{"id":7685,"date":"2025-05-30T15:01:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T22:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7685"},"modified":"2025-05-30T15:01:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T22:01:40","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-506-isms-nonsense-responders-and-tap-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/05\/30\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-506-isms-nonsense-responders-and-tap-water","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 506: isms, nonsense responders, and tap&nbsp;water"},"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:\/\/www.undergroundthomist.org\/ismism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ismism<\/a> (J. Budziszewski, blog): \u201cIsmism \u2013 four syllables, \u2018izzum izzum\u2019 \u2014 is the bad mental habit of criticizing a proposition not on its own terms, but in terms of the \u2018ism\u2019 which one takes it to express. For example, suppose Sheila is concerned that young people who marry are tying the knot later and later in life. Brian snorts, \u2018You\u2019re one of those conjugalists.\u2019 Then he criticizes Sheila for other beliefs which he himself associates with so-called conjugalism. For instance, he protests \u2018I don\u2019t think everyone has to marry.\u2019 But Sheila didn\u2019t say that everyone has to marry. She may not even think so, and it doesn\u2019t follow as a conclusion from her premise. Ismism is guilt by association: \u2018Your belief must be wrong, because I, personally, group it with other beliefs I consider wrong.\u2019&nbsp;\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The author is a philosophy prof at UT Austin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fascinating: \u201cnonsense responders\u201d significantly affect survey data <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/cremieuxrecueil\/status\/1926128833947738321\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/x.com\/cremieuxrecueil\/status\/1926128833947738321<\/a>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The entire thread is worth reading. Bottom line from a tweet near the end of the thread: \u201cMentally adjust survey results in your head if you don\u2019t see the authors rigorously working to remove nonsense responders.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.maximum-progress.com\/p\/how-to-find-ancient-assyrian-cities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">How to Find Ancient Assyrian Cities Using Economics<\/a> (Max Tabarrok, Substack): \u201cIn ancient Kane\u0161, court transcripts, trading contracts, and merchant accounting were all recorded on clay tablets. Clay tablets preserve well, so this period is in some ways better known then the next several thousand years of history. The authors claim that \u2018the closest comparable corpora of ancient trade data are almost 3,000 years later, coming, for example, from the medieval Italian merchant archives and the Cairo Genizah\u2019.\u2026 The cherry on top: the entire city burned in a fire, preserving the clay records to be recovered forty centuries later. The authors use some natural language processing and manual inspection to narrow down from tens of thousands of tablets to several hundred unambiguous mentions of trade between two of 25 Anatolian cities that have enough trade connections with each other to be identified in a gravity model.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/05\/27\/us-news\/harvard-professor-of-honesty-stripped-of-tenure-fired-for-manipulating-data-in-studies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Star Harvard business professor stripped of tenure, fired for manipulating data in studies on dishonesty<\/a> (Richard Pollina, New York Post): \u201cA renowned Harvard University professor was stripped of her tenure and fired after an investigation found she fabricated data on multiple studies focused on dishonesty.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recommended by a student.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/05\/23\/doug-wilson-new-right-pastor-hegseth-trump-officials-00355376\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Doug Wilson Has Spent Decades Pushing for a Christian Theocracy. In Trump\u2019s DC, the New Right Is Listening.<\/a> (Ian Ward, Politico): \u201cIn Moscow, Wilson explained that his political philosophy is not theocratic in the commonly understood sense of a government run exclusively by the church. To the contrary, he maintains that God ordains earthly authority in three separate spheres of life: the church, the family and the civil government. Within each of these spheres, the relevant authorities must abide by scriptural commandments. In the familial sphere, for instance, parents must educate their children according to Biblical principles, and wives must subordinate themselves to their husbands in accordance with a covenantal view of the family. In the sphere of civil government, officials should strive to bring the law in line with Biblical commandments, although those principles don\u2019t have to be applied \u2018woodenly,\u2019 as Wilson put it: Governments do not have to enforce the Biblical mandate that households build balustrades on their roofs, but they should enforce the principle that homeowners are liable for risks incurred on their property. Above all, Wilson believes, the three spheres of earthly authority must remain separate.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This is a far more informed article than I expected it to be. The journalist (Ian Ward) and the subject (Doug Wilson) have both been featured in these emails before. I highly recommend this article as an example of what fair reporting of a religious person looks&nbsp;like.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For a taste of Wilson\u2019s style, check out his response to this and a few other articles about him: <a href=\"https:\/\/dougwils.com\/books-and-culture\/books\/pete-hegseth-me-and-some-high-level-observations.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pete Hegseth, Me, and Meeting with Important Jews<\/a> (Doug Wilson, personal blog).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My quick take on Wilson: when he is right he is very right and when he is wrong he is very wrong, and whether he is right or wrong he is almost always  confident and entertaining.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/27\/magazine\/tap-water-miracle.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Unparalleled Daily Miracle of Tap Water<\/a> (A. Cerisse Cohen, New York Times): \u201cDuring a two-year stint in Montana, I went on long hikes and sipped stream water, shockingly cold and straight from the glaciers, but other than that, I drank from the tap. And then I landed in Los Angeles, where everyone I met used a filter.\u2026 Thanks to warnings from seemingly everyone around me in the city, I began to worry about things I never before considered threatening, like dust (could cause cancer), anything with seeds (could cause cancer) or certain planetary configurations (responsible for all other misfortunes). If I put my purse on the floor, or oriented my bed the wrong way, it was endangering my energy! Maybe I\u2019d been lulled into a false sense of security about everyday life.\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Drink tap water. It\u2019s awesome.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/28\/us\/politics\/china-student-visas-revoke.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">U.S. Will \u2018Aggressively\u2019 Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says<\/a> (Edward Wong, New York Times): \u201cSecretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday evening that the Trump administration would work to \u2018aggressively revoke\u2019 visas of Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in \u2018critical fields.\u2019.\u2026 In 2020, officials in the first Trump administration canceled the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese graduate students and researchers after announcing they were banning from campuses Chinese citizens with direct ties to military universities in their country. It was the first time the U.S. government had moved to bar a category of Chinese students from getting access to American universities, a ban the Biden administration kept in&nbsp;place.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Less Serious Things Which Also Interested\/Amused Glen<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/babylonbee.com\/news\/chatgpt-announced-as-harvard-valedictorian\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ChatGPT Announced As Harvard Valedictorian<\/a> (Babylon Bee)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbc-comics.com\/comic\/starfish-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Starfish<\/a> (SMBC)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/babylonbee.com\/news\/theology-update-bible-scholars-now-believe-the-p-in-psalms-not-supposed-to-be-silent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Theology Update: Bible Scholars Now Believe The \u2018P\u2019 in \u2018Psalms\u2019 Not Supposed To Be Silent<\/a> (Babylon Bee)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/synthesizedsunsets.substack.com\/p\/the-web-fiction-canon\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Web Fiction Canon<\/a> (Kevin Kodama, Substack): \u201cThis post divides web fiction into four main subgenres: <strong>rational fiction<\/strong>, <strong>\/newwave\/<\/strong>, <strong>web serial fantasy<\/strong>, and <strong>interactive fiction<\/strong>. Similar to Spotify genres, these subgenres are primarily grouped not by structural similarity but by <em>audience<\/em> and <em>scene<\/em>: who exactly is reading these works, and why are they appealing?\u201d&nbsp;<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Emphasis in original. Recommended if you will be looking for some free reading after finals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/babylonbee.com\/news\/the-babylon-bee-would-like-to-announce-we-are-joining-npr-in-suing-the-government-for-not-giving-us-millions-of-dollars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Babylon Bee Would Like To Announce We Are Joining NPR In Suing The Government For Not Giving Us Millions Of Dollars<\/a> (Babylon Bee)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\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 Less Serious Things Which Also Interested\/Amused Glen Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email? In the time \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2025\/05\/30\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-506-isms-nonsense-responders-and-tap-water\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cThings Glen Found Interesting, Volume 506: isms, nonsense responders, and tap&nbsp;water\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":[131,125,128,240,120,149,247],"class_list":["post-7685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-academia","tag-china","tag-economics","tag-elite-colleges","tag-famous-christians","tag-research","tag-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1ZX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685","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=7685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7686,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7685\/revisions\/7686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}