Podcasts about General Social Survey

When we first dicsussed the Summer of Simulative AI in 2024 we knew it would be a brief summer, but it has recently come back with a vengeance with SimGym in April and now Simile AI's $2B Series B, backed by GreenOaks and Index Ventures with prominent backers like Fei-Fei Li and Andrej Karpathy, running tens of millions of simulations for Fortune 100 clients like CVS and 85–99% accuracy vs human focus groups. Time to catch up on why this Second Summer of simulation is working!From creating Smallville, the landmark 2023 paper on Generative Agents that showed AI characters could remember, plan, socialize, and develop emergent behaviors, to now building foundation models of human behavior, Joon Sung Park is trying to answer a much bigger question: what if we could simulate the world before making decisions in it? In this episode, the Simile co-founder and CEO joins us to unpack the path from generative agents to digital twins, why today's frontier models still fail to capture how humans actually behave, and what it would take to eventually simulate all 8 billion people on Earth.We go deep on Simile's approach to modeling human behavior: long-form interviews, observational and transaction data, randomized controlled trials, population-level and individual-level models, and post-training on the causal mechanisms behind why people make decisions. Joon explains how his research created digital twins that reproduced human behavior and attitudes 85% as accurately as people reproduced their own responses, why models optimized to be rational can be bad simulations of irrational humans, and why understanding “social physics” may require changing model weights rather than simply prompting frontier LLMs.We also explore the much larger ambition behind simulation: testing products and policies before deploying them, finding counterintuitive paths toward desired outcomes, modeling emergent behavior across entire societies, and potentially tackling problems like climate change, democratic instability, and UBI. Joon reflects on scaling laws for simulation, the economics of data-center-scale simulated worlds, the connection to Thomas Schelling and psychohistory, why simulation is surprisingly similar to painting, and whether we might already be living in one.We discuss:* How Smallville and Generative Agents led to Simile* Why Joon's team asked: “What if we can just recreate the world that we live in?”* Why useful personal agents require deep models of their users* Memory architectures, Markdown files, and the limits of prompting* “Social physics” and behavioral foundation models* Why web data captures what people say more than what they actually do* Interviews, transactions, observational data, and randomized controlled trials* Why predicting the future matters less than understanding how to shape it* How Simile creates representative simulated populations* Simulation versus prediction and the connection to Foundation's psychohistory* How to evaluate simulations instead of simply stacking LLM hallucinations* Creating digital twins of 1,000 real people and reaching 85% behavioral accuracy* Why frontier models can struggle to reproduce real human behavior* Why good simulations need to reproduce human biases and mistakes* Post-training models on randomized controlled trials* Population-level versus individual-level simulation* Scaling laws for human simulation* The long-term ambition to simulate all 8 billion people on Earth* Whether simulations could help solve climate change or detect collapsing democracy* Thomas Schelling and the history of agent-based modeling* Why future simulations could require an entire data center* Multi-agent simulations and what happens when simulated people interact* Replacing expensive human panels with synthetic populations* Why market research is only the starting point for simulation* Why Joon sees simulation as surprisingly similar to painting* Using simulation to study questions like UBI* Whether we are already living in a simulation* Why AGI and simulation may be the twin technologies of advanced civilizationsJoon Sung Park* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joonspark* X: https://x.com/joon_s_pk* Website: https://www.joonsungpark.com* Simile: https://www.simile.comTimestamps00:00:00 Introduction and Joon's Path from Art to AI00:01:46 Smallville, Generative Agents, and the Origins of Simulation00:05:03 “Let's Just Create a World” and the Future of Personal Agents00:09:53 Social Physics and Behavioral Foundation Models00:14:08 Prediction vs. Simulation: How Do You Shape the Future?00:16:59 How Simile Models Real People and Populations00:25:35 Evaluating Simulations, Digital Twins, and 85% Accuracy00:30:23 Post-Training Models to Reproduce Human Behavior00:40:04 Scaling Laws and Simulating 8 Billion People00:43:10 From Schelling to Society-Scale Agent Simulations00:46:13 The Cost and Economics of Simulating the World00:52:05 Real-World Use Cases, Synthetic Populations, and the Market00:57:27 The Future of Simulation, Painting, and UBI01:04:23 Are We Already Living in a Simulation?01:06:08 Building Simile and HiringTranscriptIntroduction: Joon Sung Park, Simile, and the Story So FarVibhu [00:00:00]: Today, we have Joon in the podcast. Excited to kick this one off. Very exciting company. I wanna kick off and ask you the question, talk us through the story of your life. How have you gotten here?Joon [00:00:13]: Yeah, for sure. I'm really excited to be here. A story of my life. So I was born in Korea, and I lived there for a good 11 years or so of my life, and then my family moved to Boston. So we moved when I was 11, and my parents were doctors, so they were going through their postdoctoral studies. My dad was a surgeon, so he was doing his sabbatical years at the Boston Children's Hospital. So I grew up there, not too close to tech. I was very much a music and artsy, painting kind of guy.Vibhu [00:00:49]: Painting.Joon [00:00:49]: Exactly. I got into painting a little bit later, in high school, but that's what I used to do. And then I grew up mostly in the East Coast after Korea. So I lived a good number of years in New Hampshire, and then I went to college in Pennsylvania. And I got into more of this tech scene, in college. So I was originally trained to be an artist. I thought that would be my professional career. So it wasn't a hobby. It was like, “Hey, let's make a living out of this.” And then gradually, I got really interested in this idea of, hey, the greatest artist often creates their own medium, and the best medium that we had available today was in computation. So I decided to go deeper into that, and one thing led to another, and we can go deeper into this, but I decided that research was something that I gradually got interested in, and here I am.Smallville, Generative Agents, and the 2023 Breakout PaperSwyx [00:01:46]: So there's a lot that you packed into the research components. You had one of the best papers of 2023, which was the generative agents paper, commonly known as the Smallville paper.Swyx [00:01:58]: Feel free to call back to anything else that you mentioned, but most people would have heard of you from this. Do you have any statistics on how many people have, like, read it? arXiv gives you something, right? Some stats.Joon [00:02:10]: Yeah, it's a good question. How many people have read it, I'm not sure.Joon [00:02:14]: I know we do keep track of citations, and they are going up quite fast.Swyx [00:02:23]: Yeah, Google Scholar has 7,200 citations.Vibhu [00:02:25]: I feel like it made a bigger hit than that, and it was a pretty instrumental paper. It got cited so many times.Swyx [00:02:34]: It is frequently the answer when people ask, “What is the best paper you've read recently?” It's this one.Vibhu [00:02:39]: I thought the memory component was pretty underrated. It was a very good early memory system, and one of the biggest papers.Foundation Models and the Search for Killer ApplicationsJoon [00:02:47]: Yeah, so maybe I can talk a little bit about how this particular paper came together. So when I got into research, it was back in 2020 when I started my PhD program at Stanford, and that was the year, when we were about to get GPT-3 to be available. So we already had GPT-2, and you could sense that there was this new class of models that was just becoming available in the market, and the team got very intrigued. And the general consensus was, “Well, is this model going to be useful for anything?” “It's really strange that these models are not trained to do any particular task.” But we decided to take a bet. So a large group of scholars at Stanford, and it was led by one of my co-founders, Percy Liang, and we came togetherSwyx [00:03:35]: Who coined foundation models.Joon [00:03:36]: Who coined the term foundation models. We wrote this paper, where that term came from called Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models. And during that process, really the thing that I started to think deeply about was, here is a model that is fundamentally new in our ecosystem. The reason why this was new was it wasn't, again, trained to do anything in particular, but its premise was it could do anything and everything. It was like a stem cell, if you were to take a biology analogy. And I got really interested in this idea that, well, if we were to really think about what are the killer applications that this particular technology would enable, what would that be? Many of my colleagues were using this for simple classification, simple generations. Interesting that these models can do that, but from an interaction perspective, not that interesting. We've known how to do that for many decades. And what we came down to was these models are trained on this very broad data from the web, right? So these are human behavioral data. It's social media, Wikipedia, all these data. So if you poke at the right angle, then you could see human behavior that would just pop out that's quite realistic, and we've never seen that before.The Time Machine Game and Recreating the WorldJoon [00:04:45]: So that got us really interested. The exercise that we decided to do, with this particular group of colleagues, Michael Bernstein, Percy Liang, and myself, who ended up becoming my co-founder at Simile, we sat down and we played this game that we call the time machine game.Joon [00:05:03]: Imagine we were to get on a time machine and fast-forward 10 years and look back. What would have been the single application that will have mattered that would be the most interesting and inspiring? And when we thought, “Well, what if we can just recreate the world that we live in?” it's really hard to get more ambitious than that. Like, let's just create a world.Joon [00:05:24]: And that's where we started. And initially, we had this paper that was a precursor to the generative agents paper called Social Simulacra.Swyx [00:05:32]: Before you go further, were there other candidates for the most ambitious thing in the time machine exercise? What was number two or number three?Personal Agents, User Models, and Why Simulation Came FirstJoon [00:05:44]: There is a close second that we were considering, which ended up becoming more of these automation tools, especially the vision around really personalized agents that would do things for you.Swyx [00:05:59]: That's also happening.Joon [00:06:00]: It's also happening. But it was interesting for us, right, in that the reason why, we decided to go with the idea of simulation, one, I was a huge science fiction nerd, and this idea of creating simulation, I was personally really just fascinated. I loved the idea. It's really cool to see, like, a game town like this and just see these agents live in it. But at the same time, my bet was if you were to create a really amazing personal assistant out of this technology, what you need first is an amazing model of your users. So I told a model, “Hey, can you go buy late dinner for me?” And it orders Hawaiian pizza, and I do not like pineapples on my pizza. Then it totally failed. The way for it to not make that mistake is only by having a deep understanding of who I am. And I gave a very simple and dumb example here, but you can imagine how this core understanding of people is instrumental. This is how, if we have our family and closest friends, they have a good mental model of who we are. That's the basis of our social connection. So our bet also was this technology around simulation, creating accurate representation of people ought to precede the more complex agents that would automate the world that we live in. So that was the bet. But that was a very close second, and I'm still very much fascinated by it. I think there's a lot of interesting work that's going around. My hot take here, though, is I don't think we've seen a true personal assistant that's useful, in ways that meet the ambition of that particular line of work. I think there are early applications that are interesting, and if you talk to even ChatGPT nowadays or Claude, they know a lot about us. So a lot of the generation it's doing, I do think it's much more tailored, but I think the ambition is quite large in that field, and I don't think we quite have all the right ingredients just yet.Swyx [00:08:01]: So OpenClaw and these personal agents, what do you want to see from them that they don't currently have?Memory, Markdown, and the Limits of PromptingJoon [00:08:09]: I do think it's slowly getting there, but I do generally want them to have much deeper understanding of the person. Right now, you look at the models. OpenClaw, what it's leveraging is a Markdown file, and I think it's quite clever, right? So if you look at the generative agents paper, this was the same intuition that we had, where initially when we were creating the memory architecture for the generative agents, and, like, this is, like, back in 2022, so we didn't really quite have the idea of even agentive architecture or the term agent. But the intuition that we shared with some of the work that's coming out today was we initially thought, “Well, do we want to make the memory into, let's say, knowledge graph? Do we want to train a bespoke model?” All of these things. And what we decided to do was, “No. Just forget about all this.” These language models are quite good at modeling text and understanding and reasoning about text. So just put everything in a Markdown file or a text file. You're done. I thought that was quite interesting that we could do that, and there's a lot of strength in doing that. But also, there are limitations. It's the way you retrieve and make sense of data that's extremely large, it takes a lot of work. So I think that technology is getting better. I also do, however, think, there are certain things you just cannot shape just by prompting the model. So to some degree, you do need to touch the parameters of the model itself. So there is this work that I do think does need to happen, and it is happening. The question is, how far can we take it? How do we source data, and how do you also create an ecosystem where people are continuously feeding data to this model so it's learning about you?Vibhu [00:09:50]: What's the intuition between why you need to do it in the model?Social Physics and Behavior Foundation ModelsJoon [00:09:53]: My intuition behind the actual when do you train or even post-train a model versus just prompt a model is if the model has to learn the underlying physics of the world that it's operating in. So it has to learn new social physics. The places where it doesn't have to train are the places where it already has the physics. We trust the physics. It already has the base statistics, but it's just trying to react to an environment. Then I think you can just prompt your way into getting the actions out of it. I don't think the models that are out in the open have yet learned the complete mapping of social physics of humanity. This is one of the core theses of Simile, right? And one of the core reasons why that is the case is if you look at the data that the model was trained on, these models were trained on the web data, like, whatever was available on the web. And these are really interesting data sets, but they are fundamentally the self-exposed attitudinal data with some behavior data that's sprinkled around here and there. And it has yet to learn the really deep behavioral nature of people, not just what people say they do online, but what they do in real life. And this is one of what I would consider to be the dark knowledge of humanity that we haven't quite captured. And it's these data that would also need to get factored into the model creation.Vibhu [00:11:21]: You call it behavior foundation model.Vibhu [00:11:23]: There's a good one-liner here, but outside of that, what type of data do you need? What are you changing on the model level? How do you go about modeling, doing a behavior foundation model?The Three Data Buckets: Interviews, Behavior, and CausalityJoon [00:11:35]: We think about data in three buckets. So one bucket is interview data. It's quite interesting. Rich qualitative data is interesting. It's not behavioral, but we would literally ask people, “Hey, tell me the story of your life.”Vibhu [00:11:53]: It's just what we're doing here exactly.Joon [00:11:54]: The question that you all asked at the beginning of this interview literally is the question we also ask. And we ask our participants to go a little bit deeper, than how far I went. Maybe I can give more of my life story in lieu of this. But the reason why that data is interesting is by learning about this very long-tail information about people, you get a lot of texture around this model, like, this person as a model. So even understanding their childhood memory or even their trauma, their first love, these things, quite informative in ways that's really hard to predict. So that's one. Then there are two tranches of what I would consider to be the behavioral data. One kind of behavioral data is observational. So these might be like transaction data, or these might be data that you can get by scraping the web, right? So you can imagine why these data sets would be interesting, right, because they give you the base statistics of people's behavior.Joon [00:12:55]: But then there is the last category of data, that I personally think is perhaps the most important, which is the data that describes the causal mechanism, the whys of people. Some of this is covered by the interview data, the qualitative, because people talk about why they made certain decisions. But really, where you get to see the most behavioral aspect of this is in randomized controlled trials, like RCTs. Imagine you have the same setup, but you have a few different variables that you are trying to tweak. Can you get realistic human behavior out of it in ways where, imagine you had this particular option. Imagine you're even trying to choose whether you're going to drink coffee or not. The day you drink coffee versus the day you didn't drink coffee, does your behavior change? That's a data set that describes a causal mechanism. This is quite important in modeling people. The reason why this is important is oftentimes when people come to us, or not just to us, but the reason why people are interested in simulation isn't because they want to predict the future. If you're trying to win against the stock market, predicting the future is interesting.Prediction vs. Simulation: Shaping the FutureJoon [00:14:08]: But most people, most decision-makers, what they want to know is, how can we shape the future? It doesn't really help you to hear that your sales are going to tank in two quarters. They're just gonna say, “Wow, that sucks.” What they want to know is, well, what do we need to do now to avoid that future? That's the causal mechanism. And this is also very hard data to come by, right, because the world is our ground truth, but it happens once. So in a very controlled setup where everything is equal except for one variable, this kind of data set rarely happens. So this is a reason why this data set is both hard to come by and quite important if you're trying to model human behavior.Swyx [00:14:50]: So behavior, I think, is the hardest data set to acquire. What is out there? What is even possible? You're not going to know a lot of details about my life. I don't even have data for myself on my own health or habits, and I just don't log everything. So how can you have that data?Joon [00:15:14]: So we run a lot of randomized controlled trials.Swyx [00:15:17]: But you put people in the lab, they watch them sleep, or what?Joon [00:15:20]: We do care a lot about the consent process. People know that we invite them to be a member of this community to both share data and have themselves represented in different forms. But we bring a lot of people to the lab, or virtual lab, where we design experiments that would pose them real behavioral decisions. And often in these experimental setups, what makes the difference between what is attitudinal versus behavioral is whether the stake in your decision is real. That's ultimately what makes it behavioral. So in these setups, we are inspired by our colleagues in social sciences, psychology, and so forth. So when they run studies, the techniques they utilize is imagine there's an online store that you're inviting people to come by. Then whatever they purchase in this experiment, they actually get that item delivered. Like, these are the things that make the stakes real. So we run a lot of these experiments, and we also do partner with firms. Right now, we also have customers who are quite excited to at least give us a glimpse of the behaviors that their users exhibit so that we can get a little bit deeper understanding of how people behave in these different platforms.How Customers Use Simile: Populations, Queries, and ExperimentsVibhu [00:16:39]: I think on the customer side, they have a lot of data about their users, who has bought. They have the action data.Vibhu [00:16:47]: Can you walk us through an example of what someone comes to you for? What questions would they want solved? Do you customize a model for them? Do you have something off the shelf? What does that look like?Joon [00:16:59]: Today, when people leverage our models, it's often to better understand the population of their interest. So usually, the start of the relationship, we come together and hear about what population they want us to model, right? So it might be that if you're a CPG company that's selling to all of the US, then maybe it's fairly straightforward. You want to model the gen pop of the US. But at the same time, if there is a vertical or if there's a market that they're trying to go into, imagine, they want to better understand, let's say, people in their 20s and 30s living in California. That's a much more specific population. So we hear about this population, and we go recruit these people, with consent, and with incentives, and we collect some of their data and create a model of these people. Then what our product allows you to do is query them. So it can take as input a filter that is a description of the population that you want to talk to, just like the one I just mentioned, and an environment. The environment can literally be survey questions, behavioral experiments, It can be A/B testing. Oftentimes, the core use cases are things like concept testing, to start with. But also, people sometimes want to do focus groups or one of the fun use cases that we also serve is even modeling things like earnings calls for public companies.Joon [00:18:21]: So these are the use cases that we often start with.Swyx [00:18:23]: Concept testing, is that an established term? I've never heard of concept testing.Concept Testing, Gallup, and PoliticsJoon [00:18:27]: Yeah. So it has to do with they have, let's say, different messaging, different products, different ideas.Swyx [00:18:32]: It's like a marketing exercise.Swyx [00:18:33]: Okay, got it. Got it. Politics?Joon [00:18:36]: We do, have a strategic partnership with Gallup, and of course, Gallup is deep into policy space and so forth. Right now, we have not worked deeply with politics, like that area just yet, however.Swyx [00:18:49]: I'm curious if there is demand or if they really would have different needs that somehow fundamentally don't mix with your existing, users or people.Joon [00:19:00]: I think there's certainly demand.Joon [00:19:02]: But we are very much mindful of how this technology gets adopted and the societal impact that we'll end up having with this technology. And I do see politics as an area where a company has to be particularly thoughtful about the way they operate and make impact. So this is where we also want to make sure that we form enough of guardrail and perspective on how to leverage this technology before we go on to serve markets like the politics.Swyx [00:19:29]: I'll give people an example. one of my favorite shows is The West Wing. I don't know if people have watched.Swyx [00:19:34]: One of the key storylines is, like, the president has, multiple sclerosis, but they haven't. they need to figure out how to disclose it. So they run a poll with a fake governor and ask people to respond on the poll,Counterfactuals, Polling, and When Simulation Is UsefulSwyx [00:19:47]: They try to make decisions based on the results of that poll on, like, how well they'll be received, like where, how should we play this?Swyx [00:19:54]: And I'm like, well, I think those counterfactual things, I would use a simulation for this if I could trust it.Joon [00:20:01]: For sure.Joon [00:20:02]: In that show, how'd it go?Swyx [00:20:04]: In that show, it was, like a foregone conclusion. They were like, “We know it's bad. We just don't know how bad.” And then the poll came back. It was like, “It's really bad.” And then they just did it anyway.Joon [00:20:14]: Part of it is to show, right? So you're, you're looking at the ideaSwyx [00:20:17]: Maximizing drama.Joon [00:20:18]: How bad could it be? Oh, it's horrible.Swyx [00:20:20]: And to some extent, I think that is part of the trick of the, or the challenge or with being a customer of yours, which is that if I know it's. if I roughly know and can intuitSwyx [00:20:35]: What the effect is going to be, do I need you? What sensitivity of it, of effect do I need in order to make a decision, right? So for example, if I, my approval rating is 50%Swyx [00:20:48]: And I, they have this negative piece, news item comes out, and it drops to 30.Swyx [00:20:52]: If it drops to 20, if it drops to 40, do I care? No. It, I know it drops. It's negative. So when do I care about simulations?Joon [00:21:01]: You do something that's clearly bad, that's not popular, and people don't like you, like, yeah, it's likeSwyx [00:21:05]: You don't need a simulation.Joon [00:21:07]: Yeah. Well, so there are a couple of things. one is, there are use cases where, like every day, developers, designers, policymakers, marketers, every single day, they create assets. They create new products. And turns out, it's many of the decisions in hindsight is obvious. Yes, of course this is bad, but we still run those studies because understanding the magnitude and understanding how acute something is quite difficult, even if, we feel like, of course, like this makes sense. this is the reason why we make so many mistakes. Like, every time somebody goes online and say something that has huge backlash, you look at that and like, “What an idiot.” However, it's tough. That's one. There's also another aspect here, which is, again, this is the reason why simulation is different from prediction. In simulation, in the ideal case scenario. So what simulation is trying to show is it's trying to show each step of the way or each step that we need to take to get to a certain outcome, right? So in the most advanced simulations, sometimes the next step that we're suggesting might be quite counterintuitive. The analogy that I sometimes give, and I ground it in a more realistic example, but, I, as I mentioned, I'm a huge fan of science fiction, and I don't know how, many of the audience members have read, like, things like the Foundation series by Asimov.Simulation as a Path, Not Just a PredictionSwyx [00:22:37]: Oh, yeah. We've mentioned psychohistory a number of times.Joon [00:22:39]: Okay, fantastic. So I might be, talking to the right crew. If you read Foundation series, literally the first act is there's a group of scientists who have found out that, “Oh, our galactic empire is going to collapse, and we're going to have 30,000 years of unrest.” And they run psychohistory, the simulator that tries to teach them, “Okay, how can we keep this unrest to a 1,000 years?” And they plan this out, and the first step of that plan is to get the scientists who say, “Okay, this is coming,” exiled into this random place in this, galax- galaxy.Swyx [00:23:18]: Terminus.Joon [00:23:19]: Exactly. And that's so counterintuitive. Like, what a strange move that you literally sent the group of scientists who was raising voice around this potential collapse of galactic empire into nowhere. How is that the right first move? Well, it turns out in this particular simulation, that was the move.Joon [00:23:40]: It's these things, right? And the reason why these reasoning is possible is because you're showing the step function or each step that results in a particular outcome. So really what simulation allows you to do in its highest form is you give it not a problem or question, like what would people answer to the survey? That's not what we do. What we tell it is, “Here is a goal that we have. In the context of foundation, we want to keep the unrest to a 1,000 years. What is the path that we need to take now to get to that particular future?” And that's what simulation allows you to do. Now, translating that into real market, imagine you're a automobile company and you're about to release a, EV, and you're trying to understand, well, how do we market EV, to make sure that our stock price goes up? But what if the answer comes down that, well, you can market your EV in XYZ way, but that might change people's perception around the cars that's not EV and make your overall sales to go down. Not very intuitive, especially all you're trying to optimize is EV salesss, and that's the only thing that you're tracking, then that might result in a completely wrong solution, or at least different solution than what you would have expected, whether it's right or wrong.Joon [00:24:57]: That's the power of simulation.Swyx [00:24:58]: For listeners, we covered a similar topic with Mikhail Parakhin from Shopify, where they are working on SimGym. I don't know if he ever talked to you about it. it's very similar.Joon [00:25:07]: ISwyx [00:25:07]: The goal is increased conversion, but then the journey is very unusual.Joon [00:25:12]: Journey is unusual.Swyx [00:25:12]: Yeah. The-- He's trying to look for interventions on a shopping trajectory, which is similar to what you're saying. Like, it's not about the attitudinal, is your word for it.Swyx [00:25:24]: It's about behavior.Joon [00:25:25]: It's about behavior.Swyx [00:25:25]: And that's exactly the difference, right? It's, like, not about the near-term direction about-- but it's more about, like, how do you affect multiple turns of interactions.Vibhu [00:25:35]: You had a good quote at the start about this as well. It's not about people wanting to know the outcome. It's about how they can change it, change the way to get there, something like that. But I wanna take it back to how do we know this is grounded? LikeGrounding and Evaluating Digital TwinsVibhu [00:25:47]: How do you run evals? How do you test that simulations come through? if I was to do the same thing that you described with, say, your favorite LLM, Opus, GPT-5.6, have some agent to map out these thingsVibhu [00:26:02]: How different are the answers we would get if I give it the same goal, the same objective, make a decent system? You're saying that you need to change the model weight. You have your own solution to this. But how far off are we, and how do you check if it's grounded? you have some interesting stuff on your site that points to how you run real evals, but if you could take us through that side. I think that's one of the big concerns that people have. They're like, “LLMs hallucinate.”Vibhu [00:26:27]: “You're just hallucinating layer after layer,” right?Joon [00:26:30]: The way we do this, and this is the paper that we worked on after the generative agents paper that really became the, at least for Simile and also the field of simulation and synthetic panels, really became the foundation. Yeah, this is the paper. the paper is called Generative Agent Simulations of 1000 People. Here's what we've done. For this paper, we brought 1,000 people that's representatively sampled from the US to a virtual lab. And what we have done was we spent two hours collecting fairly wide-ranging data. In this particular study, we focused a lot on this interview data, that was, whose script was taken from this project called American Voices Project. And then we would also pair that with a lot of behavior data and so forth, whatever we can collect within two hours. And then we would send these people away for a couple of weeks. And during that time, I would use this data to create their digital twins. And I would bring the humans, participants back after 2 weeks and have them complete a battery of surveys, experiments, behavior studies. So we have the list here, which included things like behavioral economics games. We would run literally, like, Big Five personality test, General Social Survey. We would also go ahead and run the randomized controlled trials that were published on PNAS. And we would have their digital twins predict how the source individuals would have acted in these studies and surveys. And this is where we could replicate people's behaviors and attitudes 85 percent as accurately as people would replicate their own. So that was the first really paper that gave this validated results that we can model individuals in an accurate way. And what we ended up finding now, of course, in AI space, so this paper came out at the end of 2024. AI space, a year and a half, 2 years, that's a lifetime.85% Accuracy and Why Frontier Models Miss Human BehaviorSwyx [00:28:24]: Yeah. Just, for listeners who are not seeing the YouTube, I just wanna say, like, the headline figure is 85 percent accuracy, like, which is a big improvement over all the otherSwyx [00:28:34]: Methods that you showed.Joon [00:28:36]: But the part that was particularly striking to us, especially as we improved this technology even further, was the generative AI models like ChatGPT, Claude that's coming out, it does give you the right foundation. However, what they do not consider is the true attitudinal and behavioral aspect of people, especially in the population that you care about. So what these models are really good at today is they're trying to become the super rational, objective machines, right? So you go get their data from places like Mercor, Scale. You talk to professional programmers, scientists to create model that's amazing at reasoning. That's what they do. Simile doesn't care about any of this. The models that we're talking about here, what we're trying to create are models that are as dumb as I am, right? So if I make some mistakes, the model has to make the same mistake.Swyx [00:29:34]: Oh, that's very hard.Joon [00:29:35]: That's very hard.Swyx [00:29:36]: You're solving Murphy's paradox.Joon [00:29:37]: That's exactly. And this is a completely different data and training objective. This is also where we see quite a bit of discrepancy in the performance in human behavior prediction between the frontier models, Simile's model, and the models being created in this space, where in some cases, the model performance of frontier models go all the way down to 20, 30 percent, especially if you go into that more niche population on topics that our customers would care about. On more gen pop, it might be around 50 to 60 percent. So it's not very robust. Like, you wouldn't want to make your decision off of these and these findings. If you can bring that up to 85 percent, that is ultimately what people end up getting very excited about.Swyx [00:30:20]: Yeah. Do we wanna keep going on the paper, routes?Joon [00:30:23]: Yeah, for sure. So the last one, was an interesting one. So this, paper was the follow-up paper that we had, to the 1000 agents paper, where the idea was now can we augment the models even further and post-train a model based on a lot of randomized controlled trials? So this was an interesting one. The data is always the most interesting part of modeling in many ways. The data that we got here was there's this, there's this platform called Open Science Framework. So some, the audience might be familiar with this. And there has been, especially in the social sciences over the past 5 years or so, there has been this concern around replicability of studies. And so it was a bit of a crisis, the scientists acknowledged, where we rerun the study and we don't see the same finding.Post-Training on RCTs and Replication StudiesVibhu [00:31:12]: Oof.Joon [00:31:12]: It's tough. And the reason why it's there-- that was often the case was there's this survival bias where the papers that get published often need to maintain what we call the value of less than 0.05 in the experiments that we ran. That suggests that only-- there's only 5% chance that the results that we saw is false positive. But the tricky part was all the papers that were not published, and there's still a 5% chance that whatever we publish is totally just randomly generated. Like, there's a 5% chance that, hey, this effect is not real, but it just happened to be real because of the sampling bias. So because of that, what scientists started to do was they started to register their studies. So before running an experiment, they would go to this platform and say, “Here is the data. Here is the population that we're collecting, and here's the hypotheses.” And they would just say, “Here is our hypothesis.” Like, “This is what we believe.” And you cannot retroactively change those hypotheses. This is what gives us more scientific statistical confidence that whatever effect that you ended up seeing is true. So that ended up creating this really interesting platform where there's one platform that has now contains tens of thousands of real-world experiments and hypotheses. And a lot of these are really high-quality, like, professionally designed behavior studies and random- randomized controlled trials. So we got the data and the studies from this platform and used that to make a point. And this particular, model is not, something that we're serving commercially because this was a part of the open science. But this particular data set, helped us make a point that by collecting a lot of these randomized controlled trials, that are really well-designed, we can make significant improvement in model's capability to predict human behaviors. So that's what this paper was about.Vibhu [00:33:10]: Is this stuff done on a individual level? Like, do I need to tune the model per individual, per company? Is there foundation model changes and then some slight post-training? Anything you can share there?Population-Level vs. Individual-Level ModelsJoon [00:33:21]: So this particular model was trained. the data we had at the level of individuals, but this particular model was trained. We experimented with both. And this is what we end up doing at Simile too. We always train 2, distinct model. One is what we call the population-level model. The other is what we call the individual-level model. And both take very similar input, which is the description of a subpopulation or individual and a stimuli. In this particular work, we've done the same. Here, the results that we are reporting are much more geared towards individuals because we do think that is a harder task in many ways, but that's what we have done.Vibhu [00:34:02]: You seen anything on the questions that humans can solve that models can't solve? So likeHuman Biases, Mundane Choices, and What Models MissVibhu [00:34:09]: Currently, it's, I live 5 minutes walk away from a car wash. It's a 10-minute drive. Should I walk or drive?Joon [00:34:16]: Huh.Vibhu [00:34:16]: The model will say, “Oh, walk to the car wash.” And, you don't have your car.Vibhu [00:34:20]: Is anything like this a problem in simulation? You would assume, like, very simple for human to think about, but if the model is saying you should walk to the car wash, anything here?Joon [00:34:32]: It's less, what can we solve, but I think it's more about what biases or mistakes do people make that models miss. Like, imagine that you are, like the. When I was still at Stanford, I lived in Palo Alto. So it's about, I would say, 40-minute walk from the campus. You ask the model, “Okay, let's go home. What can I, what can I do?” It would likely call an Uber or, give me, the bus time. But for the longest time, I really liked walking back. And the reason why I wanted to do that was not for efficiency. It really helped me think. And I like to walk for, half an hour or 40 minutes or so a day, where I just get to, just think about ideas, research, just get lost in my thoughts. That's very human activity. Unless the model has seen that and understands the importance of that activity, it would miss these kinds of features. So that I think, is fundamentally what we're trying to model. Like, what is fundamentally human might not be the most efficient thing to do, might not be the right thing to do, but things that make us who we are.Swyx [00:35:43]: I'm curious if, there are some data sets that you really want that would materially help you. One version of this may be interesting, which is more valuable to you to acquire as a data set, all of LinkedIn, all of Twitter, all of Facebook?What Data Matters: Social Media, Transactions, and FacebookJoon [00:35:57]: It's a little bit hard to rank, in part because, there's, there's this product saying where no feedback is wrong because it teaches you something about your users. Doesn't matter what feedback.Joon [00:36:11]: I think it's a little bit like that.Swyx [00:36:12]: So just whatever is bigger.Vibhu [00:36:13]: What about a different domain? Say it was. What about all of Amazon data?Joon [00:36:17]: Oh, yeah.Vibhu [00:36:18]: Shopping data, right?Joon [00:36:18]: Shopping data. So Amazon data is interesting in that it's very much behavioral, although, like, what people do on social media, you could squint and say that is also behavioral. But the transaction data is always interesting. It is also most commonly available, however.Joon [00:36:33]: If we were to look at purely social media, like if you really, if I were, if I had to really pick, Facebook likely is interesting because I do think it is most a default version of people. Because you go to LinkedIn, it's very much professional environment. So people put up their, they have their guards up, right? And that still is interesting because that is true human attitude and behavior, but it is not your base state. you go to Twitter- Twitter, people have their own crazy personas, or depending on who you are. Like, my Twitter profile and, persona is very much, initially was I was very much an academic. “Hey, I'm here to share my studies.” Now, I share, things that's related to Simile. But Facebook is one of those more private space where people just connect with their friends. In that way, I do think it shows you a little bit more about who that person is. So if I had to pick, I'd likely pick, Facebook.Swyx [00:37:30]: Yeah. And you're interested in, like, the whole person and their background and philosophy. I, is it too clinical or too machine learning-oriented to just say this is just ways to inject variance and biases? The broad question, is, like, is this any better than a randomized, like, combinatorial explosion version? So we have a link to the TencentBillion Personas, Synthetic Demographics, and Bespoke DataSwyx [00:37:54]: Billion persona paper, where they did not do any of the groundwork that you are doing.Swyx [00:37:59]: They just did like a cross matrix of here's all the professions in the world, here's all the people, possible backgrounds in the world, do a dot product across all of them, and that's it. That's your prompt for a billion people.Swyx [00:38:12]: This will do something. I don't know if it'll do what you do, but it gets you some way, some percent of the way there.Joon [00:38:18]: So this was an interesting paper. Like, what I admired about this paper when it came out was the scale. And you do gradually want to be able to simulate really large societies and interactions. So the scale is definitely admirable. it is relying heavily on the known statistics that went into training the model. So to the extent that you believe that statistics is correct, this is not a bad way to go about this. But the thesis here, and this is something that we also have seen in the market, like if this works, then we have solved simulation.Joon [00:38:54]: It,Swyx [00:38:55]: Because I survey, like, okay, 5% of the US population is in construction.Swyx [00:39:01]: The other 5% is in medicine, whatever, right? And then you just keep going down the list, and then you do the other side. 5% has, like, the big 5 personalitySwyx [00:39:08]: Of, like, neurotic or whatever. That's it.Joon [00:39:11]: That's it. So if you believe that the underlying data set and the platform that we're leveraging has all the right statistics, then this will have solved it. you're at that point merely retrieving the knowledge that is already embedded in the model, in the model parameters. That's not, unfortunately, what we see, where there is such detailed and also niche knowledge about people that if you just take one example, it might feel very mundane, but it's quite rich when you put together, that you do need to do a lot of bespoke data collection to better understand people. And this is also, I think what makes this particular, job fun, which you want to deeply understand people, and the process of deeply understanding them requires a lot of attention to the details. And you do need to pay attention to and pay respect to the daily lives that people lead.Scaling Simulation: From Thousands to SocietiesVibhu [00:40:04]: I wanna talk about scaling simulation.Vibhu [00:40:07]: So what can't we simulate, what can we simulate, and how does scaling affect this? So how big are the models? What if we go from, 8B, like, couple 100 billionVibhu [00:40:18]: Like billion000 parameters, billion000? Do we get scaling? Any interesting emergence? Like, at a certain scale, at a certain amount of training, you uncover anything unusual and any learnings from that?Joon [00:40:31]: What we are seeing is at Simile, so we do post-train our own model. The thing that we're seeing is the early glimpse of scaling law in simulations. The more data about humans and more compute you ingest, you start to get predictive and predictable gains of the model performance in simulating it, simulating people.Vibhu [00:40:51]: Ooh. We need a scaling law curve.Joon [00:40:52]: It's scaling law. Whenever you find it's a beautiful thing. And we're starting to see the glimpse of it, which is quite exciting. But if you talk about the ambition of simulation as a whole, it's not merely about building a model. It's about building a model, then creating the agents that become the individuals in a much larger ecosystem. So they're creating this multi-agent simulation. Down the line, you want these multi-agent simulation to also live in a very rich environment, right? What we are really trying to get to at that point is, hey, can we create. All right, let's do a time machine game again, and 5 years, 10 years into the future, can we create a simulation of 8 billion people living on Earth? I think that's quite interesting. And that really is the vision. And once you get to that state, the questions that you can help answer for the society also start to change from my perspective. The answers are fundamentally about emergence of the emergent behavior of society and large groups of people.Joon [00:41:53]: So the questions that I get excited by, and maybe this is a stodgy- a bit. I have my, academic side of me.Joon [00:42:01]: And for me, it's questions like, can we help solve climate change? If you look at climate change as a problem space, this is what we, like social scientists would often call it the wicked problems, problem where you have many actors with competing incentives for trying to make a very complex decision and coordinating that coordination decision. Very difficult to really solve in real life, which is also the reason why we couldn't solve it. Can simulation help us solve that? Another one is, can we understand the signals for collapsing democracy, or can we understand or can we uncover the origin story of the monetary system? These are societal questions that we never really had a good way of answering. If we can create simulations of our society, you have to believe that these are the problems that we can solve. So that's really the ambition of this field. And, I also think, yes, I think there's a Nobel Prize to be won there, which wouldn't be surprising. And I think there's some amazing societal impact that we can have to help people make better decisions.Climate Change, Democracy, and Societal SimulationSwyx [00:43:04]: Nobel Prize in economics?Joon [00:43:06]: In economics.Swyx [00:43:06]: Oh, I see. I see. Rooting for you to write that paper.Joon [00:43:10]: One of these days. But, one of the scholars that I was deeply inspired by, When I was coming into the space of simulation, is this scholar, named Thomas Schelling.Schelling, Agent-Based Models, and the Nobel PrizeSwyx [00:43:23]: Schelling point?Joon [00:43:24]: So the canonical example of the work that he's done was he was one of the creators of agent-based modeling. So this was, like, in the 1970s and 80s. It's very early days, but this was truly one of the first exemplars of simulations. And one of the canonical model from that time, and of course many of these simulations are trying to tackle the societal problems that's most relevant for their era, it was called the model of segregation. So racial segregation was a big topic, that, we cared about. And what they've done was they created this grid world where they had red dots and blue dots. And these dots were, back in the day, like, they were the agents, and they had a simple rule that governed their behavior. If certain percentage of your neighbors are of different color and if that goes above certain threshold, then you move to a new location at random.Joon [00:44:21]: One of the striking finding of this paper or this agent-based model was for the longest time, people thought the segregation within society was caused by explicit and overt racism.Joon [00:44:34]: But if you look at this model, people's preference towards living with people of the same color, that preference can be very minute.Joon [00:44:42]: But the very small difference causes the society to segregate completely over time. This was very counterintuitive for a lot of people. And this particular work ended up informing housing policies. Mixed income housing, got really inspired by this work. And Thomas Schelling ends up winning the Nobel Prize for having laid the groundwork for very early versions of simulations. The opportunity that I do see here in the more scientific terms, is agent-based models for the longest, had impact in the 1980s, 90s, to some extent, early 2000s, but it has now gotten forgotten by the community a little bit. Because as you can imagine, red dots and blue dots is not really a rich description of people.Joon [00:45:31]: But with the emergence of things like generative AI and, in particular, generative agents, we do have an opportunity to create these agent-based models that are high fidelity enough to help us make really complex decisions. And that's the opportunity that I see. If that truly works, then yes, that is the work that will result in a Nobel Prize.Swyx [00:45:53]: Yeah. For what it's worth, and I grew up in Singapore. 80% of Singapore is in public housing, and public housing has, enforced racial quotas for exactly that reason, which is very interesting. okay, so we talk about scaling, we talk about all these, the agent possible applications.Cost, Reuse, and the Economics of SimulationSwyx [00:46:13]: I'm scared about the cost. if you even-- let's just keep it to the US, about 8 billion people.Swyx [00:46:21]: But, how much does it cost to model so many hundreds of millions of people?Joon [00:46:26]: Oftentimes today, we don't start at that scale, this stage of the, of industry and simulation as technology. But we can get our users extremely rich and meaningful insights even by modeling thousands, tens of thousands of people. And today what we do is every week we are collecting data on the scale of tens of thousands people's data, and we have panel partnerships that gets us to tens of millions of people globally. So that's what we do today.Swyx [00:46:55]: And just as a side note once you've collected one person for one studySwyx [00:46:59]: Can you reuse that same person for all the subsequent studies?Joon [00:47:03]: That's exactly right.Swyx [00:47:03]: Okay.Joon [00:47:04]: The beauty of this model and these agents is the fact that they are domain-agnostic.Joon [00:47:08]: That what you're really trying to understand is what is the fundamental nature of these people? What's their social physics? And there are a lot of, a lot of, people that does change over time. Like, even, like, even things like, how many times have you gone have you been to, like, CVS the past week? that will change. But there's so many traits about people that are also known to never change. Like, your risk tolerance doesn't really change over time. It's very consistent. So it's these things that we're trying to learn. But the scale we are operating is right now hundreds or, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. And in many of the core use cases that we are deployed in, and this is more than enough population, to cover those. Really, at that point, what you care about is less the number of people, but more do you have the right subpopulation of interest covered? And this is also the reason why people want a larger sample. It's not because they want, stronger statistical guarantees. It's more that can they filter down to any population of their interest. However, you can also imagine in 10 years, if we truly believe that the compute is going to scale, that we'll have much more availability for compute, and our ambition for simulation is also going to scale accordingly, there's definitely a reason for us to create an entire data center worth of simulations.Joon [00:48:35]: Or in my hunch here is I do think in the next some number of years, we will start creating simulations that will cost as much as training a foundation model. But perhaps it's going to be so valuable to the society that it would be a no-brainer. Right now, even today, like, we are training bunch of new foundation model just so we can say we trained one and we spent tens of millions. But if we can create a simulation at the level of society that would solve climate change, I would run that today. I would raise the money right now just to run that.Multi-Agent Simulation and Social InfluenceSwyx [00:49:10]: Amazing. the follow-up question is, does it also compound if you let the simulations talk to each other?Swyx [00:49:18]: Or do they already do that today? They don't, right, as far as I understand?Joon [00:49:22]: It depends on what simulation you're trying to run.Joon [00:49:24]: In the multi-agent simulation setup, the agents do talk to each other.Swyx [00:49:28]: Right, which is exactly Smallville, right?Joon [00:49:29]: That's right.Swyx [00:49:30]: But a lot of times, for example, in commerce, you're just by yourself, so there's no point talking. which is way cheaper.Vibhu [00:49:37]: But they use all these levels, right? Like, you decide what you will buy based on what other people around you buy and talk about, right?Swyx [00:49:43]: It depends.Vibhu [00:49:44]: It depends.Swyx [00:49:45]: Again, I'm, I'm coming at this from a cost point of view. I'm like, “Oh my God.” LikeVibhu [00:49:48]: I thinkSwyx [00:49:49]: If there is, like, some combinatorial thing of, like, thousands of people talking to thousands of people, then that one million X's might cost.Vibhu [00:49:56]: I have a very different view as the cost point aside. Like, running these studies in reality is a lot more expensive, right? Running any study like this is you gotta have people do it, you gotta sign people up. It's very expensive and sometimes, like, not feasible to run the study.Vibhu [00:50:14]: But the outcome or the decisions you make are very expensive on them, right? So spend X million on something that, the overall process costs 100 million might as well, right? There's, there's a lot of value to be had there. It's a small cost, but I'm excited on the cost side.Joon [00:50:33]: To some extent, and when you deploy technology, you often want to deploy in a way where you can replace existing budget or you can make things more efficient, and that is the best way to deploy. However, the way you capture the long-term value of the technology is making the argument that, no, it's the upside, that by making this better decision using simulation, you have saved yourself or made yourself hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, and that's a case to be made.Vibhu [00:51:06]: Random tangent question. So if you're doing a lot of inference, a lot of model multi-agent stuff, are you at the point where it makes sense to, train a model that' very sparse? You're expecting to do multi-million dollar runs. Are you thinking about this in model architecture standpoint or inference efficiency, or, you're still at the research phase of it works, we're not super there yet?Joon [00:51:34]: Efficiency, we do think quite a bit about. this is technology that is deployed now in some of the largest enterprise companies in the world, and we do process significant number of queries, that are trying to, simulate the populations in the world. So efficiency is a consistent thing. we don't want to over-optimize too early, so I wouldn't say, like, this is the higher bid Right now, but this is definitely something that we think pretty carefully about.Swyx [00:52:05]: Yeah. Are there other case studies? So we, you talked about CVS, talked about Gallup, Deloitte, Wealthfront.Efficiency, Enterprise Use, and Real-World Case StudiesJoon [00:52:12]: Wealthfront is an interesting one, because one of the things they were trying to do, they were one of the first customers that wanted to do product testing that goes beyond just asking people what they think about, let's say, behavior experiments and so forth. So there, really what we had to do was reason about multimodal input, so images, but also you can also imagine, like, these agents traversing through Figma mockups or websites. So some of the things that our agents can also do is it can be given a domain, like, or, like, a website URL and go use it for a while. It's these things. And Wealthfront was one of the first, customers, that was very excited about this possibility.Vibhu [00:52:53]: What have people been asking? Like, is there any demand that we have not covered? Like, UI testing, right?Vibhu [00:52:59]: I wanna try a new. I wanna ship a new feature, test the UI, simulate how people will do it. Any interesting things that you're seeing demand for?Product Testing, Websites, and Synthetic PanelsJoon [00:53:08]: Today, a lot of the demand does come from like, the places where people have historically used human panels, we can now replace with agents, and these synthetic populations. And this is not replacing human panel. in many ways, the simulation that Simile is building is grounded. So the way that I think about this is we are trying to represent humanity at scale. And in that way, the use cases are what we would expect, but it's the scale of deployment that surprises me.Joon [00:53:44]: Turns out there are so many decisions that people make every day in these organizations, groups, and we want to be able to say, “We listen to people. We have consulted our users.” But in reality, that is rarely the case because getting to people and asking them many questions, it's difficult. It's both costly, time-consuming, but most importantly, people are just not available. If I had to answer 1000 survey questions for this one particular, vendor, even if I wanted to do that, like, I would never do it. And that's very much the case. What simulation can do is ensure that the voices of people are always represented in rooms where the decisions for them is made, right? So all the stakeholders of this particular product launch, ideally they're consulted. That's what this technology really is trying to enable.Market Size, TAM, and Human Decision-MakingSwyx [00:54:39]: In my mind, that means it skews towards more consumer focus, right? Like, anything with a wide enough customer base where you do benefit from the diversity that you represent. What are some rough statistics, just for people who are not familiar with this market in general, what's the market size that. I'm sure you have some, like, rough numbers. market size is, like, a vague questionSwyx [00:55:01]: But, like, how much do people spend?Joon [00:55:03]: So market research is a $100 billion industry.Joon [00:55:06]: But the thing about simulation is not a tool for market research. Simulation is a tool for human decision-making. So the question around what is a TAM here is quite tricky, right? Because it's easy to say, “Well, market research TAM is roughly 100 million or 100 billion.” so is it a TAM? And not really, right? Because in many ways, you're trying to inform all human decision-making. You're trying to inform every decision that are made about humans for humans. What is a TAM for that? It's really unclear. And I'll be honest. Like, I have a scientific background, I have a research background, so I didn't come into the field calculating, oh, what is the TAM for human decision-making? But I just had to assume, well, if we can inform every decision that is made about human for human, that has to be big.Swyx [00:55:58]: Some- something valuable.Joon [00:55:59]: Exactly.Swyx [00:55:59]: To some extent, you are a unicorn founder now, and you have to care as a CEO. But, like, I do think, like, yeah, when you go into these boardrooms with people that you're quoting millions of dollars of contracts for, like, you have to say, “Well, here's what you spend on humans-”Swyx [00:56:15]: “. And here's what we save you, and it's 85% similar.”Joon [00:56:19]: And certainly, the value case, is something that we care deeply about. Like, what is the value that we provide to the users and the decision-makers? But this is also where, like, as a founder, I think valuation only tells one very superficial aspect of the story, and I try not to think too much about valuation, in general, because that's not what also motivates a team or certainly doesn't. I'm, I-- Again, the interesting thing about researchers is we are happy living in academia, getting paid next to. we get paid okay. we don't get paid that much, as a researcher here in academia, but it's the impact and it's the, it's the value that we can provide to the individuals and the society that really drives us. And in that way, ultimately what drives us is the impact. Does the simulation we provide have a real impact in people's decision-making in ways that progresses our society forward? If the answer is yes, then yes. that has to be great business, and we see that in numbers, and we do care deeply about that upside story, but that's the heart of it.Where Simulation Goes NextVibhu [00:57:27]: Do you have any timeline predictions? So we talked about scaling laws of simulations.Vibhu [00:57:33]: You brought up, okay, maybe one day we can simulate how to solve climate change.Vibhu [00:57:38]: Where are we now?Vibhu [00:57:40]: If that's not the end state, what is an end state, and what does progress look like?Joon [00:57:45]: So what I sometimes tell people is simulation as industry, it feels a lot like where GPT-3.5, GPT-4 was, for the AGI saga, which is we have now technology that is powerful enough to do real damage on the verticals that we are tackling. At the same time, there's a lot of progress that is yet to come. And that's, I think, where this is. So the way I see it, I do think there will continue to be breakthroughs both in data, in algorithms, and there will be much more aggressive scaling that will also happen over the next few years. But I think that's roughly where we are.Swyx [00:58:27]: I think that was about the ro

HEADLINES: Confirming an Alzheimer's diagnosis could soon be as simple as a blood test. Australia's second-largest telco is facing legal action over a major network failure that caused a widespread triple-zero outage. Australia’s online watchdog - launches legal action against a popular messaging app for failing to remove terror related content. Bird flu cases have been detected in a fifth state, prompting warnings of a national wildlife emergency. A new edition of an iconic The Beatles' is set to be released. GET IN TOUCHGot a story, news tip-off, feedback or dilemma?Send us a voice note or email us at thequicky@mamamia.com.au SUBSCRIBER GIVEAWAY: The Out Loud hosts have handpicked their all-time favourite reads and one subscriber is winning the entire 12-book stack. Subscribe to Mamamia here to be automatically entered. Already a subscriber? Don't sweat it, you're already in. T&Cs apply. CREDITSHost: Talissa Bazaz Audio Producer: Scott Stronach Group Executive Producer: Charlotte Mortlock, Talissa Bazaz & Georgie Page Check out The Quicky Instagram here and our TikTok here Discover more Mamamia podcasts here Did you know some of our shows are now in video on the Apple Podcast app? Make sure your phone is up to date and check it out here! Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's rather obvious Americans have not exactly been … cheerful for the last few years. And it's showing up in the data – the General Social Survey, the Consumer Sentiment Survey from the University of Michigan, the World Happiness Report, and even the Federal Reserve all report that Americans are less happy than they were a decade ago. Whether that's with their jobs, the economy, the state of the world – no matter the metric, Americans are not having it. To find out why we're feeling down, we spoke with Derek Thompson. He's the co-author of the book "Abundance," and he writes a popular Substack called, well, Derek Thompson.And in headlines, President Donald Trump is once again threatening Iran via Truth Social, House Speaker Mike Johnson talks about the administration's priorities, and Taiwan's president stresses the importance of arms purchases from the United States.Show Notes: Check out Derek's piece –https://tinyurl.com/zzsjpf7a Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

In this episode of The Mandy Connell Show, Mandy dives into the importance of faith and its impact on happiness. She shares some surprising statistics from the General Social Survey, revealing that regular church attendance has a bigger impact on happiness than wealth. Mandy also discusses the benefits of church shopping, where she shares her own personal preferences for a pastor's style and qualifications. The conversation also touches on the topic of parenting and the role of parents in shaping their children's values and faith. With a mix of personal anecdotes and thought-provoking insights, Mandy explores the complexities of faith and its place in modern society.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this message we will look at what the Scriptures have to say about marriage, analyze concerns and questions raised in our day, overview the cultural changes that have led to many questioning the value and benefit of marriage, and do so from a Christian worldview. We will also take a look at some secular contemporary research and what it indicates. Common Reactions:     1.    The culture has changed:     - Married Couples comprised:             1950 — 78% of all US households             2020 — 47% of all US households     - Living together before marriage:             1960's — 5%             2020's — 70%     - Recent analysis of the General Social Survey data tells us Americans' happiness declined from the 1970s to the 2020s. Sam Peltzman, Professor emeritus, University of Chicago says one thing explains the most recent decline in overall happiness - the decline of marriage.  The data indicates the benefit of what the Bible has said all along. Genesis 2:18 "The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." The literal Hebrew translation for the word helper is:  "Helper equal to Him." This is talking about two people who are complimentary to each other. Our Creator recognized we function better together.     2.    Divorce makes me fear marriage:     - the spike in divorce rate have left an impression on the generation raised in one parent households.     3.    Why not just live together?     - the Bible tells us to be faithful before and after marriage to our spouse.     - Couples who live together:         4-5 times more likely to break up than married couples         more likely to divorce once they do marry (by about 50%)         higher incidence of alcohol abuse, drug abuse and domestic violence     4.    How can I know the right one? "Fall in like before you fall in love." This means - find an individual who is like minded, who shares your faith, your values, your outlook on life, an individual who truly is a potential soulmate. Make sure that the person you choose as your life partner and spouse is one who holds like values and believes as you do.     5.    I'm not sure marriage is for me: One does not need to feel pushed into marriage. In 1 Corinthians 7:7 Paul refers to the gift of celibacy saying, "I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that." God does not say everyone is to be married.  Contemporary Research: 2 books     ⁃    "The Two-Parent Privilege" by Melissa S. Kearney Professor of Economics, University of Maryland 2023 - tells us that "Americans stopped getting married and started falling behind." Her work has been printed in:     Wall Street Journal     New York Times     National Review      Atlantic Magazine She offers a "provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution's decline has led to a host of economic woes…"  She shows how children do better in a family where their parents are married to each other.     ⁃    Education outcomes     ⁃    Physical and mental health     ⁃    Diminishes suicide possibility     ⁃    Serves as a barrier to alcohol and drug use and child abuse     ⁃    Impacts Teenage pregnancy and delinquency She comes at this on the basis of solid economic data and what we can see happening in our culture today.     ⁃    "Get Married" by Brad Wilcox Professor Sociology, University of Virginia 2024. Also published in the following:     ⁃    Wall Street Journal     ⁃    New York Times     ⁃    National Review     ⁃    Atlantic Magazine Wilcox tells us, "When it comes to predicting overall happiness, a good marriage is far more important than how much education you get, how much money you make, how often you have sex and even how satisfied you are with your work."    Pastor concludes with these thoughts: God created us, He speaks because He knows us and wants what is best for us. God invented marriage and He gives us guidance on how to have a truly blessed and God-pleasing marriage. Malachi 2:15 says, "Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth."  Those are powerful, spirit-given words that we need to take to heart Now What? Learn about God at https://www.awakeusnow.com EVERYTHING we offer is FREE. Check out this video series from our website: https://www.awakeusnow.com/whats-the-answer Join us Sundays  https://www.awakeusnow.com/sunday-service

In Episode 97 of the Operation Thriving Marriage Podcast, Bryon and Jennifer Harvey tackle one of today's loudest cultural narratives: “Marriage is bad for women.” From viral reels to negative blog posts, modern messaging often paints marriage as limiting, misogynistic, or a barrier to women's personal success. But the Harveys push back with both research and biblical wisdom, highlighting findings from the General Social Survey that consistently show married women—especially married women with children—report significantly higher levels of happiness than their single peers. While the data can't claim that marriage causes happiness, it does clearly demonstrate that marriage is not harmful to women and often correlates with meaningful emotional, spiritual, and relational benefits. Bryon and Jen explore why this disconnect exists and how social media outrage, pain-driven content, and misunderstanding of Christian teaching all contribute to a distorted narrative. They explain how biblical marriage offers women deep emotional support, protection against loneliness, shared identity and purpose, accountability for personal growth, and the joy of partnership in both daily life and spiritual mission. But these benefits don't flow automatically—marriage only thrives when both spouses actively invest in it. Husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25), creating emotional safety and mutuality, while wives partner in love and teamwork. Healthy communication, catching small issues early, and keeping Christ at the center are essential practices that help women flourish in marriage. The episode ends with a challenge for couples to evaluate the benefits they are experiencing in their relationship and to intentionally reconnect if something is missing. Asking simple questions like, “How do I help you feel loved, valued, or seen?” and “What small issues do we need to address together?” can reignite unity and purpose. As the Harveys often remind listeners: if both of you aren't winning, neither of you is winning. Subscribe, rate, and connect with Operation Thriving Marriage for more tools to build a marriage that thrives.

Today's deep-dive episode covers a wide range of pressing topics shaping American society, from government overreach to cultural shifts and the priorities that define our future: FBI and political interference: We examine repeated instances where federal agencies allegedly bypass legal processes to suppress information, from high-profile shootings to leaked manifestos, and the political motivations behind these actions. Social media vs. mainstream media: How local news and social platforms are increasingly setting the narrative, challenging traditional media gatekeepers, and holding institutions accountable. Birth rates and societal priorities: New Gallup and General Social Survey data reveal conservatives maintain above-replacement birth rates, while liberal households are having fewer children. We discuss the mental health divide, happiness metrics, and why family formation is a central predictor of life satisfaction. Family and financial planning: Insights into prioritizing children, marriage, and financial independence, and how conservative families are navigating these life choices successfully. Crime, public safety, and political messaging: High-profile cases in Charlotte and elsewhere show the intersection of policy, media coverage, and activism, illustrating how political narratives are shaped by both grassroots and mainstream attention. This episode ties together cultural trends, political strategy, family priorities, and government accountability, offering listeners a clear-eyed view of how decisions in personal life and public policy are intertwined. Key takeaways: Understanding the birth rate crisis and ideological divide in family formation. How media and social platforms influence political narratives and public perception. The importance of prioritizing family and happiness over societal pressures. Insights into government overreach, criminal justice, and transparency issues. This is essential listening for anyone seeking to navigate modern American culture, politics, and family life with clarity and perspective.

In this eye-opening episode, we dive into stunning new data from Gallup and the U.S. General Social Survey that reveals a surprising truth about America's birth rate crisis. Contrary to popular belief, it's not conservatives who are having fewer children—they are maintaining above-replacement fertility rates. The decline in births is almost entirely driven by liberal men and women having fewer or no kids. We break down what the polls say about happiness, priorities, and life satisfaction: Married women with children report being 2.5 times happier than women who aren't married or childless. Conservative men (particularly Trump voters) rank having children as their #1 priority and marriage as #4, while liberal men and women rank them far lower. Liberal women often prioritize career and financial independence over family, which aligns with the falling birth rate among left-leaning households. The episode also explores the cultural and psychological divide between conservatives and liberals when it comes to family creation, relationships, and personal fulfillment. We discuss why the data suggests that America's future demographic landscape could be shaped by these stark differences in values and priorities. Listeners will learn: How political affiliation correlates with family planning and happiness. Why conservative households continue to thrive in family creation. The surprising links between mental health, political ideology, and life satisfaction. Insights on how cultural messages about career and timing can impact long-term happiness. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in family trends, cultural shifts, and what really drives happiness in America.

The host explores a looming social crisis: the stark reality of modern relationships and happiness. Citing studies from the Pew Research Center and the General Social Survey, the host reveals that a significant number of Gen Z women don't believe marriage or motherhood leads to a happy life. However, he counters this with data showing that married women with children are actually twice as likely to report being "very happy" compared to unmarried and childless women. The discussion also highlights a growing partisan divide between young men and women, with Gen Z men being the most conservative in a century, creating a "demographic armageddon" that will make it harder for young people to find a compatible partner.

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 this trend around? Andrew suggests the statement “Jesus is Lord” as a critical starting point. If you have a question or topic that you'd like to hear addressed on the Ephesiology Podcast, just send it to Andrew at andrew@neartownchurch.org. Find the podcast on your favorite podcast app Just search for “Ephesiology” Our Podcasters Michael CooperProfessor | Missiologist | AuthorMichael is the missiologist in residence with East West where he focuses on equipping and empowering church leaders in evangelism, discipleship, leadership, and catalyzing church planting movements in the most difficult to reach places on the planet. He is the author of Ephesiology: The Study of the Ephesian Movement as well as many other books and academic articles. He has lectured at universities around the world and serves as affiliate faculty at Kairos University where he facilitates the degree programs in partnership with Ephesiology Master Classes.Andrew JohnsonMinistry Lead, West Village ChurchAndrew is a proud husband, father and pastor who desires all to know the one true King. He is honored to serve at West Village Church in Victoria, BC. Previously, he's ministered in Houston, Chicago, Indy, Flagstaff and Tempe in a variety of church contexts. Andrew has a BA in Christian Ministry from Trinity International University and an MA from Phoenix Seminary. He is currently a Doctor of Ministry student at Kairos University and is the co-host of the Ephesiology Podcast. When not at work, he's an avid disc golfing, vinyl playing, Spider-Man following/collecting fellow. Go Pacers. Rediscover Jesus through Revelation Revelation paints a clear picture of Jesus. In this 10 week study, we'll discover what it means to be a disciple of Jesus living in challenging times. We'll see the mission of Jesus' disciples along with the gospel they proclaimed. And, we’ll dive deeply into the meaning that is so often puzzling to the modern reader. Check it out! Ephesiology: A Study of the Ephesian Movement If you want to understand principles for the growth of Christianity in the first century, the place to begin is the city of Ephesus. In this winsome study, Ephesiology offers readers a comprehensive view of the empowering work of the Holy Spirit in the most significant city of the New Testament, and compels us to ask the question: how can we effectively connect Christ to our culture? “Masterfully handling the book of Ephesians and using its content as a definitive guide, Michael Cooper lays a theologically strong foundation that is both corrective and directive to disciple making movements. The principles he gleans from the book of Ephesians and related texts, help to ensure the on-going multiplication and maturation of a movement. Because these are supra-cultural principles, they are applicable anywhere in the world.” Marvin J. Newell, Staff Missiologist, Missio Nexus, Author of Crossing Cultures in Scripture Buy This Now! Educating to Shift the Tracks of History To shift the tracks of history requires leaders who are equipped to critically assess and engage the contours of contemporary culture. As a new initiative in collaboration with the Movement Leaders Collective, Kairos University, and Ephesiology, we deliver just-in-time theological education focused on issues important to you, mxAcademy is designed as the theological and missiological foundation to unlock your potential as a movement leader and catalytic thinker. mxAcademy is a dynamic and innovative educational experience rooted in mDNA.We dream of a church fully equipped, fully mature, fully mobilized, and fully alive. A church that lives and breathes the Good News of Jesus! Learn More Partner with the Pod The Ephesiology Podcast comes to you from a desire to engage in community conversations about the intersection of theology and culture. We do not believe such dialogue should come with a cost so the podcast will always be free. However, if you've benefited from the Ephesiology Podcast, would you consider a nominal $5 per month donation? All proceeds from the podcast go toward helping bring needed theological education to the majority world through our Ephesiology Master Class initiative to end a theological famine. We'd be honored to partner with you to continue providing solid biblical, theological, and missiological content for listeners around the world. Donate The Ephesiology Podcast and Ephesiology Master Classes are ministries of TELOS.GO, a registered 501c3 non-profit agency committed to imaginatively missional ways of engageing culture, church planting, and theological education. Your donation to the podcast is tax deductible.

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.

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."