Greetings from the Logan Airport! I’m heading out today to attend the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) annual meeting. I’m looking forward to being back - this is my first conference (of any sort) since the pandemic - plus I’ll get a chance to see a bunch of my former Army-Baylor colleagues who are now in leadership positions in programs all around the country. That’s really the best part.
The news out of Russia this past week was historic and wild. The Wagner Group turned on the Russian government in an armed mutiny. Like you, I’ve watching in horror as the Russians have brutalized the Ukrainian people in a truly primitive manner this past year and some, and they have displayed a vile brutality of an atavistic nature that has made it so shocking. Clearly an organized, advanced country would not behave like this. And now we have further confirmation that Russia is not an organized, advanced country: an armed mutiny reminiscent of primitive warlordism. The rebellion of the Wagner Group is good news for Ukraine, but it is concerning from a global security perspective. If Russia disintegrates, what will happen to all of its nuclear weapons? The level of corruption in Russia is profound, but at least the central government seems to have control over its nuclear arms. What happens if the central government loses control of the kleptocrats? Maybe someone will sell nuclear weapons to a terrorist organization which will then use the weapon to carry out mass murder at a scale we have never seen. This is the problem of “loose nukes”, which I have a piece in Read below. Peter Zeihan has a good update on the current state of affairs in Ukraine, which I have included in Watch.
(Pic above is of the Scammell Bridge which connects Durham to our neighboring town, Dover. It was a beautiful Sunday morning paddle.)
See you Sunday with another essay on the shape of happiness. As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: Council on Foreign Relations, Loose Nukes
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/loose-nukes
Why: Per discussion above, what are loose nukes? It’s a problem we’ve been worried about since the end of the Soviet Union.
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What: Rob Henderson’s Newsletter, Victim Signaling and Dark Triad Personality Traits
Why: I’m just going to quote from the article:
The Dark Triad comprises narcissism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and duplicity) and psychopathy (callousness and disregard for others). People with Dark Triad traits can be seductive.
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The researchers examine victim signaling, which they define as “a public and intentional expression of one’s disadvantages, suffering, oppression, or personal limitations.” They also examine virtue signaling, defined as “symbolic demonstrations that can lead observers to make favorable inferences about the signaler’s moral character.”
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Regardless of personal characteristics, those who scored higher on Dark Triad traits were more likely to be victim signalers. And may be more likely to deceive others for material gain.
The whole thing is worth reading. Explains a lot about the culture of victimhood that has swept over America.
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Watch
What: Peter Zeihan, And Now We Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Program (Ukraine War Updates) (12 min)
Why: Good update, with maps, of what is going on in Ukraine and where they are pressing and why. With the chaos of the Wagner rebellion, let us pray that the Ukrainians will be able to break through.
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Listen
What: People I (Mostly) Admire, Ninety-Eight Years of Economic Wisdom (54 min)
Why: Steve Levitt (the economist in Freakonomics) interviews Nobel Prize-winner Robert Solow, who was 98 years old at the time of the interview. Solow was a pioneer in macroeconomics, and developed one of the early models of economic growth - the Solow Growth Model - which I used to teach to my students when I taught macro. The podcast is not at all technical, and it is funny to listen to Solow talk about economic growth as not being all that important, given almost every intro macro course uses his model. He’s definitely a left-of-center guy, so I have some disagreements with his statements, but he’s a Nobel prize winner and I am not. Let’s just leave it at that. He also talks a bit about getting older, and reflects a little on his WWII service. It’s a fun interview.
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What: The Dishcast, Tabia Lee On How To Teach Kids (82 min)
Why: Dr. Tabia Lee was the faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at De Anza College until she was fired for her heterodox views on DEI. She’s also a cofounder of Free Black Thought. I almost passed on this one because I assumed it would be another 2-dimensional, flattened perspective that mainlines the Kendi/DeAngelo version of “anti-racism”, but Lee is anything but 2D. She demonstrated an openness to topics of diversity that I wish I saw more often, especially in academia and the mainstream press.
I also recommend her first person account of running up against the “critical-social-justice-ideological complex” and getting fired for daring to think differently: Tabia Lee, A Black DEI Director Canceled by DEI