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We Are So Much the Same. Then Why Are We So Damn Different?

When K and I had Number One Son, we parented him the way I imagine many first-time parents raise their children – to become, as Jordan Peterson advised, adults that we would like and admire.

Number One-Son did not disappoint. And when we had Number Two and Number Three Sons, we did the same. Again, the results were more than satisfactory.

But they are not at all the same kind of person. Their instincts, their interests, and their personal preferences are greatly different – as different as their physical features.

A common way of discussing these differences is to talk about nature vs. nurture – i.e., how much of a child’s temperament, intelligence, and personality traits are due to innate biological factors versus differences in parenting, teaching, and other social aspects of their developing lives.

Biology is definitely a factor. A much bigger factor than you might think considering that, from a DNA perspective, all humans are 99.6% the same. That tiny 0.4% difference accounts for all the physical differences – the bone structure, the height, the color of the eyes and hair and skin, etc. – not just between siblings, but among all human beings of every race.

But we also know that DNA accounts for other differences, such as temperament and even something as small as the way a child smiles or laughs. (You have your grandmother’s smile… your father’s laugh, etc.)

In fact, I think DNA goes even further than that. I’ve seen what I would call personal tics in my boys. The way, for example, that Number One Son rubs his nose that is identical to the way his grandfather, whom he never met, rubbed his nose.

As a parent, I find this eternally interesting and amusing to think about.

Recently, I was contemplating the way my children dress.

Number One Son has my sense of style – in that he always thinks he is stylishly dressed but almost never is.

Number Two Son’s sense of style is apparently (What do I know?) cool but low key.

Number Three Son’s is (again, apparently) particular and au currant. So much so that, once a year, when I visit the Chanel store on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach to buy K a few things for Christmas, the salespeople talk directly to him, not me, about what they think she might like.

Three boys with 99% similar DNA, 90% similar parenting (K did most of it and she is extremely consistent), and 90% similar childhoods in terms of the town they grew up in, the schools they went to, and so on.

Why such a difference?

I suppose it could be that small natural difference in their DNA, which does, after all, account for the very distinct differences in their physical appearances. But my guess is that it has to do with the happenstance of the particularities of the nurturing they received. Not from us, but from their teachers, their friends, and the hundreds of small but significant (to them) experiences they had growing up.

What do you think?

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Money: The Ultimate Incentive

“One of the greatest ironies of the modern world,” my friend Porter Stansberry wrote in a recent post on his website,” is how few people who enjoy the cornucopia of capitalism and free markets understand even the most basic elements of what creates wealth.”

In his masterwork An Inquiry into the Nature of Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, introduced the idea of “the price mechanism,” a “powerful, positive force of self-interest” that allows wealth to build rapidly among the entire population of a free economy.

By allowing thousands or even millions of individual actors to negotiate the price for things and services they want to buy and sell, Stansberry explains, a natural value is established for those things and services. That value rises and falls according to economic factors, such as supply and demand. And this, he argues, “allows farmers to know what to plant… industrialists to know what to produce… and capital markets to know what to finance and at what rates.”

“Absent this mechanism for communication and for rewarding production,” Stansberry says “an economy quickly falls apart. Instead of creating abundance and opportunity, society is soon rendered into competing tribes, each organizing only for their benefit. The result is poverty, anomie, violence, and desperation. And these changes happen fast – within only a decade or so.”

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Teaching: Why Experience Matters

Bill Browder in Moscow 

Bill Browder is an extremely successful entrepreneur that made his fortune in Russia and wrote a good book about it – Red Notice. (You can read my review of it here.)

TS sent me this clip of him addressing a class of Russian Studies majors at Oxford. Pay attention to the content of his statements, especially when he is answering questions. These are thoughts that have been developed and defined by experience. They are not the sort of pronouncements made by pundits whose knowledge of their subject matter comes from secondary sources.

Also note the way he responds to some of the comments and questions that could be dismissed as naïve. Note the humility of his phrasing and the generosity of his willingness to respect his students’ preexisting ideas and impressions.

Then ask yourself: How common is this today in academia? How often do college and graduate students have the opportunity to learn from people that have (what they like to call) “lived experience” in the subject matter they teach?

Getting a degree in a good private college in the US will put a student in serious debt. Like $100,000 to $200,000. Wouldn’t you feel better about spending that kind of money if you knew you were getting this level of wisdom?

Click here.

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Congress: From Canings and Stabbings to Murder

It’s happened several times now. AOC, that adorable nitwit representing New York’s 14th Congressional District since 2019, has several times complained publicly (and twice, hysterically) about being accosted by political enemies.

The reported assaults have ranged from having her purity defiled on the steps of Congress by an apparent Trumpster who was swept away by the plenitude of her derriere, to a Maga insurrection mob forcing her to lock herself away in her office, even though her office was in an unmolested building down the street from where the “insurrection” actually occurred, to, most recently, accusing Ted Cruz of threatening to kill her.

To be fair, AOC, does attract a lot of condescending criticism. (This bit included.) And politics in DC seem to be getting nastier every month. One might wonder, “Has there ever been a time when our Congressional representatives were ruder and meaner and more duplicitous than they are now?

Well, it turns out there was. Check out this essay on the History website about violence in Congress before the Civil War.

 

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Another Way to Look at the Israeli/Hamas War 

Hamas’s brutal and barbaric attack on Israel was done to provoke Israel to conduct a land war in Gaza. Hamas leaders believe they have the wherewithal to eventually defeat Israel by making it a long and extremely costly engagement, with tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of casualties. With each new dead Palestinian, the world’s opinion of Israel will gradually turn against the US. And that will eventually turn the world against Israel.

It seems possible. The attack and Israel’s counterattack has already moved the needle in that direction. It has also moved Saudi Arabia to renounce its treaty with Israel.

But what choice does Israel have? Bombing Gaza to smithereens will eventually have the same effect, but without achieving anything. International aid will pour in and Hamas will resume its efforts to destroy Israel.

The only way I can see Israel winning this is by conducting a massive invasion of Gaza, killing or jailing every Hamas terrorist, and then claiming Gaza as its own and gradually eliminating Hamas by making it a true police state for 10 or 20 years.

And if I’m right about that, they should have probably invaded Gaza on day one.

Is there any other way Israel can ensure its safety in the future?

Click here.

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Another “Crazy” Idea?

A visitor looking at “In America: Remember,” a temporary art installation on the National Mall commemorating Americans who have died of COVID-19. 

When I continue to express the view that the most important “misinformation” that came to us about the COVID virus came from the WHO, the CDC, the NIH, and our government, my friends and family members no longer think I’m entirely crazy. That’s because they are now repeating the talking points of those very same sources who have been, bit by bit for the past year or so, walking back their most egregious statements by saying they were “following the science available at the time.”

For the past six months, though, I’ve been doing it again – convincing them that I am indeed crazy. Because now I’m repeating what they consider to be the most absurd of the conspiracy theories about the whole COVID fiasco. I’ve been saying that a good deal of evidence is piling up suggesting that not only were the vaccines ineffective in protecting against infection, spreading infection, or even diminishing the fatality of infection, they were causing all sorts of serious side effects. Some of which may be fatal.

I’m going to touch on this latest “crazy” idea by mentioning something I discovered just today…

Early this year, Michigan State University Professor Mark Skidmore submitted a study concluding that at least 217,000 Americans died in 2021 because of the COVID vaccine. Not the virus. The essay appeared and then was retracted. And the university commenced a seven-month investigation into possible “unethical behavior” on the part of the professor.

Earlier this month, he was exonerated of all charges. And his findings were incorporated into a revised paper that, among other things, concluded this:

“With these survey data, the total number of fatalities due to COVID-19 inoculation may be as high as 289,789. The large difference in the possible number of fatalities due to COVID-19 vaccination that emerges from this survey and the available governmental data should be further investigated.”

Click here to read the entire paper.

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Quick Bites: Age Is Just a Number… Spooky!… Putting the Kibosh on CRT… An Unbreakable World Record… How Good Are You at Acronyms
  1. Scientists have discovered that the moon is 40 million years older than previously thought. Since this fact was a headline on the cover of Smithsonian Magazine, I figured it must be a big deal. So, I checked it out. And it really is interesting. Click here if you would like to know more.
  2. Just in time for Halloween… a collection of unsolved paranormal mysteries from Snopes. Click here.
  3. Michael Knowles on why Critical Race Theory should be banned. Click here.
  4. The only world record that will never be broken. Click here.
  5. Either I’m really good at acronyms, or this quiz is very easy. I got 20 out of 20. Click here.
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"Were it not for hypocrisy I’d have no advice to give."
"Were it not for sciolism I’d have no ideas to share."
"Were it not for arrogance, I’d have no ambition."
"Were it not for forgetfulness, I would have no new ideas to write about."