Briefly

The man in the suit here is a malignant narcissist. When I first saw this picture of Donald Trump giving a “thumbs up” sign as he posed with a baby who survived the murderous monster in El Paso a couple of weeks ago, I assumed that even his supporters would be horrified. To anyone who understands normal human reactions, it is a shocking demonstration of a man who believes the world revolves around him, but I’ve been surprised to see some people say his reaction was perfectly normal. The truth is that it’s the pose of a man without empathy — someone who is so accustomed to trying to promote his own empty false self that he doesn’t even know how to fake the proper response to such a horrific event. An emotionally healthy person would focus on the child at such a moment, but Trump looks as though he’s at a campaign event with the child of a happy donor. This has nothing to do with ideology or party. The man is mentally ill.

I’m slowly accepting the fact that people who want some form of socialism or controlled economy genuinely don’t understand that new goods and services are created by the voluntary interactions of free people. They seem to view the world through the lens of a static supply of semi-abstract “resources” which can be distributed in some theoretically “fair” way. But they apparently don’t understand that resources are almost useless unless paired with ideas, ingenuity and voluntary cooperation. The things which make life easier to live (in the physical sense) all come about because of this voluntary interaction and trade to bring added value. If you misunderstand this core truth — that the supply of good things increases through voluntary human interaction — you will assume the world is a zero-sum pie to be divided. And you will ultimately try to force the rest of us to obey you. That is evil.

Many parents want their children to go to so-called “elite” schools. Why? They believe those schools have some magic formula when it comes to educating students. But according to MIT researcher Josh Angrist, those parents are wrong. Those schools’ graduates don’t score highly because the schools are great. No, the schools appear great simply because they choose students who are going to do well no matter were they go to school. There is a bizarre tendency among Americans to see a cause-and-effect relationship between fancy schools and superior education. That’s why parents assume that a school with fancy buildings and expensive labs and bright reputations can turn their children into brilliant scholars. That’s why people look at high-income suburbs — with expensive schools paid for by higher taxes — and assume the high test scores from there are because of “better schools.” But they’re not. If you take those kids from high-income homes and send them to a run-down urban school and take those kids from poor neighborhoods and put them into the fancy school buildings, the schools’ results would reverse. Most of the difference between schools is because of which homes the students come from, not because of fancy buildings and elite reputations.