{"id":7610,"date":"2025-01-24T19:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-25T03:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7610"},"modified":"2025-01-24T19:29:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-25T03:29:44","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-488","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/01\/24\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-488","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 488"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4396\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1200%2C1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=2048&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=1680&amp;ssl=1 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\"><\/a>\n\n    On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my&nbsp;way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/home\/post\/p-155344659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Speculation: Physical Pain Might Not Be Very Bad?<\/a> (Lyman Stone, Substack): \u201cBut it seems like chronic pain is not as strongly associated with suicide as the (biased) literature suggests, that high pain-tolerance is modestly associated with suicide, and that pharmacological interventions reducing pain don\u2019t decrease and actually increase suicide. So it really seems like pain doesn\u2019t cause suicide, and it almost seems like <em>lack of <\/em>pain causes suicide.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Stone with another banger. Highly recommended.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I would like to go on record as saying I am not a fan of pain. Indeed, since Revelation 21:4 informs us that there will be no pain in heaven I do not think I am going too far in being unenthused about pain generally: \u201cThy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.\u201d That being said, I like Stone\u2019s argument a&nbsp;lot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.freyaindia.co.uk\/p\/the-courage-to-commit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Courage To Commit<\/a> (Freya India, Substack): \u201cIt\u2019s strange because my generation talks so much about empowerment, agency, independence, and fear of losing ourselves, yet we will willingly offer ourselves up to the algorithm. We will surrender our souls to the machine without a second thought\u2026but are terrified to surrender anything in a human relationship. Partly because we are young, yes, but also because that\u2019s the message we hear everywhere: be careful not to commit to any one thing, never narrow your options, don\u2019t allow yourself to be vulnerable. It\u2019s funny because I was talking to a friend recently about how if you get engaged young now, or do anything that signals actual commitment, <em>that\u2019s<\/em> when family and friends worry for you. It\u2019s like some parents are protective only when it comes to commitment. They worry about you closing down options.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The post is paywalled past a point, but even the part that is freely available is quite stimulating.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/thepointmag.com\/politics\/last-boys-at-the-beginning-of-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Last Boys at the Beginning of History<\/a> (Mana Afsari, The Point Magazine): \u201cIn early 2017, I asked the \u2018secular humanist chaplain\u2019 at the University of Southern California, where I studied, how I could set myself up for a good life in college and beyond. How could I be happy? How could I find a vocation or a calling? How could I be a good person? The chaplain told me to look around and identify the people who had lives I wanted to live, and ask myself what their values were. I quickly realized those moral exemplars were not in the secular student group I\u2019d joined, which had become increasingly morally vacant, pseudo-rationalist and eccentric, drawn to effective altruism and convinced by Sam Harris that murder was merely a social construct. To say nothing of love: more and more of my female friends at the time were embracing polyamory as a way to grandfather in situationships or infidelities, while being told in special seminars that monogamy was a colonial construct and should be discarded anyway. As a child of divorce, as a young woman, my primary concern was having models for healthy relationships\u2014not resisting colonialism in my dating life. I had no interest in subverting things\u2014monogamy, moral norms, courtship, the nuclear family, faith, a classical education\u2014that I\u2019d never had or known in the first place. I wanted a serious boyfriend.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This essay describes something real and undernoticed. It covers a lot of ground, and the excerpt above isn\u2019t really central.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegospelcoalition.org\/article\/surprising-rebirth-oxford\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The \u2018Surprising Rebirth\u2019 at Oxford: Perspectives from a Graduate Student<\/a> (Carolyn Morris-Collier, Gospel Coalition): \u201cWhile my nonreligious friends here in Oxford are still curious about how I make sense of Christianity\u2019s history of colonialism or how I rationalize its creeds, they seem more intrigued by how my faith orients my life, purpose, and emotional world. This shift from \u2018Is it true?\u2019 to \u2018Does it work?\u2019 reflects a broader cultural change that the church should mindfully prepare to engage.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2025\/01\/supreme-court-online-pornography\/681397\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Online Porn Free-for-All Is Coming to an End<\/a> (Marc Novicoff, The Atlantic): \u201c\u2026since the 1990s, America has had two sets of laws concerning underage access to pornography. In the physical world, the law generally requires young-looking customers to show ID proving they\u2019re 18 before they can access adult materials. In the online world, the law has traditionally required, well, nothing. Under Supreme Court precedent established during the internet\u2019s infancy, forcing websites to verify the age of their users is burdensome and ineffective, if not impossible, and thus incompatible with the First Amendment. That arrangement finally appears to be crumbling.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.richardhanania.com\/p\/the-ultimate-guide-to-trumps-day\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Ultimate Guide to Trump\u2019s Day 1 Executive Orders<\/a> (Richard Hanania, Substack): \u201cThe White House website, at the time of this writing, lists 48 items under \u2018presidential actions.\u2019 Among these are dozens of first day executive orders.&nbsp; News reports say that Trump was planning to sign around 100 of them. So while we still wait for the rest, here I\u2019ll review the main things that the executive orders released so far do, broken down by topic. I then go on to take a big picture perspective regarding what we have seen so far means for the future of the country and what we can expect from the Trump administration going forward.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This seems like a good summary. It only covers the first orders \u2014 you\u2019ll need to look elsewhere to find reflection on the stuff from subsequent days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaronrenn.com\/p\/meritocracys-blind-spot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Meritocracy\u2019s Blind Spot: How America Overlooks Its Own Talent<\/a> (Tom Owens, Substack): \u201cOverwhelmingly, National Merit Scholars matriculate to large state schools where they are awarded generous scholarships. The #1 destination is the University of Alabama, which provides\u2026 not only a full ride, but free housing, an extra $4,000 per year, and also a 5th year that will allow many students to complete a master\u2019s degree. That last one is extremely strategic on Alabama\u2019s part, also building up the competitiveness of their graduate programs by keeping these students in the state and their programs. Bama is a smart operator here, applying the same principles to academic recruiting as they do to their football program. Also notable is their matching of pageant scholarships. One wonders exactly what they\u2019re up to in just straightforwardly recruiting a smart, good-looking student body. This is a cunning long-term investment in their alumni base, as both brains and beauty are predictive of life success. Not to mention that the median white-collar professional can live like a king in Huntsville or the nice suburbs of Birmingham compared to a hovel in NYC or SF, even if it means giving up any hope of being&nbsp;elite.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A fascinating essay. I don\u2019t know what percentage of this article I believe, but it is not 0%. It\u2019s not 100%, but it\u2019s definitely not 0%. Worth a ponder.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email?<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors \u201cwho understood the times and knew what Israel should do\u201d (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><b>Disclaimer<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey\u2019s agenda and we are not about the elephant\u2019s agenda \u2014 we are about the Lamb\u2019s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2011\/06\/the_ideological.html\">the ideological Turing test<\/a> and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say \u201cI agree\u201d or \u201cI disagree\u201d until I can say \u201cI understand\u201d) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I\u2019ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent.\n\nAlso, remember that I\u2019m not reporting news \u2014 I\u2019m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There\u2019s a lot happening in the world that\u2019s not making an appearance here because I haven\u2019t found stimulating articles written about it.\n\nIf this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up <a href=\"https:\/\/theglendavis.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>. You can also <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/category\/links\">view the archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my&nbsp;way. Things Glen Found Interesting Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email? In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/01\/24\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-488\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cThings Glen Found Interesting, Volume 488\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[124,240,161,117,136,164],"class_list":["post-7610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-apologetically-interesting","tag-elite-colleges","tag-global-christianity","tag-politics","tag-pornography","tag-relationships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1YK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7610"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7617,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7610\/revisions\/7617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}