Changing our perception of the brain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo_e0EvEZn8

What I'm not reading this week

I deeply appreciate Wired's commitment to covering the current administration. I can't read it all (or any most days), but I'm glad I'm a subscriber. 

https://www.wired.com/category/politics/ 

Let's track this idea and see if it pans out

NY Times Opinion: The Key Reason Trump's Poll Numbers Are Sagging, 2025-March-18 by Kristen Soltis Anderson

Shortly after the inauguration, I asked American voters how much of a priority they thought a range of policy moves should be for Mr. Trump. The very top of the list? “Reduce the cost of living.” Also high up on the list were actions on immigration, which explains why my polling has found that Mr. Trump’s immigration job approval remains positive even as his approval in other areas has grown weaker.

In contrast, “passing additional tariffs” and “firing large numbers of federal government employees” — the stuff of the headlines of the last few weeks — fall far down the rankings. Only one in four voters thought each of those items should be “one of the top priorities.” And while the numbers look more robust among Trump voters, fewer than half of them identified mass firings or tariffs as a top priority. Instead, Trump voter priorities looked just like voter priorities overall: reduce the cost of living, deport criminal illegal immigrants, secure the southern border.

Innovation in newsletters, courtesy Inbox Collective

https://inboxcollective.com/here-are-the-finalists-for-the-inaugural-inbox-awards/ 

• Ms. Lonely Arts advice column from the Brooklyn Museum
• Help Scout on doing better customer support
• 8 Epic Start-up Failures, stories from the past of The Wall Street Journal
• First name substitutes revealed by Email Love
• Re-use the art to make stickers, posters (or napkins or placemats) from The Republic (Nigeria)
• Ask for advice from readers, then let them vote on the ideas, courtesy Try&Reply

 

 

Stephen Kotkin on the state of international competition and conflict

Kotkin has refreshing opinions about the power of the current global states.

Stephen Kotkin interviewed by The New Yorker's David Remnick

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/what-trump-has-got-wrongand-rightabout-the-war-in-ukraine 

When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, one of David Remnick’s first calls was to Stephen Kotkin, a historian of Russia and a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He speaks with Kotkin again, as Trump is pressuring Ukraine to accept a “deal.” Kotkin doesn’t endorse Trump’s position, but notes that it reflects real changes in America’s place in the world and the limits of American power. “You can say that Trump is wrong in his analysis of the world, you can say that Trump’s methods are abominable,” Kotkin says. “But you can’t say that American power is sufficient to meet its current commitments on the trajectory that we’re on.”