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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Robert Putnam: The Man Who Counted What America Lost
- W. Bradford Wilcox: The Sociologist Who Tells America to Get Married
- Peter Moskos: The Cop Who Talks to People
- Julius Krein
- Ryan Burge: The Numbers Man in the Empty Church
- Emily Oster: The Economist in the Delivery Room
- The Most Ridiculous Story Ever Told
- Tanner Greer
- Economist Tyler Cowen
- Richard Reeves: A Life in Institutions
- Jake Adelstein: The Reporter Who Became His Story
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
- Moira Greyland
- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
* The City of Private Rooms (5-25-26)
Category Archives: Australia
The Gift Of Fear & Alliance
Grok: “The [following] X post narrates a real January 2026 incident where an Australian woman shared a video of a man staring at her on an empty Queensland beach, facing racism accusations that led her to delete it, as covered … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Australia
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Populist vs Elitist Moral Signalling
Animals signal. People signal. We all signal. Why? Because signalling is adaptive and virtue signalling is virtuous. ChatGPT says: Elite moral signaling is procedural and sanitizing. It produces roles, committees, standards, funding streams, and a public performance of care. It … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Bondi Beach, Elites, Ethics, Islam, Journalism, Populism
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Why Virtue Signalling Is Virtuous
Philosopher Neil Levy writes: * Animals use signals for a variety of purposes. For instance, gazelles famously signal their fitness by stotting (jumping up and down on the spot) in front of predators (FitzGibbon and Fanshawe 1988). Peacocks even more … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Australia, Bondi Beach, Ethics
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Australia’s Elites Unite Against Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party
The Australian elite geometry is currently shifting toward the “European Model” of institutional containment to deal with the rising One Nation threat. The Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Act 2026 is the primary mechanism for this elite unification. The Unification … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Australia
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Decoding The ABC Four Corners Investigation Of The Bondi Terror Attack
Using my four favorite tools—Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology, David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory and “Everything is Bullshit” framework, and Stephen Turner’s analysis of expertise—we can decode how the 2025 Bondi massacre serves as a catastrophic failure of institutional “sacred” rituals and … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Australia, Bondi Beach
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Why Americans love rhetoric about freedom and Australians love rhetoric about fairness
ChatGPT says: This difference drops out cleanly once you look at coalition structure, frontier history, and how each society manages internal conflict. Start with the United States. The core American problem was coordination among strangers. A huge, mobile, heterogeneous population … Continue reading
Aussie Racism
I heard an observation that Australians are the most racist people around but their elites and media are even more anti-racist than in America. Presuming there’s an ounce of truth here, what would Alliance Theory say? ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory … Continue reading
Posted in Australia
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Why is the C-Word Widely Accepted in Australia But Rarely in America?
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would say the difference is not about the word itself. It is about which coalitions control moral authority in each society and what kinds of boundary-violations signal loyalty. In Australia, the dominant masculine coalition has long … Continue reading
How Will The Bondi Massacre Rewire Australian Jews?
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would predict three layered reactions, driven by how the massacre reorders ally and rival maps for Australian Jews. Boundary hardening and in-group consolidation A public act of violence against Jews sharpens identity. People who were loosely … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Semitism, Australia, Islam, Israel, Jews
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NYT: Are They Hot, or Is It the ‘Australia Effect’?
The New York Times reports: Travelers and temporary workers in the country, who may have arrived looking pallid, are showing off their glow-ups on social media…. Andre Ali of Aschaffenburg, Germany, first visited Australia as an exchange student 10 years … Continue reading
Posted in Australia
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