the complex set of challenges that Japanese forest managers are working to address: “During [World War II], oil and gas shortages led Japan to turn to the nation’s most abundant natural resource – forests – as a source of fuel for home and industry. The result was widespread deforestation of natural forests, with the mountains around major cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Kobe completely stripped bare of trees. . . . Aiming for rapid reforestation, the government chose to plant reams of only two different native, fast-growing evergreen species that could quickly reforest landscapes and provide wood for future use in construction: the Japanese cedar, sugi, and the Japanese cypress, hinoki. Today, these hinoki and sugi plantation forests still cover around 10 million hectares (25 million acres) – a fifth of Japan’s entire land area. The problem is, sugi and hinoki trees also produce large amounts of lightweight pollen.” (Recommended by David Bettis.)
“People of the Chatbot.” I describe how reading practices have formed Christians over the centuries and how querying chatbots for religious wisdom would be detrimental to this culture: “Christians can’t build a common culture and shared imaginative constellations around individualized chatbot answers. The Book we share in common constitutes the church community. Yet Gloo—like its many Christian AI competitors—touts its ability to tailor chatbots to different denominational preferences, reinforcing consumer culture’s you-do-you relativism.”
“What A.I. Did to My College Class.” Theo Baker writes for the New York Times about his experience as a student at Stanford: “Stanford already had a shaky reputation for integrity when I arrived in 2022. It was the origin place of the Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes (now serving a 10-year prison sentence), the crypto fraudster Do Kwon (now serving a 15-year prison sentence) and the founders of Juul (which was forced to pay billions for getting kids hooked on vapes). All of these scandals were in the news when freshman year began. Many of my classmates arrived idealistic and hopeful, but among the strivers seeking a path to fortune, hustle culture was the accepted way of life. Now A.I. has made deception easier and more remunerative than ever before.”
“Missouri Town Fires Half its City Council over Data Center Deal.” Jeff Tomich reports on the consensus-building powers of data centers: “Voters in a small Missouri town, unhappy with the city council’s approval of a $6 billion data center, struck back at the polls last week, ousting all four incumbent council members running for reelection. Tuesday’s election in Festus, Missouri — a city of 12,000 people along the Mississippi River a half-hour south of St. Louis — is the latest example of growing public backlash against cities agreeing to host hyperscale data centers over the objections of residents concerned about their local impacts.”
“The Power of Nothing: The Bats’ Best Promotion was no Promotion at All.” Eric Crawford describes a new minor league promotion: “the Louisville Bats are bringing back one of the strangest and smartest promotions in sports. Nothing.” (Recommended by Michael Boehm.)
“Steering Clear of Sycophants: Flatterers and the False Friend of AI.” Elizabeth Stice draws on Machiavelli and Erasmus to consider the dangers that flattery poses: “What makes flatterers so dangerous? They traffic in lies, while princes need truth. Excessive praise inflates the prince’s ego, limiting his ability to make rational decisions. His overconfidence can lead him to make bad decisions without a second thought. Or he might ignore obvious warnings, because he has come to trust his own judgment in all things.”
