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How the life Herodotus lived affected his history writing is a subject of dispute among many experts The question of how social conditions affecting Herodotus’s personal life affected his writing history may raise many disputes among historians. “The state where Herodotus was born in was under Persian Empire at that time; it was governed by Lygdamis, who put to death the poet Panyasis, a relative of Herodotus, for opposition and riots against Persia. Following this event, Herodotus had to leave his native city and went to Samos Island in Athena, and ever since he inhabited in Greek lands. But since...

With increasing polarization in the U.S., political discussions between friends and family members from different parties can be fraught. But how do these political factors influence people’s love lives? We know little about how often people in romantic relationships have political disagreements and whether political differences affect couples’ happiness, or whether some couples navigate these differences better than others. To address these questions, we surveyed over 4,000 people in the U.S., including more than 500 couples. Political differences in our large sample of couples were relatively rare: Only about 23% of couples belonged to different parties, and fewer than 8%...

Five years ago, in March 2020, Yale sociologist and physician Nicholas Christakis MD, PhD, MPH took to Twitter to marvel at China’s response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind Covid-19. In a detailed thread, he described China’s “social nuclear weapon” (of the people-clearing ‘neutron bomb’ -variety?): unprecedented lockdowns, movement restrictions on 930 million people, and a collectivist culture harnessed by an authoritarian regime. He framed it as a Newtonian feat: the sheer force required to stop the virus revealed its power. Contrast this with Stanford’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, MA (economics): equally credentialed, but clear-eyed (the French term is “clairvoyant”),...

What is the shelf life of a freshly baked donut? Two days, tops. But when it comes to an entirely different kind of donut—one that Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom described early in the pandemic when he measured the exodus of people from city centers to city suburbs—there appears to be no expiration date.... Since the pandemic, the country's 12 largest cities have cumulatively lost 8% of their downtown dwellers. Three-fifths of the households that left moved to nearby suburbs... What does this mean, then, for the country's biggest cities? Painful choices that will likely involve cutting spending, raising taxes and...

In the sociological imagination, capitalism is now regarded as a sin standing next to sexism and racism. Routinely, sociologists call for their colleagues and students to oppose capitalism and use their classrooms as places where people can understand the repressive nature of “neoliberalism.” In fact, a former president of the American Sociological Association, Michael Burawoy, argued in his presidential address that one of the main purposes of sociology is to stand in opposition to capitalism. He warned the ASA that “unfettered capitalism fuels market tyrannies and untold inequities on a global scale.” Later in the same remarks, Professor Burawoy argued...

An empirical study of what is being taught and learned in university sociology courses around the country would be challenging to carry out. But American sociology provides a convenient site for observing how the discipline is taught in the form of a research journal produced by the American Sociological Association (ASA). Teaching Sociology has existed since 1973 and advertises itself on the ASA website as “advanc[ing] the quality of sociology instruction.” I admit having never looked at it during the entirety of my quarter-century in the discipline until writing this essay. I came to graduate school under the influence of...

Racism is very real. Scientific studies prove that babies are racist.Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=study+proves+that+babies+are+racistAt the same time, immigration patterns prove that large numbers of wonderful, decent people of all races, ethnicities, and religions would rather live in the United States than in any other country on earth.Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=which+countries+receive+the+most+immigrantsBased on these two pieces of information, I propose the following hypothesis: Every country in the world is racist, and out of all of these racist countries, the U.S. is the least racist out of all of them.

Even with college application season in full swing, many families are questioning whether a four-year degree is still worth it. Some experts say the value of a bachelor’s degree is fading and more emphasis should be directed toward career training. A growing number of companies, including many in tech, are also dropping degree requirements for many middle-skill and even higher-skill roles. ... Still, 44% of all job seekers with college degrees regret their field of study. Journalism, sociology, communications and education all topped the list of most-regretted college majors, according to ZipRecruiter’s survey of more than 1,500 college graduates who...

Allyn Walker, a former professor at Old Dominion University who identifies as non-binary, resigned last month following criticism stemming from Walker’s views on pedophilia. Walker argued that pedophiles should be destigmatized by identifying them as “minor-attracted persons” (“MAPs”) rather than the pejorative term “pedophile,” because attraction to children is a sexual orientation and not immoral.The pretense is that pedophiles are more likely to seek treatment if their sexual proclivities are destigmatized. Instead of relying on empirical evidence to determine the reasons for those proclivities or strategies that will keep children safe, Walker relies on queer theoretical tools to argue that...

They are often seen wearing a red armband patrolling residential neighbourhoods of Chaoyang, the biggest district of Beijing, which is home to nearly 3.5 million people. On a sunny late autumn afternoon, they will sit with a group of retirees in the sun and chat away. But when an individual of interest turns up, their attention quickly diverts to them.... ...For years, volunteers in the Chinese capital have become a part of its daily social fabric. They help run their neighbourhoods by picking up litter and guiding those who are lost. They also observe, listen and follow every clue that...

All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.... ...Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first...

Peterson talks about suffering, existentialism, overcoming trials to achieve goals, lifting people out of poverty & refusing to operate in the great lie.

President Obama's re-election team has already been lauded for its mastery of data and organziation, but a feature in today's The New York Times looks at another secret, and more subtle, weapon: Behavioral science. Reporter Benedict Carey talks to some of the members of the campaign's "COBS" team, an informal group of unpaid advisors who shared their knowledge on the latest academic research and theories on how to influence the public's knowledge behavior. Publicly, the group—which it gave itself the name of "consortium of behavioral scientists"—where just friendly volunteers offering advice. None of the social scientists and psychologists who took...

When the University of Chicago English Department announced over the summer that, in response to the protests after the death of George Floyd, they would only admit graduate students willing to work in Black Studies (a proclamation that, after media attention brought criticism, they recently removed from their webpage), observers of the increasing dominance of extremist ideas on race and race relations in higher education were not surprised. Indeed, as things go ever crazier inside American universities with respect to racial politics, it becomes more and more difficult for those of us on the inside, watching things deteriorate on a...

“White privilege” conveys the idea that white people have impunity. They can abuse, even kill, people of color without consequence. Yet, it is white officer Chauvin who is in jail charged with the murder of black George Floyd, while the two black Maryland teenagers who murdered 59-year old white John Weed at the county fair for not giving them a dollar were sentenced by white female judge Julie Stevenson Solt to “anger management training” and “behavior modification” but otherwise unpunished. Here is the report—https://www.revolver.news/2020/08/black-teens-kill-white-man-county-fair/ . The story was covered locally (for example, https://aminerdetail.com/outrage-over-frederick-fair-murder-sentencing/ ) but kept out of national news...

All in all, the 'moms' and 'dad' march in Portland last night can only be described as a March Of Shame. Not only did they not grab their 'kids' by the collar and march them home, they actively participated in the vandalism. At first the march by 'moms' and 'dads' to 'protect' their innocent little kids from the big bad federal marshals looked promising for a peaceful night, until about 10:30 when the mom/dad group was suckered into marching around the block. This gave their blac bloc clad 'children' the time they needed to gather at the courthouse. The yoots...

Apparently two of the four Minneapolis police officers on the scene of the death of George Floyd not only attended the University of Minnesota, but were students in . . . the Sociology department! This has caused something of a crisis for the department, as you might imagine. The leadership of the department has reportedly asked grad students not to make any comments to the media about the two officers, or how the department clearly failed in their primary mission of indoctrinating these two pre-officers into proper socialism. One Ph.D student in the department is not happy about any of...

If her first interview is any indication, the new leader of Planned Parenthood is doubling down on abortion as “one of our core services.”On July 16, Alexis McGill Johnson became the acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Action. The move came after her predecessor, Leana Wen, claimed she was fired for not prioritizing abortion enough while at the helm of the nation’s largest abortion provider.While Wen served for a short eight months, McGill Johnson may head Planned Parenthood for more than a year. In one press statement, Planned Parenthood revealed that its search for a more permanent leader...

[Affluence—not willpower—seems to be what’s behind some kids’ capacity to delay gratification.] The marshmallow test is one of the most famous pieces of social-science research: Put a marshmallow in front of a child, tell her that she can have a second one if she can go 15 minutes without eating the first one, and then leave the room. Whether she’s patient enough to double her payout is supposedly indicative of a willpower that will pay dividends down the line, at school and eventually at work. Passing the test is, to many, a promising signal of future success. But a new...

The change in the Democrat Party over the past 25 years cannot be made more clear than to read this scholarly article by what was a senior US Senator / Harvard Professor / Ambassador and immediate predecessor of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) [2001-07]! Moynihan may have been the last or one of the last centrist Democrat politicians and the movement of that party to the far LEFT is illustrated by this monograph that is still very much worth reading!