Podcasts about General Social Survey

TESTO DELL'ARTICOLO ➜ https://www.bastabugie.it/it/articoli.php?id=8106IL MATRIMONIO PROTEGGE LA SALUTE MENTALE DELLA FAMIGLIA di Salvatore Tropea La ricerca, guidata da Cuicui Wang dell'Università di Harvard, ha coinvolto 106.556 persone da sette nazioni (tra cui Stati Uniti, Regno Unito, Messico, Irlanda, Corea, Cina e Indonesia) per valutare la correlazione tra depressione e stato civile. La depressione è attualmente un problema di salute pubblica con una prevalenza del 5% tra gli adulti, destinata a superare il 10% entro il 2025. Lo studio ha evidenziato come i single abbiano il 79% di probabilità in più di soffrire di depressione rispetto ai coniugati.Lo studio sottolinea come anche vedovi e divorziati corrano maggiori rischi di depressione, rispettivamente del 64% e del 99%. Ulteriori dati da Global Epidemiology rivelano che il matrimonio riduce la mortalità femminile di un terzo e che, sorprendentemente, anche chi vive un matrimonio infelice gode di una salute migliore rispetto ai single. Gli autori, tra cui Wang, suggeriscono che i benefici del matrimonio derivino dall'accesso a risorse economiche, supporto sociale e influenza positiva reciproca. Tuttavia, per i single nei paesi occidentali, come Stati Uniti e Irlanda, il rischio di depressione è più alto.Un matrimonio felice apporta benefici significativi sia per la salute e la sicurezza degli individui che per la stabilità dei figli, come riporta anche Francesca Romana Poleggi - membro del direttivo di Pro Vita & Famiglia onlus - nel sul libro "Per amore dei nostri figli", edito da Sugarco Edizioni. «Le ricerche - spiega Poleggi - indicano che persone sposate, uomini e donne, sono generalmente più felici e godono di un tasso di mortalità e malattia inferiore rispetto ai single. Studi del 2011 e 2016, ad esempio, evidenziano che le donne conviventi subiscono il doppio delle violenze rispetto a quelle sposate» e le statistiche mostrano un rischio maggiore di femminicidi tra le conviventi. La stessa Poleggi cita poi il sito dell'Unione Cristiani Cattolici Razionali, che raccoglie una vasta documentazione dal 1984 al 2020, che confronta la convivenza e il matrimonio, «confermando - scrive l'autrice - la superiorità di quest'ultimo per la stabilità e il benessere sociale ed economico della coppia e dei figli». Inoltre, il World Family Report del 2017 sottolinea che «i bambini di coppie sposate sperimentano maggiore stabilità fino ai 12 anni rispetto a quelli di famiglie non tradizionali», con l'instabilità familiare correlata a risultati negativi per i bambini. Ricerche recenti, infine, come quella di Brad Wilcox per l'Institute of Family Studies, basata su dati del General Social Survey 2022 - sempre citata da Francesca Romana Poleggi nel suo volume - ribadiscono che «il matrimonio è associato a livelli più alti di felicità per uomini e donne, specialmente se hanno figli. Gli sposati con figli sono circa due volte più propensi a dichiararsi "molto felici" rispetto ai loro coetanei non sposati», e ciò si riflette positivamente anche sul benessere dei figli stessi.

According to our most recent General Social Survey, a quarter of New Zealanders aged between 15 and 25 say they are lonely some or all of the time. The majority of that group live in the regions, where socialising with people their own age can be a rare opportunity. Re:News looks at this in their new docuseries 'The Regions', which follows their journalists as they travel to some of the most isolated regions in the country to meet young people we don't hear enough about. You can watch the series now on TVNZ+ and YouTube. Baz Macdonald is on the Re:News team and directed one of the episodes.

The General Social Survey has been conducted every second year since 1972 and the most recent one contained both good and bad news about us. GOOD NEWS: Our bonds with our families and friends are as strong as ever.BAD NEWS: The bridges we once extended to strangers have collapsed.Jesus talks about a socially unacceptable “Samaritan” man who sacrificed his time, energy, and money to help an unconscious stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the side of the road. According to Jesus, two different religious people had already seen the wounded man, but crossed over to the other side of the road so they could pretend they hadn't seen him.They saw a stranger in need and felt nothing.Empathy – feeling the pain of others – is the price we pay for being fully human.The internet promised to bring us closer together through instantaneous, worldwide, one-on-one communication.But then came the algorithms, those digital sheepdogs that segregate us into echo chambers where every voice we hear sounds exactly like our own.The easiest way to build an online audience – or a church – is to criticize and demonize “them,” the people who are “not like you… not like us.” Algorithms will help you do this. All you have to do is craft a message that says, “All the world's problems are caused by ‘them,' and it is up to ‘us' to save the future, and America, and the world, from ‘them.'”You don't build bridges to people that you believe are “getting what they deserve.”Generosity and Inclusion are the tools of peacemakers.“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” – JesusDavid Brooks recently posted a YouTube video that will make you feel wonderful and give you hope.I hope you will invest the time to watch it. In fact, I challenge you to watch the first 3 minutes. The odds are extremely high that you will happily choose to watch the remaining 18 minutes.That YouTube video is titled “David Brooks: Making People Feel Seen: How to Do It Right.”I'm betting it will be your favorite 21 minutes of the week.It will also be a signal to the algorithm that you are headed in a new direction.Merry Christmas.– Roy H. Williams“If people looked at the stars each night, they'd live a lot differently. When you look into infinity, you realize that there are more important things than what people do all day.” – Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

It is a general rule of thumb that richer societies are happier societies. This is true across countries, as GDP and life satisfaction are highly correlated. And it is true across time. Countries get happier as they get richer. But there is a caveat to this general principle. Which is that the United States is not nearly as contented as its gross national income would predict. In fact, the U.S. is, as we've covered on this show, in a bit of a gloom rut. It has now been nearly two decades since a majority of Americans have told pollsters at NBC that they're satisfied with the way things are going. This hope drought has no precedent in modern polling. NBC itself reported that “We have never before seen this level of sustained pessimism in the 30-year-plus history of the poll.” Polls show that faith in government, business, and other institutions is in free fall—especially among conservatives. But they also show that conservatives are generally happy with their life and in their relationships. If conservatives have happiness without trust, American progressives seem to have trust without happiness. In a recent paper called “The Politics of Depression,” published by the journal Social Science & Medicine–Mental Health, the epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and several coauthors showed that young progressives are significantly more depressed than conservatives, have been for years, and the gap is growing over time. Other studies, including the General Social Survey, show the same. Why are young progressives so sad? Today's guest is Greg Lukianoff, the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and coauthor of ‘The Coddling of the American Mind.' He has written intelligently, critically, and emotionally about happiness, depression, politics, and progressivism. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Greg Lukianoff Producer: Devon Baroldi Links: "People in Richer Countries Tend to Be Happier" https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction "The Politics of Depression" by Catherine Gimbrone et al https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560321000438 "How to Understand the Well-Being Gap Between Liberals and Conservatives" by Musa al-Gharbi https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/03/how-to-understand-the-well-being-gap-between-liberals-and-conservatives/ "The Coddling of the American Mind" The Atlantic essay by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ ‘The Coddling of the American Mind' [book] https://www.amazon.com/Coddling-American-Mind-Intentions-Generation/dp/0735224897 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Enjoy the episode? Send us a text!Are you curious about what makes a marriage truly happy? In this video, we dive deep into the key factors that can predict marital happiness and overall life satisfaction. Our expert guest explores extensive research, revealing the surprising elements that contribute to a joyful and fulfilling marriage.

Scripture: Isaiah 55:19 Key Takeaways:   The greatest things we need are found in a relationship with God.    “What causes us to be fickle is the realization that our present pleasures are false, while failing to realize that absent pleasures are also vain.” Blaise Pascal.    The Greatest things we need are completely free.    John 6:35 John 7:37–39   Anything that would lead you away from God, or rise above him, is an enemy to your joy.    “...in the past couple of years, I have noticed a happiness pattern that relates to politics. Namely, the people most in the know tend to be unhappier than those who pay less attention. I subjected this observation to a bit of analysis, and sure enough, the numbers bear it out. I analyzed the 2014 data from the General Social Survey collected by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago to see how attention to politics is associated with life satisfaction. The results were significant. Even after controlling for income, education, age, gender, race, marital status and political views, being “very interested in politics” drove up the likelihood of reporting being “not too happy” about life by about eight percentage points.” Arthur C Brooks. “Depressed by Politics? Just Let it Go,” 2017.     The invitation is to come to God once and daily. 

One of the most telling statistics from the General Social Survey, is that Americans are having less sex now than they did in 1980s and 1990s. Young men especially have become less sexually active. Since 2008, the share of men under 30 reporting no sex at all has nearly tripled. This stat is one of the clearest signs of what has turned into a counterintuitive but reliable pattern. The more “liberated” and “progressive” our culture becomes, the less interested in or capable of finding human partners we become. I say, “human partners,” because the decline of sex and the rise of high-tech sex alternatives have gone hand-in-hand. Online pornography use, for instance, has become ubiquitous. The Institute for Family Studies reported in 2022 that a majority of men ages 30-49 say they've watched pornography in the past month. And given the connection between porn and male sexual dysfunctions, this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. Now, another emerging alternative to real women will likely draw even more men into unreality. British freelance writer Freya India recently highlighted the phenomenon of AI girlfriends, describing an array of new apps like Replika, Intimate, and Dream Girl Builder, which offer men the chance to craft “flawless” digital partners. These apps promise AI-airbrushed pornography. Users customize body type, face shape, and hair color to “create their dream companion,” that will “exceed [their] wildest desires,” and can join them on “hyper-realistic voice calls.” These apps offer not only simulated sex, but also the promise of companionship and emotional attention. As India writes: "Eva AI, for example, not only lets you choose the perfect face and body but customise the perfect personality, offering options like “hot, funny, bold”, “shy, modest, considerate” and “smart, strict, rational”. Create a girlfriend who is judgement-free! Who lets you hang out with your buddies without drama! Who laughs at all your jokes! “Control it all the way you want to,” promises Eva AI. Design a girl who is “always on your side”, says Replika." That last app has been downloaded more than 20 million times, and the industry seems poised to boom, with NBC reporting that “Ads for AI sex workers are flooding Instagram and TikTok.” This isn't an expansion of sexual and romantic freedom or a tool that empowers people to make human connections. Rather, it is a retreat from human connection, a turning away from the very thing for which we are biologically, socially, and emotionally wired. And yet this has always been the end of the road we started on long ago, when we mixed a commitment to hyper-individualism with technology. As Sherry Turkle observed over a decade ago in her book, Alone Together, the process started with living our lives on the internet. Soon we began exploring alternative identities through social media. We crafted these identities and connections to perfection, pruning our “friends lists” to include only those people who pleased us. Before long, we came to prefer these digital relationships on our terms to the messy and often frustrating demands of in-person relationships. Now we have reached the stage at which many would rather cut out humans altogether, opting instead for “drama-free” companions who never have bad days, never grow old, always laugh at our jokes, never ask anything of us, and can be simply “paused” if it suits us. And AI technology is here to fill that demand. What's next? C.S. Lewis was among many science-fiction authors to speculate. In That Hideous Strength, the last book of his Space Trilogy, he describes corrupted inhabitants of the Moon who do not sleep with each other when they marry, but “each lies with a cunningly fashioned image of the other, made to move and to be warm by devilish arts, for real flesh will not please them, they are so dainty … in their dreams of lust.” Perhaps AI girlfriends will eventually become robotic girlfriends, deceiving users into truly giving up on human relationships. But what insanity! We were never made for such nightmares. We were created with bodies for embodied relationships—among them the one-flesh union of marriage, through which God gives children. And at the heart of Christianity is the message that God values our embodied natures so highly that, in Christ, He assumed that nature in order to save us. Our human relationships don't need replacing. They need redemption. As our culture's retreat from humanity reaches new levels of strangeness, the task of the Church may increasingly be to call our neighbors back to being human. Few would have expected Christians to get a reputation for being the “pro-sex people,” but if falling in love with a computer is the alternative, we may be well on our way. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. 

Since the 1970s, the General Social Survey has asked thousands of Americans the same question: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” In the past few decades, our well-being seemed to take a nosedive. According to researchers, the decline of marriage seems to be the single most important explanation. Why is marriage the best predictor of happiness in America? Does marriage turn unhappy people into happy people? Are happier people just more likely to get married? Or is something more complicated happening? We welcome back Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, the director and associate director of Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running study of adult happiness ever conducted and the authors of the book 'The Good Life,' to discuss. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guests: Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz Producer: Devon Manze Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Statistical data from the General Social Survey shows that, contrary to what many think, the overwhelming majority of Americans—a whopping 86%—believe in God at some level. For every American that doesn't believe in God, there are seven who do.  Of course, just because 4 out of 5 Americans think God exists doesn't mean they believe in the same God or, for that matter, in the God that actually exists. What we believe about God is a defining aspect of our lives. As A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”   What we believe about God shapes what we believe about the rest of life, including those ultimate, worldview-shaping questions of origin, identity, meaning, morality, and destiny. And the more a group of people is unmoored from the truth about these things together, the more disconnected they are from those essentials of a healthy and functioning society, such as justice, human dignity, and the care and protection of children. 

On this episode of the Ephesiology Podcast, Michael and Andrew discuss a recent article in Relevant talking about the decline of belief in God. The General Social Survey has been tracking beliefs in the United States for decades. Recent data continues to suggest that increasing numbers of Americans have doubts about God. What will turn … Continue reading "Episode 140: Does God Exist?"

Sponsor: Click here to learn more about Medi-Share, the most trusted name in health care sharing.What do Americans believe about God — and do they pray? Plus, how has that all changed in recent years? Christian Post reporter Leonardo Blair sits down to discuss some of the shocking statistics in a recently released survey.  Blair recently wrote the following:While less than half of adults in the U.S. believe in God without a doubt or attend religious services frequently, the majority, almost 80%, say they still pray, a new study from NORC at the University of Chicago shows.The study is based on the 2022 cross-sectional data for the General Social Survey, a biennial, nationally representative survey that NORC has conducted since 1972 to track “societal change and study the growing complexity of American society,” a release from the University of Chicago said.Listen to the compelling conversation about what the survey results reveal.FOLLOW BILLY ON SOCIAL MEDIA:- Follow Billy on Twitter- Follow Billy on Instagram- Follow Billy on Facebook 

Only half of Americans now say they are sure God exists. That finding, from the closely watched General Social Survey, stands out among several nuggets of new data about religion in America.  Not quite 50 percent of Americans say they have no doubt about the existence of God, according to the 2022 survey, released Wednesday by NORC, the University of Chicago research organization. As recently as 2008, the share of sure-believers topped 60 percent. Thirty-four percent of Americans never go to church, NORC found, the highest figure recorded in five decades of surveys. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

According to the General Social Survey, there has been a dramatic increase in the rise of the religiously non-affiliated in the U.S. since 1972. Who are the Nones? What do they believe? Are they atheists? Agnostics? What does the data from the GSS suggest is happening to the religious practices and affiliations in the U.S. today? This week, we continue our conversation with pastor and assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University Dr. Ryan Burge, whose research with the GSS and the Nones has been covered by The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, Vox, 538, BuzzFeed News,  the Associated Press, Newsweek, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, Christianity Today, Religion News Service, The Daily Mail, Deseret News, World Magazine, Relevant, and C-SPAN. Ryan breaks down the data on the Nones for us and what it might for the present and future of religion in the U.S. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Watchman Fellowship's 4-page Profile on Atheism by Robert M. Bowman: watchman.org/Atheism Watchman Fellowship's 4-page Profile on Agnosticism by W. Russell Crawford: watchman.org/Agnostic Ryan Burge's website and book, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going: http://ryanburge.net/ Dr. Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, where also serves as the graduate coordinator. He has authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters alongside four books about religion and politics in the United States. He written for the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has also appeared in an NBC Documentary, on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, as well as 60 Minutes which called him, “one of the country's leading data analysts on religion and politics.” He has served as a pastor in the American Baptist Church for over twenty years and has been married to his wife Jacqueline for over fifteen years. They have two boys - Holden and Reid.FREE: We are also offering a free subscription to our bimonthly Profiles here: www.watchman.org/FreeSUPPORT: Help us create more content like this. Make a tax-deductible donation here: www.watchman.org/giveApologetics Profile is a ministry of Watchman FellowshipFor more information, visit www.watchman.org© Watchman Fellowship, Inc.

Since 1972, the General Social Survey, or GSS, has influenced and informed our cultural understanding of the religious landscape in the U.S. A multitude of college students, journalists, media outlets, and peer-reviewed articles and papers have cited the data from the GSS. You've probably seen a graph or two in the newspaper or on line somewhere which featured information from the GSS. So what exactly is the survey? How is it conducted? How many people are surveyed? What questions are asked? How accurate is it? How should we interpret its findings? On the next two episodes of the Profile we sit down with pastor and assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, Dr. Ryan Burge, to discuss the GSS and the rise of the non-religiously affiliated. Ryan has become the go-to source for interpreting data from the GSS. Of special interest is a growing classification of Americans with no religious affiliation called "the Nones."  His research has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, Vox, 538, BuzzFeed News, the Associated Press, Newsweek, Al-Jazeera, Reuters, Christianity Today, Religion News Service, The Daily Mail, Deseret News, World Magazine, Relevant, and C-SPAN.ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Watchman Fellowship's 4-page Profile on Atheism by Robert M. Bowman: watchman.org/Atheism Watchman Fellowship's 4-page Profile on Agnosticism by W. Russell Crawford: watchman.org/Agnostic Ryan Burge's website and book, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going: http://ryanburge.net/ Dr. Ryan Burge is an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, where also serves as the graduate coordinator. He has authored over thirty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters alongside four books about religion and politics in the United States. He written for the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has also appeared in an NBC Documentary, on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, as well as 60 Minutes which called him, “one of the country's leading data analysts on religion and politics.” He has served as a pastor in the American Baptist Church for over twenty years and has been married to his wife Jacqueline for over fifteen years. They have two boys - Holden and Reid.FREE: We are also offering a free subscription to our bimonthly Profiles here: www.watchman.org/FreeSUPPORT: Help us create more content like this. Make a tax-deductible donation here: www.watchman.org/give.Apologetics Profile is a ministry of Watchman FellowshipFor more information, visit www.watchman.org© Watchman Fellowship, Inc.

The General Social Survey's findings on Americans' happiness levels are troubling. Only 19% of those polled in 2022 said they were very happy, the lowest percentage since this survey began collecting data in 1972.   So what can we do to feel more joy? One huge factor may involve how and how much time we devote to play. Here to discuss ways we can infuse more fun into parenthood is the author of the new book The Fun Habit, Dr. Mike Rucker.   From being intentional about what we choose to focus on, finding ways to play with and without our children, and breaking down the difference between passive and active leisure, this episode will have you walking feeling a renewed sense of optimism, and a game plan for moving past burnout.     I want to hear from you! Send me a topic you want me to cover or a question you want answered on the show! ✨ DM me on Instagram at @securelyattachedpodcast or @drsarahbren ✨ Send an email to info@drsarahbren.com ✨ And check out drsarahbren.com for more parenting resources 

Diet Culture. Fat acceptance. Both of these systems of belief focus on the same things: subjective, and often extreme, relationships with health and food. Despite their supposed differences, both of these ideologies tend to focus on body image and self-esteem, albeit in very different ways. Ironically enough, and despite the objections from those affiliated, we would argue they also try to address problems surrounding self-improvement. Does either worldview really have a truly positive impact though? The new year has come and gone, ushering in another January spike of Americans attempting to "get in shape" at the local gyms. The International Health Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) reported that, due to New Year Resolutions, gym memberships increase by around 12.1% in January. While this is an incredibly good idea, if it's truly committed to, the data associated seems to paint an unfortunate story. As of 2018, 6.3% of Americans spend an estimated $1.8 billion on gym memberships, only to never use them (via Finder.com). In 2019, Hustle reported that 63% of memberships go completely unused, 82% of members go to the gym less than once per week, and 22% completely stop going after 6 months. Simultaneously, according to data from the General Social Survey in 2020, American "happiness" has ranked at an all-time low, since the survey began in 1972. In arguably the wealthiest time in all of human history, we as Americans seem to be the unhappiest. Why? There must be a correlation, and we think it could do with how we're treating ourselves, which impacts how we treat others. In episode 81, the Wolf and Bull are proud to welcome back Coach Jordan Riding for another discussion relating to health. In this episode, we discuss body image, personal image, the problem with New Year Resolutions, and how it's possible to make a change for a healthier and happier version of yourself. It's a wonderful conversation, and we hope you enjoy it! Coach Jordan Riding is the founder of Steel Body Fitness and the Mind Body Spirit Academy. He's a husband and father and has a Bachelor's degree in Kinesiology with a minor in Psychology. He's an ACE-certified personal trainer and certified nutrition coach by Precision Nutrition. Steel Body Fitnesses "helps save thousands of men and women from a misleading and potentially harmful diet and fitness industry." If you're interested in learning more about Jordan's company, goals, work, and services, you can find him at steelbodyfitnessllc.com. Additionally, you can also find excellent content as well as health and fitness guidance from his Instagram account (@coachjordanriding) as well as his Facebook group. You can also find additional content from Coach Jordan Riding here. Tune in every week for new episodes! If you'd like to support our podcast directly, you can do so here. Any support directly into the creation of future episodes and content. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wolf-and-the-bull-podcast/support

Diet Culture. Fat acceptance. Both of these systems of belief focus on the same things: subjective, and often extreme, relationships with health and food. Despite their supposed differences, both of these ideologies tend to focus on body image and self-esteem, albeit in very different ways. Ironically enough, and despite the objections from those affiliated, we would argue they also try to address problems surrounding self-improvement. Does either worldview really have a truly positive impact though? The new year has come and gone, ushering in another January spike of Americans attempting to "get in shape" at the local gyms. The International Health Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) reported that, due to New Year Resolutions, gym memberships increase by around 12.1% in January. While this is an incredibly good idea, if it's truly committed to, the data associated seems to paint an unfortunate story. As of 2018, 6.3% of Americans spend an estimated $1.8 billion on gym memberships, only to never use them (via Finder.com). In 2019, Hustle reported that 63% of memberships go completely unused, 82% of members go to the gym less than once per week, and 22% completely stop going after 6 months. Simultaneously, according to data from the General Social Survey in 2020, American "happiness" has ranked at an all-time low, since the survey began in 1972. In arguably the wealthiest time in all of human history, we as Americans seem to be the unhappiest. Why? There must be a correlation, and we think it could do with how we're treating ourselves, which impacts how we treat others. In episode 81, the Wolf and Bull are proud to welcome back Coach Jordan Riding for another discussion relating to health. In this episode, we discuss body image, personal image, the problem with New Year Resolutions, and how it's possible to make a change for a healthier and happier version of yourself. It's a wonderful conversation, and we hope you enjoy it! Coach Jordan Riding is the founder of Steel Body Fitness and the Mind Body Spirit Academy. He's a husband and father and has a Bachelor's degree in Kinesiology with a minor in Psychology. He's an ACE-certified personal trainer and certified nutrition coach by Precision Nutrition. Steel Body Fitnesses "helps save thousands of men and women from a misleading and potentially harmful diet and fitness industry." If you're interested in learning more about Jordan's company, goals, work, and services, you can find him at steelbodyfitnessllc.com. Additionally, you can also find excellent content as well as health and fitness guidance from his Instagram account (@coachjordanriding) as well as his Facebook group. You can also find additional content from Coach Jordan Riding here. Tune in every week for new episodes! If you'd like to support our podcast directly, you can do so here. Any support directly into the creation of future episodes and content. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/wolf-and-the-bull-podcast/support

Without conscious intention, women are making society increasingly polygamous. This is a provocative statement, but some of the data bear it out. According to the General Social Survey, one in three men under 30 have not had sex in the previous year -- while only one in six women under 30 have done the same. This creates a ratio of 5 sexually active women to 4 sexually active men in this important age group. Put another way: about 20% of women under 30 are in a polygamous relationship -- whether they're aware of it or not. #dating #polygamy #women

每日英語跟讀 Ep.K402: How abortion became a divisive issue in US politics   The US Supreme Court has ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in the US, upending the landmark Roe v Wade case from nearly 50 years ago in a rare reversal of long-settled law that will fracture reproductive rights in America. 美國最高法院裁定，墮胎權不受美國憲法保障，推翻了近五十年前具里程碑意義的「羅訴韋德案」，這逆轉制定已久法律的罕見之舉，將破壞美國的生殖權利。 Since the US Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, the issue has become one of the defining fault lines in US politics, with Democratic politicians firmly supporting abortion rights and Republican lawmakers lining up in opposition. 自一九七三年美國最高法院對羅訴韋德案的裁決將墮胎在全美合法化以來，墮胎議題已成為美國政治的決定性斷層線之一，民主黨政客堅定支持墮胎權，而共和黨議員則是加入反對的行列。 In 1973 the lines were more blurred. Republican and Democratic voters were equally likely to say abortion should be legal, while it was easy to find Republican officials who supported abortion rights and Democrats who opposed the procedure. So what changed? 在一九七三年，這條分界線是模糊得多的。共和黨及民主黨的選民同樣可能認為墮胎應該合法，也很容易找到支持墮胎權的共和黨官員以及反對墮胎手術的民主黨人。那麼是發生了什麼變化？ NOT A PARTISAN ISSUE AT FIRST Abortion on demand was legal in four states in the early 1970s, while 14 more allowed it under some circumstances. While the Catholic Church opposed abortion, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination, was on record saying it should be allowed in many circumstances. Neither party viewed abortion as a defining issue. Voters also did not see the issue along partisan lines. The General Social Survey opinion poll found in 1977 that 39 percent of Republicans said abortion should be allowed for any reason, compared to 35 percent of Democrats. 起初非關黨派 一九七○年代初期，應要求而墮胎在四個州是合法的，且還有十四州允許在某些情況下墮胎。 雖然天主教會反對墮胎，但最大的福音教派美南浸信會卻公開表示，墮胎在許多情況下都應被允許。 兩黨皆未將墮胎視為決定性的問題。 選民也沒有把此議題看做是黨派路線。一九七七年的美國社會概況調查發現，百分之三十九的共和黨員認為出於任何原因的墮胎皆應被允許，民主黨員持此觀點的比例為百分之三十五。 A CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT MOBILIZES In the years that followed, conservative activists like Phyllis Schlafly seized on the issue as a threat to traditional values and enlisted evangelical churches, which had shown a new interest in politics following a series of court rulings that limited prayer in public settings. These groups portrayed abortion as a threat to the family structure, along with broader social developments like gay rights, rising divorce rates, and women working outside of the home. For pastors and parishioners, abortion became a proxy issue for concerns about a liberalizing society, said Mary Ziegler, a legal historian at University of California-Davis. “For many evangelicals, this was more about family and women and sex,” she said. In 1980, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution opposing abortion, reversing its earlier position. 保守陣營動員起來 在隨後的幾年裡，像菲利斯‧斯拉夫萊這樣的保守派活動家抓住此議題，將之視為對傳統價值觀的威脅，並串聯了福音派教會，這些教會在法院一連串裁決限制在公共場合禱告後，對政治顯出新的興趣。 這些團體將墮胎與同性戀權利、離婚率上升、女性外出工作等更廣泛的社會發展，描述為對家庭結構的威脅。加州大學戴維斯分校法律史學家瑪麗‧齊格勒表示，對於牧師和教區居民來說，墮胎成為一個代罪問題，概括了對社會日益自由化的擔憂。「對於許多福音派人士來說，它實為攸關家庭、女性和性的問題」，她說。一九八○年，美南浸信會通過了一項決議，反對墮胎，一反先前之立場。 POLITICIANS PICK SIDES - VOTERS FOLLOW In the years that followed, the dividing lines became more apparent as political candidates found it increasingly necessary to align with activists who were becoming more influential within their parties. Since 1989, abortion-rights groups have donated US$32 million to Democrats and US$3 million to Republican candidates who support keeping abortion legal, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics. Groups that opposed abortion have given US$14 million to Republicans and only US$372,000 to Democrats over that time period. Partisan differences widened in the following years, however, as the issue became a staple of TV attack ads fundraising appeals and mass rallies by interest groups. Other opinion polls have consistently shown that most Americans support some restrictions on abortion but oppose an outright ban. At the same time, Democrats have grown more absolute in their support for abortion rights. 政治選邊站　選民隨之起舞 在隨後幾年，政治候選人愈發覺得有必要跟在黨內影響力日漸增大的活動家口徑一致，此分界線也隨之變得更加明顯。 根據追蹤政治獻金的組織OpenSecrets的資料，自一九八九年以來，墮胎權利組織已捐贈民主黨三千兩百萬美元，向支持墮胎維持合法的共和黨候選人捐獻了三百萬美元。與此同時，反墮胎團體捐獻了一千四百萬美元給共和黨，而捐給民主黨的金額僅有三十七萬兩千美元。然而，之後幾年墮胎議題成為電視廣告攻擊、募款與利益團體大型集會的主題，黨派分歧也隨之擴大。 其他民調皆顯示，大多數美國人支持對墮胎採取一些限制，但反對徹底禁止。與此同時，民主黨員對墮胎權的支持變得更加絕對。Source article: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/lang/archives/2022/07/05/2003781133

Lyman Stone of the Institute for Family Studies After COVID: Unhappiness Is Worse Among Single and Non-Religious Americans

Join America's Roundtable co-hosts Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy for an in-depth conversation with former U.S. Congressman David Brat, the brilliant economist, dean of the Business School at Liberty University, and executive advisory board member of International Leaders Summit — focusing on America's economy and the future of public policy in the United States. The conversation will also highlight a new Wall Street Journal-NORC Poll which shows that Americans are deeply pessimistic about the U.S. economy and view the nation as sharply divided over its most important values. According to The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-political-division-put-u-s-in-a-pessimistic-mood-poll-finds-11654507800), "Some 83% of respondents described the state of the economy as poor or not so good. More than one-third, or 35%, said they aren't satisfied at all with their financial situation. That was the highest level of dissatisfaction since NORC began asking the question every few years starting in 1972 as part of the General Social Survey." The discussion will also bring to the forefront the Biden administration's efforts to loosen up federal patent rules, thus opening the door for high-tech companies backed by the Chinese government to raid American inventions in the highly coveted 5G space. According to The Washington Examiner, "...three GOP senators are also warning that in watering down intellectual property protections, the administration could be jeopardizing national security at a time when China and other potential foes are outspending the United States on 21st-century technology by a mile.” This weekend's program will also review the concerns being raised by American citizens and legislators about the Biden Administration's foreign policy follies and the US entering a quagmire in Europe with $40 billion of taxpayer funds designated for Ukraine, while wealthy European nations still remain hesitant about paying their fair share for defense on the continent. Bio: David Brat, Ph.D. in Economics Before coming to Liberty, Dr. David Brat served in the United States Congress for Virginia's 7th District. He served on the Budget, Education and Small Business Committees, and Chaired the subcommittee on Economic Growth, Tax and Capital Access. His knowledge base comes from years of experience in business, as an economic consultant with Arthur Andersen and the World Bank and 20+ years of work in higher education teaching economics and ethics. He worked with the Senate side of the Virginia General Assembly for seven years. He also served as the president of the Virginia Association of Economists and was a member of the Virginia Board of Accountancy. He serves on the executive advisory board of the International Leaders Summit. https://ileaderssummit.org/services/americas-roundtable-radio/ https://ileaderssummit.org/ | https://jerusalemleaderssummit.com/ America's Roundtable on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/americas-roundtable/id1518878472 Twitter: @DaveBratVA7th @ileaderssummit @NatashaSrdoc @JoelAnandUSA America's Roundtable is co-hosted by Natasha Srdoc and Joel Anand Samy, co-founders of International Leaders Summit and the Jerusalem Leaders Summit. America's Roundtable radio program - a strategic initiative of International Leaders Summit, focuses on America's economy, healthcare reform, rule of law, security and trade, and its strategic partnership with rule of law nations around the world. The radio program features high-ranking US administration officials, cabinet members, members of Congress, state government officials, distinguished diplomats, business and media leaders and influential thinkers from around the world. America's Roundtable is aired by Lanser Broadcasting Corporation on 96.5 FM and 98.9 FM, covering Michigan's major market, SuperTalk Mississippi Media's 12 radio stations and 50 affiliates reaching every county in Mississippi and also heard in parts of the neighboring states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, and through podcast on Apple Podcasts and other key online platforms.

Hi, this is Garrison Hardie subbing in for The Chocolate Knox, for your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief, for Thursday, May 5th, 2022… Happy Cinco De mayo by the way! I wanted to touch on the fact that the last stop of our CrossPolitic Liberty Tour is only 15 days away! We’ll be joined in Phoenix Arizona by Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, as well as Political analyst Delano Squires. Tickets are only $20, so sign up now at crosspolitic.com/libertytour. Last night, Comedian Dave Chappelle was wrapping up his set at a show in LA, when a violent thug bum rushed the stage and tackled Dave Chappelle… https://youtu.be/yy5dQb_2X9I Play 0:20-1:06 -Dave Chappelle https://youtu.be/3xXczgEyp5M -Play whole clip - Was that Will Smith? The thug was identified by LAPD as 23-year old Isaiah Lee. Lee was also carrying a knife that looked like a gun… The last report I saw suggested that Lee was being held on $30,000 bond, and is booked on an assault with a deadly weapon charge. You know, Chris Rock is on to something… When Will Smith walked up on-stage at the Oscars, and physically assaulted Chris Rock, there were no immediate consequences. Will Smith was allowed to remain at the Oscars for the remainder of the show, and then, was even able to receive his oscar to a standing ovation… so this kid, likely viewed that action and thought, what consequences? Well now we know… But this just seems to be a tactic of leftists in this day and age. Hear a joke, or opinion you don’t like? Well, go ahead and respond with violence. And hey, if you want to be ready to fight like a Christian, then you need a copy of our Fight Laugh Feast magazine! Our Fight Laugh Feast Magazine is a quarterly issue that packs a punch like a 21 year Balvenie, no ice. We don’t water down our scotch, why would we water down our theology? Order a yearly subscription for yourself and then send a couple yearly subscriptions to your friends who have been drinking luke-warm evangelical cool-aid. Every quarter we promise quality food for the soul, wine for the heart, and some Red Bull for turning over tables. Our magazine will include cultural commentary, a Psalm of the quarter, recipes for feasting, laughter sprinkled through out the glossy pages, and more. Sign up for your annual subscription at: https://flfnetwork.com/product/fight-laugh-feast-magazine/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-maga-crowd-most-extreme-political-organization Biden says 'MAGA crowd' is 'most extreme political organization that's existed' in recent American history Well, at least our president is trying to bring our country back together… President Biden on Wednesday, reacting to the leaked draft opinion signaling the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, slammed Republicans, saying the controversy is "about a lot more than abortion," and warning that the "MAGA crowd" is "the most extreme political organization that’s existed in recent American history." Following remarks from the White House announcing that his administration is "on track" to cut the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion by the end of the fiscal year, the president was asked about the leaked draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito, which indicates the high court’s plans to strike down Roe v. Wade, which would leave decisions on abortion restrictions for the states to decide. As you guys know, a draft Supreme Court opinion on a case that addresses the precedence of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey was obtained and made public by Politico in an unprecedented and stunning leak from the high court late Monday. But Biden on Tuesday declared he is "not prepared" to leave the issue of privacy to "the whims" of the public in "local areas," warning that a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was a "radical decision" that would jeopardize "a whole range of rights." Now Gabe in his news brief yesterday made the connection that this leak was likely meant to energize the democratic voter base… and boy did they respond… this following clip is from Louder with Crowder. https://youtu.be/rfVt5rcboig -Play 26:09-27:18 Demonic banshies about sums it up… Our very own Chocolate Knox tweeted out a few days ago, that “Observing the last day of events it's been clear to me why government education is essential to the plan of liberals. Having a general public that cannot define words or follow a logical argument is the only way the left wins. Definitions and logic betray their rhetoric.” Well said Knox, well said. We need to take back the responsibility of educating our kids… and you know who can help you do that? Classical Conversations. Classical Conversations supports homeschooling parents by cultivating the love of learning through a Christian worldview in fellowship with other families. We provide a classical Christ-centered curriculum, local like-minded communities across the United States and in several countries, and we train parents who are striving to be great classical educators in the home. For more information and to get connected, please visit our website at ClassicalConversations.com. Classical. Christian. Get Connected. Get Community at classicalconversations.com/ https://www.fox9.com/news/judge-accepts-derek-chauvin-plea-deal-in-federal-civil-rights-case Judge accepts Derek Chauvin plea deal in federal civil rights case The judge overseeing the federal civil rights cases of four former Minneapolis police officers in the killing of George Floyd said Wednesday that he has accepted the terms of Derek Chauvin’s plea agreement and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison. Chauvin pleaded guilty Dec. 15 to violating Floyd’s civil rights, admitting for the first time that he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck — even after he became unresponsive — resulting in the Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. The former officer admitted he willfully deprived Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, including unreasonable force by a police officer. Under the plea agreement, which Chauvin signed, both sides agreed Chauvin should face a sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years, with prosecutors saying they would seek 25. He could have faced life in prison on the federal count. With credit for good time in the federal system, he would serve from 17 years to 21 years and three months behind bars. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson deferred accepting the agreement pending the completion of a presentence investigation. He said in a one-page order Wednesday that the report had been issued, so it was now appropriate to accept the deal. He has not set a sentencing date for Chauvin. Chauvin is already serving a 22 1/2 year sentence for his murder conviction in state court last year, though he is appealing that conviction. He would serve the federal sentence concurrently with the state sentence. https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/ammo-shortage-2022/ The Great Ammo Shortage Of 2022 Isn’t Over The Great Ammo Shortage of 2022 just won’t go away. You might struggle to find ammunition for your pistol, rifle, or shotgun this year. Reasons for the shortage range wide, from supply bottlenecks to a copper shortage and the war in Ukraine. The best solution might be to make your own bullets. People are buying more guns, and there are a lot of new gun owners. In 2020, 20 percent of American gun purchasers had never before bought a firearm. Thirty-nine percent of people recently polled in the United States own at least one pistol, rifle, or shotgun, according to the General Social Survey, and FBI background checks tracked a 41 percent increase in gun ownership from 2019 to 2020. That adds up to 8.4 million new owners. These gun owners need ammunition. So, the demand side of the equation is easy to see. Supply of ammunition is also a concern. People stocked up on rounds during the Covid-19 pandemic amid panic about the dwindling supply. Imports of ammunition fell 34 percent during the worst days of quarantine in 2020. There were periods during the pandemic when gun and ammo production stopped. Gun owners sensed these shortages and snapped up firearms and ammunition. There was also a lull in supply when ammunition-maker Remington went bankrupt. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2018, and again in 2020. It was hard for Remington to produce enough bullets to keep up with demand until it got its affairs in order and sold itself to Vista Outdoors. Much less publicized, there is a global shortage of copper, a key input in the production of ammunition. Ammo makers have to compete for the copper supply with electric vehicle manufacturers and the U.S. Mint, among others. 30-30 Winchester rounds can be hard to find for owners of lever-action “Old West” rifles. You might be paying over one dollar per round – maybe even two dollars. There are slim pickings of the .308 Winchester that deer hunters favor. Maddox says it is better to buy .40 Smith & Wesson pistol ammo online, because it is in spare supply at gun shops. AR-15 owners are struggling to find .223 and 5.56mm NATO for their assault weapons. And of course, 9mm pistol rounds fly off the shelves. Thanks for tuning into this CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. If you liked the show, share it, as that’s like currency for us. If you want to come out to our conference in Knoxville TN, sign up today for that early bird pricing, at flfnetwork.com/knoxville2022, and as always, if you want to partner with CrossPolitic, let’s talk. Email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News, I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great Cinco De Mayo, or revenge of the fifth, and Lord bless.

Hi, this is Garrison Hardie subbing in for The Chocolate Knox, for your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief, for Thursday, May 5th, 2022… Happy Cinco De mayo by the way! I wanted to touch on the fact that the last stop of our CrossPolitic Liberty Tour is only 15 days away! We’ll be joined in Phoenix Arizona by Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, as well as Political analyst Delano Squires. Tickets are only $20, so sign up now at crosspolitic.com/libertytour. Last night, Comedian Dave Chappelle was wrapping up his set at a show in LA, when a violent thug bum rushed the stage and tackled Dave Chappelle… https://youtu.be/yy5dQb_2X9I Play 0:20-1:06 -Dave Chappelle https://youtu.be/3xXczgEyp5M -Play whole clip - Was that Will Smith? The thug was identified by LAPD as 23-year old Isaiah Lee. Lee was also carrying a knife that looked like a gun… The last report I saw suggested that Lee was being held on $30,000 bond, and is booked on an assault with a deadly weapon charge. You know, Chris Rock is on to something… When Will Smith walked up on-stage at the Oscars, and physically assaulted Chris Rock, there were no immediate consequences. Will Smith was allowed to remain at the Oscars for the remainder of the show, and then, was even able to receive his oscar to a standing ovation… so this kid, likely viewed that action and thought, what consequences? Well now we know… But this just seems to be a tactic of leftists in this day and age. Hear a joke, or opinion you don’t like? Well, go ahead and respond with violence. And hey, if you want to be ready to fight like a Christian, then you need a copy of our Fight Laugh Feast magazine! Our Fight Laugh Feast Magazine is a quarterly issue that packs a punch like a 21 year Balvenie, no ice. We don’t water down our scotch, why would we water down our theology? Order a yearly subscription for yourself and then send a couple yearly subscriptions to your friends who have been drinking luke-warm evangelical cool-aid. Every quarter we promise quality food for the soul, wine for the heart, and some Red Bull for turning over tables. Our magazine will include cultural commentary, a Psalm of the quarter, recipes for feasting, laughter sprinkled through out the glossy pages, and more. Sign up for your annual subscription at: https://flfnetwork.com/product/fight-laugh-feast-magazine/ https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-maga-crowd-most-extreme-political-organization Biden says 'MAGA crowd' is 'most extreme political organization that's existed' in recent American history Well, at least our president is trying to bring our country back together… President Biden on Wednesday, reacting to the leaked draft opinion signaling the Supreme Court’s intent to overturn Roe v. Wade, slammed Republicans, saying the controversy is "about a lot more than abortion," and warning that the "MAGA crowd" is "the most extreme political organization that’s existed in recent American history." Following remarks from the White House announcing that his administration is "on track" to cut the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion by the end of the fiscal year, the president was asked about the leaked draft opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito, which indicates the high court’s plans to strike down Roe v. Wade, which would leave decisions on abortion restrictions for the states to decide. As you guys know, a draft Supreme Court opinion on a case that addresses the precedence of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey was obtained and made public by Politico in an unprecedented and stunning leak from the high court late Monday. But Biden on Tuesday declared he is "not prepared" to leave the issue of privacy to "the whims" of the public in "local areas," warning that a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was a "radical decision" that would jeopardize "a whole range of rights." Now Gabe in his news brief yesterday made the connection that this leak was likely meant to energize the democratic voter base… and boy did they respond… this following clip is from Louder with Crowder. https://youtu.be/rfVt5rcboig -Play 26:09-27:18 Demonic banshies about sums it up… Our very own Chocolate Knox tweeted out a few days ago, that “Observing the last day of events it's been clear to me why government education is essential to the plan of liberals. Having a general public that cannot define words or follow a logical argument is the only way the left wins. Definitions and logic betray their rhetoric.” Well said Knox, well said. We need to take back the responsibility of educating our kids… and you know who can help you do that? Classical Conversations. Classical Conversations supports homeschooling parents by cultivating the love of learning through a Christian worldview in fellowship with other families. We provide a classical Christ-centered curriculum, local like-minded communities across the United States and in several countries, and we train parents who are striving to be great classical educators in the home. For more information and to get connected, please visit our website at ClassicalConversations.com. Classical. Christian. Get Connected. Get Community at classicalconversations.com/ https://www.fox9.com/news/judge-accepts-derek-chauvin-plea-deal-in-federal-civil-rights-case Judge accepts Derek Chauvin plea deal in federal civil rights case The judge overseeing the federal civil rights cases of four former Minneapolis police officers in the killing of George Floyd said Wednesday that he has accepted the terms of Derek Chauvin’s plea agreement and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison. Chauvin pleaded guilty Dec. 15 to violating Floyd’s civil rights, admitting for the first time that he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck — even after he became unresponsive — resulting in the Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. The former officer admitted he willfully deprived Floyd of his right to be free from unreasonable seizure, including unreasonable force by a police officer. Under the plea agreement, which Chauvin signed, both sides agreed Chauvin should face a sentence ranging from 20 to 25 years, with prosecutors saying they would seek 25. He could have faced life in prison on the federal count. With credit for good time in the federal system, he would serve from 17 years to 21 years and three months behind bars. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson deferred accepting the agreement pending the completion of a presentence investigation. He said in a one-page order Wednesday that the report had been issued, so it was now appropriate to accept the deal. He has not set a sentencing date for Chauvin. Chauvin is already serving a 22 1/2 year sentence for his murder conviction in state court last year, though he is appealing that conviction. He would serve the federal sentence concurrently with the state sentence. https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/05/ammo-shortage-2022/ The Great Ammo Shortage Of 2022 Isn’t Over The Great Ammo Shortage of 2022 just won’t go away. You might struggle to find ammunition for your pistol, rifle, or shotgun this year. Reasons for the shortage range wide, from supply bottlenecks to a copper shortage and the war in Ukraine. The best solution might be to make your own bullets. People are buying more guns, and there are a lot of new gun owners. In 2020, 20 percent of American gun purchasers had never before bought a firearm. Thirty-nine percent of people recently polled in the United States own at least one pistol, rifle, or shotgun, according to the General Social Survey, and FBI background checks tracked a 41 percent increase in gun ownership from 2019 to 2020. That adds up to 8.4 million new owners. These gun owners need ammunition. So, the demand side of the equation is easy to see. Supply of ammunition is also a concern. People stocked up on rounds during the Covid-19 pandemic amid panic about the dwindling supply. Imports of ammunition fell 34 percent during the worst days of quarantine in 2020. There were periods during the pandemic when gun and ammo production stopped. Gun owners sensed these shortages and snapped up firearms and ammunition. There was also a lull in supply when ammunition-maker Remington went bankrupt. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2018, and again in 2020. It was hard for Remington to produce enough bullets to keep up with demand until it got its affairs in order and sold itself to Vista Outdoors. Much less publicized, there is a global shortage of copper, a key input in the production of ammunition. Ammo makers have to compete for the copper supply with electric vehicle manufacturers and the U.S. Mint, among others. 30-30 Winchester rounds can be hard to find for owners of lever-action “Old West” rifles. You might be paying over one dollar per round – maybe even two dollars. There are slim pickings of the .308 Winchester that deer hunters favor. Maddox says it is better to buy .40 Smith & Wesson pistol ammo online, because it is in spare supply at gun shops. AR-15 owners are struggling to find .223 and 5.56mm NATO for their assault weapons. And of course, 9mm pistol rounds fly off the shelves. Thanks for tuning into this CrossPolitic Daily News Brief. If you liked the show, share it, as that’s like currency for us. If you want to come out to our conference in Knoxville TN, sign up today for that early bird pricing, at flfnetwork.com/knoxville2022, and as always, if you want to partner with CrossPolitic, let’s talk. Email me, at garrison@fightlaughfeast.com. For CrossPolitic News, I’m Garrison Hardie. Have a great Cinco De Mayo, or revenge of the fifth, and Lord bless.

Mike gets into the intense spiritual battle we're in, a recent survey on youth in the church, and the 5 Non-Negotiables for finding freedom from porn addiction. Episode Transcript ANNOUNCER: This radio program is PG-13. Parents strongly cautioned - some material may be inappropriate for children under the age of 13. Jesus's mission was to comfort those who mourn, bind up the broken hearted, proclaim liberty to captives, and open prison doors for those who are bound. For those who want more than status quo Christianity has to offer, Blazing Grace Radio begins now. And here is your host, Mike Genung. MIKE GENUNG, HOST, BLAZING GRACE RADIO: Hey, Mike Genung here, and welcome back to Blazing Grace Radio. Glad to have you along. For those of you who might be listening in for the first time and wondering who is Blazing Grace? We are a Ministry to persons who struggle with porn addiction, sex addiction, adultery... and we put equal emphasis on the wife's recovery. So we minister to men, women, teens, youth. We have people who come to us for help at every age, from age ten all the way up to age 80. So sex and porn addiction in the Church have reached every age group. So we help everyone. We do counseling for teens... Usually what happens is a couple comes to us for help, and probably the average age of a couple coming to us for help is in their forties, fifties, sometimes sixties. They can get up there in their seventies, too, because normally what happens is a guy doesn't tell his wife about his porn problem until he's well into his marriage, even into his forties. Later their marriage blows up and then they start looking for help. Maybe he doesn't want to get help for a while, and then the marriage gets worse. So then eventually they come to us, and then when we have marriages coming to us in crisis, basically - which I love, because I love being on the front lines and fighting for God's people and seeing change and growth and restoration. So one brief announcement. Here in Chandler, Arizona, we have a Men's Group, a Blazing Grace Men's Group, going. They meet Monday nights at 6:30. Gene and Bo lead that group, and they've been on the show several times, Bo was on it several weeks ago. This is a man's group for men who want to recover from porn addiction, adultery, sex addiction. Now we have a new Wives' Group, Blazing Grace Wives Group. It's actually led by Jean's wife at a separate location. This is for wives whose husbands struggle with porn addiction. They meet at a separate location, also Monday nights at 6:30. So if you're interested in participating, getting help in one of those groups, then send us an email or contact us, go to blazinggrace.org and we'll hook you up with them. Also for those of you outside of Arizona - or outside of Phoenix, I should say - we have our phone groups, prayer groups - by phone, by Zoom - prayer groups for free. So feel free to participate, especially in the prayer groups, because every single believer should be participating in a prayer group these days, especially in the dark times that we're in. And wow, spiritual warfare. Being on a front-line Ministry like this, I get my share of spiritual warfare, and the last 24 hours have been up there. Last night - or yesterday - I was talking to a woman on the phone who I'll be interviewing next week, and I started talking to her. A minute into the call all of a sudden the phones went down, called her back, phone disconnected again. Then I told her after the second time, "Wow, somebody really doesn't want me or wants this phone call to happen". I slept horrible last night. One of those nights you don't sleep well and some praying off and on. And then this morning I go into the office and just like chaos. Not from our team in the office, but just from things going outside the office that was coming at us. So it was chaos and stress leading up to the moment that I left to drive here to the studio. So it's game on. It's been game on for decades, actually, with the spiritual battle against the Church. And we are a Church at war. So the question always has to be, "Are we acting like a Church at war? Are we acting like a Church that is in a country that has lost significant ground and the Enemy is taking more ground day-by-day? Are we equipping people to be overcomers? Are we talking openly about the issues that people are struggling with?" And that's one of the things we endeavor to do at this show, is open up wide the issues and the areas where people are struggling with, and in bondage to. So today, I've already started to touch on spiritual warfare, and a big key to that is prayer. And I texted a buddy of mine and said, hey, "I'm taping today, would you pray for me?" And prayer is a big deal. But also knowing who you are in Christ. I am God's Son, and so we are his beloved Sons and Daughters. You have to understand and believe in your identity in Christ. Prayer is big. Identity in Christ is big. And sometimes perseverance is a big deal. So some of these spiritual battles... aren't always over in just a minute after you say a prayer. Sometimes they can go on hours, or even a day or so, and then just on and off. That's because that can be because there's something God wants to do. The Enemy sees what's coming down the pike, and he wants to do everything he can to throw you off. So perseverance, sometimes you just got to stand there and let the storm blow by. You keep going. You keep fighting and you keep resisting. Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Each of you who are a believer in Jesus Christ, you have the Holy Spirit of the living God in you. You have more power than you realize. Prayer is your most powerful weapon. Right there alongside that is the word of God, knowing the truth, knowing the truth of what he says in scripture is about you, and about the spiritual battle, and then what our role is to be as believers. It's not to be comfortable Christians sitting on the sidelines, who go into Church Sunday morning, take in the show or the performance, and then go home, and then nothing changes, and we continue to lose ground. That is not equipping people and challenging people for the battle ahead. So today I'll be talking about three areas, three key areas that I believe that if we as a Church were to delve into, we would have an enormous impact. The first one is spiritual warfare, like I just mentioned. I know that's not a positive or encouraging topic, but believe me, your home is not safe from spiritual attack or the Enemy coming against your kids and flipping them, getting them exposed to pornography, or whatever it is. So you have to realize our homes are not spiritual safe zones all the time. They can be with prayer, and we pray a lot at home, but there's still times when the Enemy gets in and he messes with and causes strife. We have to realize our homes, our churches and our families are in an intense spiritual battle. So I'm talking about spiritual warfare, youth and sex. Those are the three areas we really need to be punching in on these days. Let me hit all three today. So I have in front of me a survey from the General Social Survey that was posted recently, actually in 2021. They have a survey of the religious affiliation of youth, 18-35 year olds - millenials. And in 1980, 80% identified as Christians, 18-35 year olds. Think about that. That's a pretty high number. Fast forward to 2021, and the number dropped like a lead balloon to 48%. That's a huge chunk gone of youth that no longer identify as Christians. At the same time, in 1988, those who had no affiliation with any kind of religion, they were at 7%. Today, the none's are at 45%. So we are losing our youth, and I've had guests on who have spoken to that. They see that 80% of our youth are walking away from the Church by their early 20s for various reasons. My question is, "Why aren't we talking about this from the pulpit on Sunday morning?" We should be warning parents, "Hey, 80%! That means if you got four kids, like I do, you got a high probability that, unless significant things change, three of your kids might walk away from God by the time they're in their early 20s!" Why aren't we talking about this openly Sunday morning? Man, we should be, like, pulling out all stops, and we should be talking about this Sunday morning and saying, Parents, you cannot play games with your walk with God. Your kids are watching you. They're watching your relationship with the Lord, your prayer life. And Dads, if you're viewing pornography, which - stats show that two thirds of Christian men are viewing porn - that's not exactly going to be a good example for youth either. They can smell a phony. Our kids are pretty sharp. We have to start talking about this opening from the pulpit that we have lost. We are losing, and have lost, wide segments of our youth in the Church, and the video monitors, and the other things... We're not equipping them and sticking into their lives in the areas they're struggling with and getting wiped out with. So spiritual warfare is intense with teenagers. The Enemy is trying to take them out before they even hit their 20s. Suicide is the number two cause of death with teens today. The number one cause of death with our youth is accidental death, like a car accident or something like that. So where does suicide come from? That's from losing hope that's buying into a lie, that there is no hope. We've got to start fighting for our youth and quit hiding from this stuff. I mean, yeah, okay, we're in the middle of our Bible study, our verse five study of first Corinthians, blah, blah. That's not that that's a bad thing, but how much longer are we going to watch the youth exit out the back door while we do nothing? I've talked openly that we've been looking for a Church here locally, and I have not heard this mentioned from a single Church, from the pulpit, once. Not only in Arizona but also in Colorado where we lived. Why is it we're not talking about the reality of what's going on here and that we need to have some significant changes? Most importantly, we got to be on our knees praying, and I'm going to keep screaming from the rafters that we need to become houses of prayer. Prayer is our most powerful weapon. The early Church began with seven days of prayer, and after seven days of prayer, Peter did his first message - which you can read in minutes - and 3000 people came to Christ. But our churches, most of them are not houses of prayer. I mean, I'm talking about like 95%. I can't even find a Church that spends time in prayer here locally. That's not the way it should be when we're given the model of a Church that's devoted to fellowship, prayer, and the Word. We do one out of three, we do the Word, and we do the worship band. Prayer is critical right now. We need to be praying and tearing down the heavens for our youth, for those who are in bondage to sin. We've got to be equipping our youth in these areas. We've got to be speaking them to them openly about the sexual issues that many are getting in bondage to. I can say this because we're having more and more teens coming to us for help who are addicted to pornography. When was the last time you had anybody from the pulpit talk about youth being addicted to porn? Let alone adults addicted to porn? Which... those numbers are up at the two thirds of men viewing porn numbers. But sexting is blowing up. And yes, Mom and Dad, that's your sweet little Jimmy and your sweet little Karen. We got to start opening this stuff up. We got to stop backing down from it. We got to start talking openly that something is going wrong here, and we're not ministering to people where they're struggling. So for the rest of this show, I'm talking about sex and pornography, as you've heard me, in the context of the Five Non-Negotiables that a man must do if he wants freedom from pornography. So there's no negotiating with these things. If you're in bondage to porn, you've got to do them. There's a lot more to this than just, "Hey, show me not how to look at pictures". So first off, James 5:16, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power, as it is working". You must meet with another man or group for the purpose of accountability, support, encouragement and prayer once a week, every week, for the rest of your life. That doesn't mean you have to go to a support group for the rest of your life, but isolation must be rooted out from your life. Most Christians - I'm talking 80% plus - are isolated, which is why there's such an epidemic of pornography in the Church. When COVID hit in 2020 and everybody was forced into isolation and lockdowns, our requests for help just shot right through the roof, which shows us the problems we have with dealing with being alone in silence and isolation, and what our true coping mechanisms are. You have to be connected with another brother once a week, and this goes just as much for women. Ladies, you got to be connected with another sister, too. We have to remove isolation from the Church. Acts 2:42, "They were devoted to fellowship". We're not devoted to fellowship... A performance-driven service is not enough. So what that means is we break people up into small groups of two or three. We have them share, we have them pray for each other, and you would make an enormous impact on believers today. Next, the second of the Five Non-Negotiables. You must make and execute an action plan to remove all the stumbling blocks of temptation that are under your control. In Matthew 5 we're taught, "If your right hand caused you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better that you lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell". Jesus is talking to everyone. He's talking to believers. He's talking to everyone. So you can't just say, "Well, that's just for non-believers". No, he's talking to everyone. Some people have this attitude like, "Well, God, would you take it away from me?" Meanwhile, guys are binging on their phone every day, or whatever it is, once a week... No, he puts the responsibility on cutting off the summing blocks in our hands. This is a principle that goes across the board. Whether it's struggling with porn, or lust, or masturbation, or pride, or arrogance, or overeating, or drugs, or alcohol, or whatever it is, we are responsible for cutting off the stumbling blocks of sin under our control. So if you have Netflix or something at home and it's a stumbling block, turn it off. Or Apple TV, or whatever it is. Put an app on your phone that has the function that will send an accountability report to your wife, or a buddy, or both. From where I sit, the porn-blocking feature is okay, but I have never heard of a guy who could not get around the porn-blocking feature when he wanted to. It's like a challenge, and it really doesn't take much. I'm not going to give you any hints here, so you must cut off the stumbling blocks under your control. No more playing games with sin. That doesn't mean we don't grapple with it. That doesn't mean we're going to live a perfect life. That's not happening this side of eternity. But we have to start going after the areas that are taking us down. Then, on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis, husbands: make and keep an appointment with your wife where she can ask you any questions she wants. This has several purposes. One, for accountability in the marriage, but also to rebuild trust, because trust is rebuilt by our actions. The big mistake a lot of guys make is they don't want to tell their wives anything, and then she starts battling with fear and insecurity so that flares her up. So when you do this where you meet together once every one to two weeks, that resolves that issue, but also it relieves the pressure of her to want to keep asking, "Hey, how are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing?" So when you have a weekly or a bi-weekly appointment, you're rebuilding trust in your marriage, but you're also taking up humility because it takes humility to answer those questions. When she looks you in the eye and says, "Hey, how are you doing with porn and masturbation?" And you know you have to answer those questions. It will help you because the next time you're tempted, you will think long and hard about, "Man, I'm going to have to tell her next week, I don't really want to do that". You see what I'm saying here? It's going to make you think twice before you go jumping off the cliff. It rebuilds trust, which is a big deal. Trust is the cornerstone of every relationship. It is the cornerstone of marriage. If you don't have trust, you don't have a relationship. So this is a critical piece. When she asks those questions, do not get defensive, and whatever you do, do not lie, which is the Fourth Non-Negotiable, which is: all lying and hiding must stop. So no matter what your wife asked you from this day forward, do not lie. If she looks at you and says, "Hey, did you masturbate yesterday?" and you did, do not lie. I've heard a lot of wives say that the lying hurts them more than what the husband did. A lot of guys are blind to this fact, but this goes back to trust being the cornerstone of marriage and of every relationship: do not lie. Own up to it. That way, then you can both move forward. But the thing is, our wives just look at us and they know when we're lying. I mean, they got that 6th sense thing going. Every once in a while my wife will look at me, "Are you okay?" and I'm having had a bad day or whatever. "No no no, I'm fine". It's not that I did porn or anything, but I just had a rough day. I didn't want to talk about it. She gives me that look that looked like, "You're full of it". And I'm like, "All right, no, I'm not okay. I didn't have the best day. I just don't want to talk about it". But when it comes to asking those questions about how you're doing with lust, do not lie. You will keep your marriage broken and torn apart if you lie. That has to be removed; no matter what she asked, do not lie. Leviticus, 19:11. Simple. One of the Ten Commandments: do not lie. And then the Fifth Non-Negotiable is: you must work to resolve the heart issues that are driving your sex addiction, or your porn addiction, or whatever it is. Because this is not as simple as having a little bit of accountability and going to a group. There are always core root issues from the heart that drive sexual sin and pornography, and what those are usually is lies. I don't care who I'm working with - man, woman - after I spent time with them, there's always a package of somewhere between eight and ten lies that get exposed that we ended up praying through breaking and renouncing. Those lies are what drive the sexual sin, and until those lies are broken, until that bondage is broken, then the chances are sky high that you will stay in bondage to this stuff. A lot of guys, let's face it, a lot of us came from fathers who were not emotionally engaged, or involved, or knew how to be. Most men grew up in homes - and I'm talking Christian homes, too - where dad was just checked out. He just did his job, did his thing, came home, went to bed, and that's about all we got from them. In extreme cases, there was physical abuse or beatings. So you have to be willing to go there and face your heart, and face the heart wounds, and face the things that are taking you down. That's where the healing comes from, and that's where the light and the sunshine begins to shine in from the Holy spirit, the love, and the joy, and the peace come from, and the hope come from both for you and your wife. So hey, if you're hurting and you want help, don't mess around. Contact us, participate in one of our groups. Eight week course for men, ten week course for wives. There's my books and I want to challenge you, keep challenging you. Work with us and let's set up a conference to make a difference. Thanks and we'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: Blazing Grace is a nonprofit international Ministry for the sexually broken and the spouse. Please visit us at blazinggrace.org for information on Mike Genung's books, groups, counseling or to have Mike speak at your organization. You can email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call our office in Chandler, Arizona at (719) 888-5144 again, visit us at blazinggrace.org, email us at email@blazinggrace.org or call the office at (719) 888-5144.

Dans cet épisode, nous aborderons la question de la transformation et de la fracturation du monde évangélique nord-américain. Des changements importants sont en train de s'opérer du point de vue religieux, ce que certains comparent aux repositionnements des mouvements puritains, revivalistes et fondamentalistes au tournant du 20e siècle aux É-U. Au regard de l'article « https://mereorthodoxy.com/six-way-fracturing-evangelicalism/ (The Six Way Fracturing of Evangelicalism »), le milieu évangélique nord-américain subit un remaniement qui est ici divisé en six sous-mouvements : les néo-fondamentalistes (1), les évangéliques mainstream (2), néo-évangéliques (3), les post-évangéliques (4) et les dechurched (sortis de l'église) avec un peu de Jésus (5), et les déconvertis (6). Il semble qu'il y ait de plus en plus de difficultés pour ces groupes à communiquer entre eux. D'autre part, d'un point de vue individuel, le General Social Survey canadien de 2019 tend à pointer vers ce qu'on pourrait appeler un dé-dénominationnisme croissant : les individus tendent à s'identifier au milieu évangélique sans toutefois y participer régulièrement. Qu'est-ce que ces tendances à la fracturation et à l'affiliation sans engagement annoncent pour l'Église québécoise ? Les frontières entre dénominations sont-elles toujours aussi imperméables qu'elles l'étaient à une certaine époque ? Si oui, autour de quels enjeux ces frontières se forment-elles ? De quelle manière pouvons-nous contribuer en tant que tribu particulière à l'unité dans l'Esprit ?

Dans cet épisode, nous aborderons la question de la transformation et de la fracturation du monde évangélique nord-américain. Des changements importants sont en train de s'opérer du point de vue religieux, ce que certains comparent aux repositionnements des mouvements puritains, revivalistes et fondamentalistes au tournant du 20e siècle aux É-U. Au regard de l'article “https://mereorthodoxy.com/six-way-fracturing-evangelicalism/ (The Six Way Fracturing of Evangelicalism)”, le milieu évangélique nord-américain subit un remaniement qui est ici divisé en six sous-mouvements: les néo-fondamentalistes (1), les évangéliques mainstream (2), néo-évangéliques (3), les post-évangéliques (4) et les dechurched (sortis de l'église) avec un peu de Jésus (5), et les déconvertis (6). Il semble qu'il y ait de plus en plus de difficultés pour ces groupes à communiquer entre eux. D'autre part, d'un point de vue individuel, le General Social Survey canadien de 2019 tend à pointer vers ce qu'on pourrait appeler un dé-dénominationnisme croissant: les individus tendent à s'identifier au milieu évangélique sans toutefois y participer régulièrement. Qu'est-ce que ces tendances à la fracturation et à l'affiliation sans engagement annoncent pour l'Église québécoise? Les frontières entre dénominations sont-elles toujours aussi imperméables qu'elles l'étaient à une certaine époque? Si oui, autour de quels enjeux ces frontières se forment-elles? De quelle manière pouvons-nous contribuer en tant que tribu particulière à l'unité dans l'Esprit?

Steve Gruber discusses news and headlines.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The Forces of Blandness and the Disagreeable Majority , published by sarahconstantin on the AI Alignment Forum. There are a few data points that have been making me see “the discourse” differently lately. 1. Large Majorities Dislike Political Correctness. That's the title of this Atlantic article that came out in October, and is based on this study from the think tank More in Common which opposes political polarization. The results of the 8000-person poll of a nationally-representative sample of Americans are pretty striking. About 80% of Americans think “political correctness is a problem”; and even when you restrict to self-identified liberals, Democrats, or people of color, large majorities agree with the statement. The study identifies “progressive activists” (8% of Americans) as a younger, more extreme, more educated, more politically active left-wing cluster, and even within this cluster, a full 25% agree with “political correctness is a problem.” And lots of people who agree with statements about hate speech being bad, white people starting out with advantages in life, sexual harassment being a problem, etc, also think political correctness is a problem. Being “politically incorrect” isn't just a white thing, a male thing, or even a conservative thing. It's a hugely common thing. 2. Support for free speech is common, and growing, not shrinking. And it's not the most left-wing people who most oppose free speech, but the moderate liberals. Political scientist Justin Murphy has done studies about this, based on the General Social Survey, a large poll on social attitudes that's been running for decades. Since the 1970's, Americans have become more tolerant of allowing people with controversial views to speak in public — communists, people proposing military coups, homosexuals, and opponents of “all churches and religions.” Racism is the exception to the rule — people haven't become more tolerant of racist speech, even as they have become more tolerant of other varieties of speech. Keep in mind that legal censorship and centralization of political speech were way more prevalent in mid-20th century America than they are today. Cable television networks didn't exist till the 1970's. The Fairness Doctrine didn't end until 1987. Satellite radio, which allowed obscene language that was regulated on conventional radio and television, only began in 1988, Fox News was founded in 1996, and, of course, the blogosphere didn't really begin until the early 2000's. Murphy notes that “extreme liberals” are consistently the most supportive of permitting controversial speech, and that in fact they have increased their rates of tolerating even racist speech. People who rate themselves as “moderately liberal” and “slightly liberal”, however, have sharply declined in their willingness to tolerate racist speech. If there's been a “backlash against free speech”, it's on the moderate left, not the far left. 3. Calls for speech restrictions often come from moderates. Things like this essay by Renee diResta, which I found chilling — a call for social media to be actively regulated by the US military, which says we should treat people spreading opinions that weaken trust in “the legitimacy of government, the persistence of societal cohesion, even our ability to respond to the impending climate crisis” as “digital combatants.” DiResta says, “More authoritarian regimes, by contrast, would simply turn off the internet. An admirable commitment to the principle of free speech in peace time turns into a sucker position against adversarial psy-ops in wartime.” Who is DiResta? She's a writer, technologist, adviser to Congress and the State Department, and the director of research at something called New Knowledge, a firm offering corporations a new kind of service: using algorithms to bury social m...

The word 'cheugy' has become a key weapon on the battlefield of intergenerational conflict. We might be its user, its target or utterly oblivious to its meaning. Does our relationship with the word tell us anything interesting and is the modern concept of generations a meaningful one? In this podcast, we look at intergenerational conflict and its causes. We also attempt to determine whether the use of generational categories, such as Gen X or Millennials, represent a coherent and valid framework for understanding culture and history. Finally, we try to place ourselves within the generational continuum and decide the extent to which we are products of our time. How cheugy. A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - The Measurement and Evaluation of Social Attitudes in Two British Cohort Studies https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251198647_The_Measurement_and_Evaluation_of_Social_Attitudes_in_Two_British_Cohort_Studies - Generational Differences in Work-Related Attitudes: A Meta-analysis https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10869-012-9259-4 - Generational Differences At Work Are Small. Thinking They're Big Affects Our Behavior https://hbr.org/2019/08/generational-differences-at-work-are-small-thinking-theyre-big-affects-our-behavior - A Compendium of Trends in the General Social Survey 1972-2018 http://gss.norc.org/Documents/reports/social-change-reports/SC64%20A%20new%20compendium%20of%20trends.pdf - Strauss–Howe Generational Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory - The Method for Determining Time-Generation Range https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244020968082 For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com Image: Medicating Factors, CC BY-SA 4.0

Public opinion can sometimes shift dramatically over time. Beliefs that were widely held a few decades ago may now seem antiquated or even repugnant. But what's driving these shifts? Is it individual people changing their minds? Or is it just folks with old-fashioned worldviews dying out and being replaced? My guest on today's show is Dr. Stephen Vaisey. He's a Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Duke University and co-director of the compellingly named Worldview Lab. In a recent paper, Steve and his co-author Kevin Kiley sought to better understand whether people every really update their beliefs. We're talking about beliefs about gender, race, the environment, the role of government, and a bunch of other central issues. The answer Steve and Kevin arrived at may surprise you: while people do sometimes change their minds—particularly at certain life stages and particularly around certain kinds of issues—more often they don't. People's beliefs tend to be pretty settled. So I'll admit, sheepishly, that it was really only pretty recently that I realized that sociologists and political scientists think a lot about minds. That they're often grappling with the same questions that exercise psychologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and others. Questions about how beliefs are formed, about the dynamics of culture, about how minds change over the course of the lifespan, about how our social forces shape our thinking. As you'll hear, Steve's been thinking deeply about these questions for awhile now, and he's innovating new ways to address them. He's also just a super affable guide to this whole terrain.   Hope you enjoy this one folks. Without further ado, my conversation with Dr. Steve Vaisey!   A transcript of this episode is available here.    Notes and links 2:30 – The Worldview Lab at Duke University is co-directed by Steve and Christopher Johnston. 4:00 – The paper we discuss is here (open access preprint). 6:00 – An influential article looking at the phenomenon of “pluralistic ignorance” and its consequences. 8:30 – The General Social Survey—as Dr. Vaisey describes it, the Hubble Telescope of sociology. 10:30 – A paper by Omar Lizardo elaborating the notion of personal culture. 12:15 – The webpage of Steve's co-author, Kevin Kiley. 20:45 – A 2010 paper by Steve and Omar Lizardo asking related questions. 37:45 – For more on issues with generalizing from WEIRD samples, see our past episode. For more on these topics, Dr. Vaisey recommends checking out the work of: Ronald Inglehart Pippa Norris Raül Tormos Kevin Kiley You can find Dr. Vaisey on Twitter (@vaiseys).   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster, and Associate Director Isabelle Laumer. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/). You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Employee burnout is real. According to a recent Gallup poll, 76% of employees experience some form of burnout at various times in their careers. In a survey conducted by job board Monster, it was reported that 69% of people working from home during the pandemic are experiencing a form of burnout. The stress, anxiety and fear caused by Coronavirus-19 coupled with noise levels, life-balancing acts of managing childcare and meal prep, along with makeshift home offices, fatigue from video conferencing, and feelings of isolation are putting many people into a state of high alert and high alarm. But employee burnout is not a by-product of the pandemic; its presence has been evident for decades.    In 2016, the General Social Survey revealed that 50% of their respondents claimed to be burnt out or near exhaustion from the demands of their job. This percentage showed an increase of 32% from just twenty years previous. Disrupted sleep patterns, increased consumption of alcohol and caffeine beverages, decreased time spent exercising, fear of losing one's job, and moodiness have been identified as signs of burnout. 

The growth of The Nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making The Nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that The Nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade. They represent a seismic shift in the understanding of American religion and the Christian Church. Ryan Burge is the guest in this edition of the podcast to help us understand this phenomenon. Burge is an Assistant Professor of Political Science as well as the Graduate Coordinator at Eastern Illinois University. He is also the author of The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going. In the book he details a comprehensive picture of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. He gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say that they have no religious affiliation. This book explains how this rise happened, who The Nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion. Finally, Burge is a pastor in the American Baptist Church, having served his current church for over thirteen years.

As Americans we are taught that we all have certain unalienable rights. Written right there in the pages of our Declaration of Independence is that we have​ the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.​ Something about that line has always gotten me thinking. And it's the word pursuit. You know why? Because I think of that word as having movement. The word pursuit, which means an effort to secure or attain, appears to me to be an ongoing effort, something which may slip through our fingers if we don't keep working on it. So if happiness or the pursuit thereof, is one of our unalienable rights, how are we doing with it, after some 200 years after the writing of that line? Well, research suggests that we aren't doing so great. A new NORC poll drawing on trends from the long running General Social Survey finds Americans are less likely to call themselves very happy than at any point since that survey began back in 1972. If you think it's because of the global pandemic you're both wrong and right: Research suggests that we've been unhappy for a while now. In March 2019, a full year before there was even a hint of an upcoming pandemic, The World Happiness Report, which is released to coincide with the United Nations International happiness day, stated that Americans are as unhappy as they've been in years. For the third straight year in a row, the US has dropped in the happiness rankings. So, how do we right this ship? How do we Bobby McFerrin our lives and ‘Don't worry, be happy'? Lucky for you, our guest today knows all about finding happiness. Tune in to the episode as I'm joined by Pam Garramone, a Certified Positive Psychology Speaker and Life Coach teaching the Science of Happiness to anyone who wants to learn how to be happier. Pam talks all about Positive Psychology, her wonderful journey researching happiness and shares with us her 4 happiness boosters that we can start to use to be happier every day. Here's a preview - your social connections are one of the number one happiness boosters you have! And to all those who say over and over again, “I'll be happy when”....., you're gonna find your answers today too! Let's welcome a happier and nicer 2021. Drink of the Week​  ​Four Graces Pinot Noir.​ ​Pam's favorite drink is the Pinot Noir, and that brought me to choose this one for the episode​! If you liked what you heard today, please leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Also, please remember to share the podcast to help it reach a larger audience. And if you would like a shout out for tipping your bartender and contributing to the ever growing This Sh!t Works bar tab click ​ https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/JulieBrownBD?locale.x=en_US to make a donation. No amount is too small, it will get drunk! Relevant Links: Pam Garramone:  ​https://www.pamgarramone.com/  ​https://www.instagram.com/pamgarramone/ ​https://www.facebook.com/pamgarramonespeakerandcoach​/  https://twitter.com/PamGarramone ​https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamgarramone/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamgarramone/) Julie Brown: https://juliebrownbd.com/ ​(Website) https://www.instagram.com/juliebrown_bd/ ​(Instagram) https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-brown-b6942817/​ (LinkedIn) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIwWVdayM2mYXzR9JNLJ55Q​ (Youtube) https://www.facebook.com/juliebrownbd/​ (Facebook)

Nothing beats that warm fuzzy feeling you get when helping someone in need and us Aussies truly pride ourselves on helping our fellow mate.  In looking at silver linings, COVID-19 has seen some truly selfless acts of service for volunteer organisations including food banks, sports communities and local charity groups. With this being said, according to Australia's General Social Survey published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 36% of adults in 2010 undertook unpaid volunteer work...which has fallen to a mere 29% in 2019. In light of tomorrow being ‘International Volunteer Day’, we should not only recognise and celebrate those who selflessly step forward to help others but it should also act as a humbling reminder to ask yourself the question: how can I help?   Andrew Leigh, Shadow Minister for Charities and Non-For Profits joins John and Paul to encourage more Aussie's to give back to those needing it most.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

[Episode 1] I begin to map the spiritual landscape with the first of six key questions. Does God exist? I share excerpts from interviews with Keith Gasper, the leader of the Kalamazoo, Michigan chapter of Atheists Helping the Homeless, and with Chiezan Tomczyk, a monk from the SukokoJi Buddhist Temple and Monastery in Battle Creek, Michigan. Then I present a Christian response and shows how answers to this ultimate question shape our approach to suffering.The full interviews with Keith Gasper and Chiezan Tomczyk are posted on the “Finding Your Way in the Religious Maze” YouTube Channel.For a transcript of this episode or more information visit ReligiousMaze.orgSources Cited:Michael Hout and Tom W. Smith (10 March 2015). “Fewer Americans Affiliate with Organized Religions, Belief and Practice Unchanged: Key Findings from the 2014 General Social Survey.” NORC at the University of Chicago. https://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Religion_2014.pdfKelsey Jo Starr (5 April 2019). “5 Fact about Buddhists around the World” Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/05/5-facts-about-buddhists-around-the-world/

Imagine being able to sit down and have a meaningful conversation about the state of the United States. We speak with a woman who is a Yale-educated lawyer, a graduate of the FBI famed Academy in Quantico Virginia, and a former FBI counterintelligence investigator. This woman is a senior lecturer at Yale and a legal and national security analyst for CNN. That woman is none other than Asha Rangappa. We have a powerful conversation about the state of affairs in the United States and the decline of social capital. We talk about the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement, and more. This is a big insight into what's going on in our world today. Shakespeare and Current Events Asha narrated how she became a Shakespeare aficionado. She even found herself playing roles in several Shakespeare theatre adaptations. She shares how she finds Shakespeare's stories as universal, which also explains why these get a lot of modern adaptation. “You can actually look at characters and understand motivations of people today through his words. So I'm a big fan. I don't know if that answers the question of why Shakespeare but I find him especially relevant to current events.” - Asha Rangappa 30% of Americans Don’t Trust Each Other Asha recounted to Christopher how the United States is at a moment of the lowest level of general social trust since World War Two. Social capital is referred to as “the value that we get from our relationships with other people.” She further explained that strong social capital is essential for a healthy democracy.  A high social capital means there is a generalized social trust. In short, people care about the well being of their fellow man.  “Most Americans don't trust each other. This is actually a question on the General Social Survey they've asked, but asking it since 1972, and we're at the lowest response, which is about 30% of people say that most Americans can be trusted.” - Asha Rangappa Worst Possible Choices Being Made Asha believes we are currently in a crisis point. She agrees with Christopher that circumstances are forcing people to decide on the future that they want to live in.  “On the roster of choices have been made, whether it's with the pandemic or the economy or in response to the protest, and I'm talking about, the Trump administration. So, I think that it has brought to the fore what I was talking about before that, we are at a precarious moment. I have felt that this has been a precarious moment, even before this. I think the urgency of it might be brought home to a greater degree, because of this kind of critical state that we're in at this moment.” - Asha Rangappa To know more about Asha and her thoughts on the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement and the general state of the United States, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Asha Rangappa is a Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Associate Dean at Yale Law School. Prior to her current position, Asha served as a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations.  Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents, and performing undercover work.  While in the FBI, Asha gained experience in electronic surveillance, interview and interrogation techniques, firearms, and the use of deadly force. She has taught National Security Law and related courses at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and the University of New Haven. Asha graduated cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia.  She received her law degree from Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Imagine being able to sit down and have a meaningful conversation about the state of the United States. We speak with a woman who is a Yale-educated lawyer, a graduate of the FBI famed Academy in Quantico Virginia, and a former FBI counterintelligence investigator. This woman is a senior lecturer at Yale and a legal and national security analyst for CNN. That woman is none other than Asha Rangappa. We have a powerful conversation about the state of affairs in the United States and the decline of social capital. We talk about the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement, and more. This is a big insight into what's going on in our world today. Shakespeare and Current Events Asha narrated how she became a Shakespeare aficionado. She even found herself playing roles in several Shakespeare theatre adaptations. She shares how she finds Shakespeare's stories as universal, which also explains why these get a lot of modern adaptation. “You can actually look at characters and understand motivations of people today through his words. So I'm a big fan. I don't know if that answers the question of why Shakespeare but I find him especially relevant to current events.” - Asha Rangappa 30% of Americans Don’t Trust Each Other Asha recounted to Christopher how the United States is at a moment of the lowest level of general social trust since World War Two. Social capital is referred to as “the value that we get from our relationships with other people.” She further explained that strong social capital is essential for a healthy democracy.  A high social capital means there is a generalized social trust. In short, people care about the well being of their fellow man.  “Most Americans don't trust each other. This is actually a question on the General Social Survey they've asked, but asking it since 1972, and we're at the lowest response, which is about 30% of people say that most Americans can be trusted.” - Asha Rangappa Worst Possible Choices Being Made Asha believes we are currently in a crisis point. She agrees with Christopher that circumstances are forcing people to decide on the future that they want to live in.  “On the roster of choices have been made, whether it's with the pandemic or the economy or in response to the protest, and I'm talking about, the Trump administration. So, I think that it has brought to the fore what I was talking about before that, we are at a precarious moment. I have felt that this has been a precarious moment, even before this. I think the urgency of it might be brought home to a greater degree, because of this kind of critical state that we're in at this moment.” - Asha Rangappa To know more about Asha and her thoughts on the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement and the general state of the United States, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Asha Rangappa is a Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Associate Dean at Yale Law School. Prior to her current position, Asha served as a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations.  Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents, and performing undercover work.  While in the FBI, Asha gained experience in electronic surveillance, interview and interrogation techniques, firearms, and the use of deadly force. She has taught National Security Law and related courses at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and the University of New Haven. Asha graduated cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia.  She received her law degree from Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In 2019, the USA Today reported that 52% of LGBTQ people living in America lived in states where they could be fired, harassed, or declined for promotions due to their sexual orientation. Yes, that means in 28 states in the US it is legal to fire a worker for being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. With such disturbing data, it is not surprising that the General Social Survey and US Transgender Survey report that 18% of LGB people say they have experienced employment discrimination in applying for and/or keeping a job because of their sexual orientation and 30% of transgender people reported being fired, denied a promotion, or not hired for a job because of their gender identity or expression. Another disturbing report from the General Social Survey is 58% of LGB people have experienced derogatory comments about sexual orientation and gender identity in their workplaces. This episode will discuss the LGBTQ discrimination in the workplace, what people are experiencing and identify pathways and resources to make changes that prepare and protect everyone in the workplace.

I'm looking at an amazingly stupid statistic. It's from a General Social Survey. And it says that men between the ages of 18 & 29 are having less sex than ever...because they're afraid of approaching women for sex. And listen to this. The number of these guys has about tripled from 10% in 2008 to 28% in 2019. That means, almost 1 out of every three young guys are suffering from this No-Sex-Non-Sense...because they're afraid to try to talk a woman into bed. Thanks for dropping in here with me on my podcast. Let's play a little game. Say you're on a crowded airplane, the weather is really nasty, and the 25 year old Captain gets on the PA system and says, "Don't worry folks I have everything under control." Confidence oozing from his voice. You have to have confidence in yourself to be a pilot. You have to be sure that whatever happens you'll be able to deal with it. Don't you wonder is your pilot is one ot the 30% of guys who's afraid to talk one of the stewardess into bed? If so, how much can you really depend on his him to keep control of the airplane? Here's another example: There are 11 players on a football team. Two teams so there are 22 players in the game. Most of them are in the 18 - 29 male demo. So next time you're watching two teams in an NFL game, try to figure out which 6 foot 300 pound guys on the field are afraid of women. Over in the MLB, 9 guys on each team, so which 5 guys spitting and scratching in their major league way, are afraid of women? On the basis of what little we know of his personal life, Derek Jeeter was not one of those guys.

I'm looking at an amazingly stupid statistic. It's from a General Social Survey. And it says that men between the ages of 18 & 29 are having less sex than ever...because they're afraid of approaching women for sex. And listen to this. The number of these guys has about tripled from 10% in 2008 to 28% in 2019. That means, almost 1 out of every three young guys are suffering from this No-Sex-Non-Sense...because they're afraid to try to talk a woman into bed. Thanks for dropping in here with me on my podcast. Let's play a little game. Say you're on a crowded airplane, the weather is really nasty, and the 25 year old Captain gets on the PA system and says, "Don't worry folks I have everything under control." Confidence oozing from his voice. You have to have confidence in yourself to be a pilot. You have to be sure that whatever happens you'll be able to deal with it. Don't you wonder is your pilot is one ot the 30% of guys who's afraid to talk one of the stewardess into bed? If so, how much can you really depend on his him to keep control of the airplane? Here's another example: There are 11 players on a football team. Two teams so there are 22 players in the game. Most of them are in the 18 - 29 male demo. So next time you're watching two teams in an NFL game, try to figure out which 6 foot 300 pound guys on the field are afraid of women. Over in the MLB, 9 guys on each team, so which 5 guys spitting and scratching in their major league way, are afraid of women? On the basis of what little we know of his personal life, Derek Jeeter was not one of those guys.

We've reached a barking point in American history. (Yeah, I'm sorry for that one.) A few years ago, for the first time ever, the number of dogs in this country surpassed the number of children under eighteen. According to Statista, there are 90 million dogs in America today, up from just 68 million in 2000. And a higher percentage of American households own dogs than ever before. By contrast, there are just over 73 million children. That still sounds like a lot, but as a percentage of the population, children have never been rarer. In 1960, for instance, over one-in-three Americans were under the age of eighteen. According to government projections, by 2050, children will make up less than a quarter of the population. As you'd expect, this drop in birth rates corresponds to a drop in marriages. What you might not expect is that it also corresponds to a drop in happiness. The General Social Survey in 2018 found that Americans today are more miserable than they've been in decades. And replacing family with dogs isn't reversing the trend. Of course, what we increasingly hear today, in print and on television and movies, is that what will make us happy is the freedom that can come only from singleness and childlessness. Writing in The Atlantic recently, Mandy Len Catron bemoaned all of the things “You Lose When You Gain a Spouse.” According to her, family life is isolating and unfair to outsiders, because spouses give most of their attention to each other and to their kids. When people get married, she writes, they retreat into “socially neglectful cocoons.” London School of Economics professor Paul Dolan goes even further in his book, “Happily Ever After.” He says the only reason married people report being happier on average than singles is that they're lying to save face. The book was corrected, by the way, when this claim turned out to be unsupportable. In reality, the statistics are clear: Married people really are happier than those who are unmarried—by an average of ten percentage points. But is that because marriage makes people happy, or because happy people are more likely to get married? A new paper by the Institute for Family Studies offers a surprising answer. Instead of looking at the effect of family itself, author James McQuivey decided to look at the effect of the desire for family. He asked over a thousand men and women how much they value having an emotionally intimate relationship, sexual faithfulness, and children. He then combined these answers into a single measure, which we might call a desire for a traditional, nuclear family. He discovered that scoring higher on this measure predicted greater happiness and overall life satisfaction—regardless of whether or not the respondent was actually married or had kids! It's one of those results that makes you do a double take. After all, you'd expect people who want a family life and haven't found it to be dissatisfied. But on average, they're not. As McQuivey says, “[i]f you merely have the desire to pair bond and procreate, you are already happier than average...” Act on that desire, he adds, and your happiness jumps, while your life satisfaction (a separate metric) “practically leaps off the chart.” In other words, contrary to the thesis that getting married and having kids dooms you to misery, committing to a family is one of the most effective means ever created to train people to care for others. And a cornerstone of psychology is that other-centeredness brings human beings happiness. Look, dogs are great and all, but we were made for communion with other people. The family bond is so central to our design that merely pursuing it leads to greater happiness. For a society like ours, one in the midst of family and happiness shortages, the solution is obvious, but it won't be found at the dog park.  

Jimmy Barrett and Shara Fryer take you through the stories that matter on the morning of 11/12/2019, including: More than half a century after a federal law was passed to give older adults a fair chance at competing for job openings, employers — either by design or out of carelessness — continue to post jobs in ways that suggest bias against older applicants. The federal government has warned employers against using terms like “recent college graduate” or “college student” in postings because they could be considered evidence of age bias. But AARP conducted a search that revealed job posting websites like LinkedIn, Indeed.com and Monster.com — turned up thousands of want ads that use these limiting phrases. The Supreme Court will determine the fate of nearly 700,000 young adults who remain in the United States as part of the Obama-era DACA initiative. The U.S. Supreme Court is again poised to test the bounds of Donald Trump’s presidential powers, this time in a politically charged clash over the fate of 700,000 people who were brought into the country illegally as children. The case, set for argument Tuesday, will mark the climax of Trump’s two-year campaign to unravel former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. DACA, as it’s known, protects those immigrants from deportation and lets them seek jobs. According to a World Happiness report, America is the least happy it has ever been. Even as the United States economy improved after the end of the Great Recession in 2009, happiness among adults did not rebound to the higher levels of the 1990s, continuing a slow decline ongoing since at least 2000 in the General Social Survey. Happiness and life satisfaction among United States adolescents, which increased between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012. In this way, by 2016-17, both adults and adolescents were reporting significantly less happiness than they had in the 2000s. Precinct Two Commissioner Adrian Garcia has requested that the Harris County Commission discuss and consider a resolution supporting so-called “universal background checks” on all firearms sales this coming Tuesday, November 12. Gun control advocates have been relentlessly pushing this issue in the wake of mass shootings in Texas and as part of their national and state radical anti-gun agenda. This would put the most populous county in Texas on record as supporting a California-style ban on all private firearms sales – including those between family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers, hunting buddies and fellow gun club members.

Last week probably marked a milestone in American political extremism. For more than forty years, former Vice-President Joe Biden held what he called a “middle-of-the-road position on abortion.” He backed bans on late-term abortions and voted more than fifty times on Capitol Hill to uphold the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion. Writing at The Washington Post, Mark Thiessen notes how that middle-of-the-road position has, at least in the last few years, made Biden something of a dinosaur among Democratic leaders. (That's not an age joke, by the way.) To put it bluntly, the former Vice-President was one of the last high-level representatives in the Democratic Party of an older liberal view on abortion. Not that long ago, abortion was proclaimed, by the political left, a necessary evil to be used in extreme circumstances—you know, “safe, legal, and rare.” I say Biden “was” one of the last, because just days ago he caved to the extreme abortion lobby that now drives the Democratic Party. He dropped his support for the Hyde Amendment. This happened after a backlash from fellow Democratic presidential contenders. Senators Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren all tweeted their outrage at Biden's “moderate” position. They were joined by organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL, all demanding federal funding for any abortion as a matter of women's rights. Biden's surrender came just before another presidential contender, New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, compared pro-life views to racism and antisemitism. Speaking with the Des Moines Register, Gillibrand said, “I think there's [sic] some issues that have such moral clarity that we have as a society decided that the other side is not acceptable.” That's no minor statement. For forty years, pro-lifers and pro-choicers have fought viciously over abortion. Pro-lifers were called “religious,” and “hypocritical,” and “wrong.” But unlike other issues today, pro-lifers were not dismissed from polite society as “evil.” Well, at least until now. Still, as Thiessen points out, the percentage of Americans who think abortion should be available at any time during pregnancy for any reason is a small minority—only about 13 percent. By contrast, a new Marist poll commissioned by NPR and PBS found that a super majority of Americans—75 percent—support some restrictions on abortion and oppose federal funding. Apparently, Biden has joined the rest of his party's leadership by giving in to the extremists. As Ryan P. Burge at Eastern Illinois University points out, the General Social Survey reveals that until the late 1980s, the two parties weren't that far apart on the abortion issue. Up till then, only about a third of Democrats and Republicans supported abortion for any and all reasons. But then something happened, and the parties diverged dramatically. What that something was is anyone's guess, but looking at the hockey stick graphs, one thing is clear: Republicans today are more opposed to abortion and Democrats more in favor of it than ever before. The country is unquestionably polarized. Democratic Party leaders have shifted more quickly and more dramatically than their voters. By celebrating killing as a positive and liberating thing, they have abandoned the position most Americans still hold—that abortion should be legal but heavily restricted. That's not to say that's a right position, or that there's any kind of moral equivalency between the sides on this issue. Intentionally killing an unborn child is always wrong. But as President Trump showed recently when he (wrongly) criticized Alabama's new abortion law, it's still possible within the party to be a moderately pro-life Republican officeholder. But it's not possible anymore to be a moderately pro-abortion Democratic officeholder. Remember that the next time you see a headline or find yourself in a conversation about those “pro-life extremists.”

The Donald Abides Amid the tumult of the Trump era, the constant: His approval rating (Washington Examiner) President Trump Job Approval (RealClear Politics) 2020 Polling? Biden tops Democratic field after rough week (Politico / Morning Consult) Women voters could give women candidates a boost in the Democratic primary (Morning Consult) The Fairness of Taxes Growing Partisan Divide Over Fairness of the Nation's Tax System (Pew Research) Few Americans think they're getting a Trump tax cut (NBC / Wall Street Journal) Twitter Dems vs Voting Dems The Democratic Electorate on Twitter Is Not the Actual Democratic Electorate (The Upshot) Happy Happy Dog Dog Dog owners are much happier than cat owners (General Social Survey reported by The Washington Post)) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Sherman in for Alex Pierson is joined by Jean Twenege, Author of I-Gen, to discuss how Americans are having less sex then ever. U.S. adults reporting no sex in the past year reached an all-time high in 2018. But among the 23 percent of adults — or nearly 1 in 4 — who spent the year in a celibate state, a much larger than expected number of them were 20-something men, according to the latest data from the General Social Survey.  

Seth Andrews speaks about the recent General Social Survey revealing that the "nones" (non-religious) are now statistically tied with evangelicals and Catholics in the United States. Plus...we preview upcoming discussions about Satanism and sex robots, we explore new evidence about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, we tackle some Trump "hot wind," and a few of your phone calls.Support our sponsor, and get a $13 value trial set from Harry's with this link: http://www.harrys.com/thethinkingatheist

Why do we go to the gallery? Is there something deeper happening with culture and institutions? In this episode, I consider the results on arts and culture in Canada, based on Statistics Canada's 2016 General Social Survey, combined with my latest readings into cultural policy and governments employing culture as a tool to meet different needs. Full study can be found here: https://bit.ly/2DNc04v Music: https://www.purple-planet.com

Peter Bebergal is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is the author of the new book Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll.  During this week's show, Peter and Chauncey discuss the appeal of magic and the occult for musicians and artists, the moral panics about Satanism and heavy metal music during the 1980s in America, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, as well as how African trickster figures and other cultural practices influenced black music in America and across the Black Atlantic. Peter and Chauncey also talk about digital versus analog culture and the history of pen and paper as well as tabletop role-playing games. Friend of the podcast Jared Yates Sexton, contributing writer for publications such as The New Republic as well as The New York Times, also stops by to make his predictions (and share some concerns) about this weekend's WWE Wrestlemania 33 event.   On this week's show, Chauncey also shares his thoughts about some new data from this year's General Social Survey which shows that Republicans still believe that black people are dumb, lazy, and stupid. During this week's podcast, Chauncey also reads the obituary of Bill Minor, a journalist and a great white brother in the Black Freedom Struggle who passed away several days ago.

Garett Jones is Associate Professor of Economics and BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University. His book, Hive Mind: How Your Nation's IQ Matters so Much More than Your Own is the subject of this episode. The book deals with an empirical puzzle: IQ is a weak predictor for earnings. We all know high-IQ people who live paycheque to paycheque, and lower IQ people who succeed brilliantly. And yet, when we look at the relationship between nations' average IQ scores and their incomes, the relationship is strong. Nations with the highest average IQ scores are eight times wealthier than nations with the lowest IQ scores. How can we resolve this apparent contradiction? Garett documents five main channels for the spillover effects of IQ: 1. Smarter people are more patient, they save more and build up more capital. When economists test people's patience, high-IQ people tend to be more willing to wait for a larger amount of money in the future rather than taking a smaller sum now. This is important at the national level because savings tend to stay within a country* and fund investments within that country. That means living in a higher IQ nation generally means having more capital available to compliment your labour. 2. Smarter groups are more cooperative. Economists use the iterated prisoner's dilemma as an idealized scenario where cooperation is at odds with people's individual, short-term incentives. Jones looked at the many times economists have studied this in experiments and correlated the cooperation rate in these experiments with the SAT scores of the schools the study participants were drawn from. He found that higher SAT schools produced more cooperation in the iterated prisoner's dilemma. In later research, Al-Ubaydli, Jones, and Weel (2014) found that higher IQ groups were more cooperative, but higher IQ individuals were not. A high-IQ person in a low-IQ group would not foolishly cooperate when everyone else was defecting, but high-IQ groups could coordinate on a cooperative solution despite not knowing that they were in a high-IQ group. 3. Smarter people are more informed voters and are more likely to support market-oriented policies. Caplan and Miller (2010) document the tendency for high-IQ people to think like economists. 4. Smarter groups make more productive team members. Jones uses "O-ring" technologies (drawing on an idea from Kremer (1993)), in reference to the fatal part that cause the Challenger disaster, to show how high-IQ workers can be indispensable in many sectors of a modern economy. While many economic models assume substitutability between high- and low-skilled labour (e.g. three low-skilled workers can do the work of one high-skilled worker), O-ring sectors don't have this feature. When one mistake can completely destroy a project, low-skilled workers can have effectively negative marginal products. 5. Peer effects cause those with high-IQ peers take on the behaviours of high-IQ people, implying that low-IQ people in high-IQ countries will be more patient, cooperative, informed, and productive than low-IQ people in low-IQ countries. It's well documented in the social science literature that people take on the behaviours of their peers. This effectively multiplies the positive effects of the first four channels by making low-IQ people behave like high-IQ people. Jones sees a virtuous cycle between IQ and development. Higher IQs lead to better economic outcomes, and better economic outcomes lead to better health outcomes and higher IQs. But despite the great importance of this subject, people have been extremely reluctant to research differences in IQ between groups for fear of finding an unpalatable result. One of Jones' aims in writing this book is to make it more acceptable for people to do research in this area. We also discuss Jones' recent debate with Bryan Caplan on the subject of open borders. Jones' work on IQ spillover effects give us reason to use caution in supporting open borders.   *This is actually another economic "paradox" that economists don't fully understand. One would expect savings to be invested where they face the highest returns, regardless of national boundaries, but that seems not to be the case. REFRENCES Al-Ubaydli, O., Jones, G., & Weel, J. (2014). Average player traits as predictors of cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma. Caplan, B., & Miller, S. C. (2010). Intelligence makes people think like economists: Evidence from the General Social Survey. Intelligence, 38(6), 636-647. Jones, G. (2008). Are smarter groups more cooperative? Evidence from prisoner's dilemma experiments, 1959–2003. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 68(3), 489-497. Kremer, M. (1993). The O-ring theory of economic development. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 551-575.

How to Survive (and Perhaps Thrive) on a Teacher's Salary by Danny Kofke "According to a 2006 study done by the National Education Association, 50% of teachers leave the profession within five years because of poor working conditions and low salaries. Yet, according to the 2006 General Social Survey, teaching ranks among the Top 10 most gratifying jobs with 69% of teachers reporting they were very satisfied with their jobs. A low salary should not be the reason stop molding young minds and influencing lives for the betterment of our society. Learn to: • Retire with a sizeable nest egg • Teach in a foreign country • Own all of your possessions—including your cars and house • Invest in Roth IRAs and 403bs • Establish a weekly 'budget' • Live a financially secure life on a teacher's salary! Use author Danny Kofke's easy-to-use tips to equip you and your family to not only survive, but live happily within your means, multiply your funds and invest in your future."