October 27th, 2025. Van Holloway, one of Donald Trump’s African Americans, offers a reality check to anyone stupid enough to think Trump’s $250 million ballroom is just another ego-stroking, money-wasting vanity project:
I've missed your keen observations. How much bravery does it take to let go of our erroneous beliefs? It is painfully difficult for some to understand nuance and entertain uncertainty. The Greeks did this so much better than we do today because they recognized in their maths two moments of truth.
"It is painfully difficult for some to understand nuance and entertain uncertainty."
I've been trying really hard to understand this from a position that isn't just condescending. I have a few theories, but the main one is social media and AI, and the 24-hour news apocalypse has encouraged us to stop differentiating between our feelings, especially our fears, and the truth. I'm writing something on this topic right now.
It's getting increasingly worse, in my experience, to have a rational conversation with anyone, of any social/political persuasion. And it seems like everyone has to have a level-10 emotional response alongside their opinion, to the point that calm rationality is considered an enemy even when I agree with someone.
It's only going to get worse not that children are reading far below their grade level, and getting passed up to the next grade.
Thank you for writing this. That confidence-substituting-as-knowledge-or-perspective virus is the mother of all pandemics.
"It's getting increasingly worse, in my experience, to have a rational conversation with anyone, of any social/political persuasion. "
Yep, that's been exactly my experience. And it seems to have gotten so much worse so suddenly. Just in the past few years, everything has been turned up to 12.
Our technical ability to acquire knowledge has vastly outpaced our emotional ability to understand what knowledge means, let alone apply it with wisdom. Overwhelmed, most people are happy to let someone else tell them what to think — until they are personally affected. What they don't understand is that, in the end, everyone will pay a price.
When we don't think for ourselves, when we don't take responsibility for what we do or don't think, we surrender ourselves to whomever takes the power. And we all lose.
"Our technical ability to acquire knowledge has vastly outpaced our emotional ability to understand what knowledge means"
I think this is it in a nutshell. The sheer amount of "information" available in the world today means that people can also always find *something* to support their existing beliefs. And algorithms ensure that those beliefs are challenged less and less.
I've missed your keen observations. How much bravery does it take to let go of our erroneous beliefs? It is painfully difficult for some to understand nuance and entertain uncertainty. The Greeks did this so much better than we do today because they recognized in their maths two moments of truth.
"It is painfully difficult for some to understand nuance and entertain uncertainty."
I've been trying really hard to understand this from a position that isn't just condescending. I have a few theories, but the main one is social media and AI, and the 24-hour news apocalypse has encouraged us to stop differentiating between our feelings, especially our fears, and the truth. I'm writing something on this topic right now.
It's getting increasingly worse, in my experience, to have a rational conversation with anyone, of any social/political persuasion. And it seems like everyone has to have a level-10 emotional response alongside their opinion, to the point that calm rationality is considered an enemy even when I agree with someone.
It's only going to get worse not that children are reading far below their grade level, and getting passed up to the next grade.
Thank you for writing this. That confidence-substituting-as-knowledge-or-perspective virus is the mother of all pandemics.
"It's getting increasingly worse, in my experience, to have a rational conversation with anyone, of any social/political persuasion. "
Yep, that's been exactly my experience. And it seems to have gotten so much worse so suddenly. Just in the past few years, everything has been turned up to 12.
Our technical ability to acquire knowledge has vastly outpaced our emotional ability to understand what knowledge means, let alone apply it with wisdom. Overwhelmed, most people are happy to let someone else tell them what to think — until they are personally affected. What they don't understand is that, in the end, everyone will pay a price.
When we don't think for ourselves, when we don't take responsibility for what we do or don't think, we surrender ourselves to whomever takes the power. And we all lose.
"Our technical ability to acquire knowledge has vastly outpaced our emotional ability to understand what knowledge means"
I think this is it in a nutshell. The sheer amount of "information" available in the world today means that people can also always find *something* to support their existing beliefs. And algorithms ensure that those beliefs are challenged less and less.
And once again, nuance and wisdom are lost.