Author Archives: Jasper John MacKay

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Among the people, democracy is thriving. After decades of decline in voter turnout, there has been a steep and steady rise in participation over the past 20 years — at least for parties whose candidates reflect a genuine popular sentiment. As this has happened, liberal commentators — who tend to back what Wolfgang Streeck calls “parties of the standard model” — have changed their definition of democracy, he writes: They see high electoral participation as a troubling expression of discontent, “endangering rather than strengthening democracy.”
~ Christopher Caldwell

via This Maverick Thinker Is the Karl Marx of Our Time
published by The New York Times on November 28, 2024

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The erosion of American manufacturing superiority is an old story, but it is a key element for understanding the end of the American age. The U.S. could once outbuild other powers by tapping into civilian production. During World War II, Americans retooled the automotive industry to build aircraft. Today, relative to the rest of the world, the United States does almost no civilian shipbuilding. China, in comparison, makes about 50 percent of the ships in the world and controls about 80 percent of the world’s drone manufacture.
~ Phillips Payson O’Brien via The Atlantic

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via the report published by MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training:

“Students need to believe that doing the work themselves is in their self-interest. It will take more than top-down AI use policies to inspire that conviction. As a community, we need to cultivate a campus culture in which (1) AI restrictions that instructors impose clearly support student learning, personal growth, and professional success; and (2) students have a shared culture that values and fosters residential learning and discourages excessive reliance on AI.”

Published on August 13, 2026.

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