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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:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
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: David Pinsof
The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth
Most intellectuals hold a flattering belief. They think the world breaks because people fail to understand things. Fix the understanding and you fix the world. Polarization comes from bias. Bigotry comes from ignorance. War comes from miscalculation. The intellectual, the … Continue reading
Posted in David Pinsof, Intellectuals
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The Evolutionary Mystery Of Humor
David Pinsof writes in his new paper (and Substack column): * Human social life is filled with coordination problems: passing each other in a hallway, taking turns talking and listening, differentiating the meanings of “hook up with” and “meet up … Continue reading
Posted in David Pinsof, Humor
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Does This Story Make Evolutionary Sense?
On May 21, 2025, David Pinsof wrote a blog post that changed me forever. He said: A lot of people ask me how I write blog posts—where I get my ideas from. They’re often surprised when I give them a … Continue reading
Posted in David Pinsof, Evolution
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How Did Racism Become A Thing?
Prior to the 1920s, nobody talked about racism. How did racism become a moral category when it wasn’t used in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and the pre-20th century philosophers and ethicists? Who invented the great evil of “racism” and how did … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, David Pinsof, Elites, Nationalism
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Strange Bedfellows: The Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems
In his presentation on the Alliance Theory of Political Belief Systems, David Pinsof argues that our political convictions do not stem from deep moral philosophies. Instead, they function as strategic tools for navigating a social world dominated by alliances. Humans … Continue reading
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David Pinsof’s Moral Naturalism
David Pinsof writes: …moral judgments are about the specific kinds of situations that our moral emotions evolved to detect. Just as a smoke alarm is designed to detect smoke, anger is “designed” by natural selection to detect unfair treatment, compassion … Continue reading
Posted in David Pinsof, Ethics, Evolution
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David Pinsof’s Journey
David Pinsof writes: We have two types of beliefs in our heads: regular beliefs (e.g., “There’s a coffee mug on the table”) and credences (e.g., “Everything happens for a reason”). Regular beliefs are involuntary—you have no choice but to believe … Continue reading
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The Pursuit Of Happiness
UCLA psychologist David Pinsof writes: We get boatloads of psycho-bullshit from therapists, academics, sociologists, and self-help gurus. We use our childhoods and our parents as bullshit excuses for everything we do, even though our upbringing has barely any influence on … Continue reading
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What Do We Want?
UCLA psychologist David Pinsof writes: See if you can spot the pattern: We don’t just want to make money; we want to make more money than our neighbors. We don’t just want a job; want to have a more prestigious … Continue reading
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We Can Create The Society We Want If We Adjust Incentives (10-5-25)
03:45 The Worst College Football Team In The Nation On Saturday Beat One Of The Best, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=16411405:00 Terrorism on Yom Kippur, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx3bHxiGxxA24:00 Getting Away With It, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=16412040:20 The AI Economist: The Skill You Need to Stay Employed in the Age … Continue reading
Posted in America, David Pinsof, Ethics
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