The war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East, tariffs, inflation and so on and so forth. It sometimes feels like there’s no end to bad news, and, especially in the age of doom scrolling, that can take a toll on people’s mental wellbeing. As a consequence, more and more people actively try to avoid the news or at least ration their exposure to it.
h/t DS
Here’s the Rumble Link.
Forget polyamory. The new normal is solitude, anxiety, and performative healing.
In a new report that should unsettle anyone still clinging to the illusion that our species is thriving, nearly 20 percent of Gen Z respondents say they no longer believe monogamy is realistic. At first glance, this might conjure images of polyamory, open relationships, and fluid arrangements between confident, liberated adults unshackled from centuries of ideals.
But the reality is very different, and in many ways, much more disturbing.
When did the devil disappear? The image of Satan persists, but mostly as kitsch. The few who believe in him are typically portrayed as unserious, even gauche. The prevailing view holds that progress has vanquished the superstitions of earlier, more fearful, eras. It matters little, apparently, that the twentieth century was the bloodiest in history.
Violence is more widespread today than it has been in decades, with armed conflict touching every major region, according to data analysed by The Telegraph.
Last year, varying levels of conflict were reported across at least 50 different countries, from the civil war in Myanmar to extreme violence between drug cartels in Mexico, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED).
Experts predict that the trend will probably continue throughout 2025 and beyond.
Voters want the system upended
When Emmanuel Macron beat Marine Le Pen handsomely to reclaim the French presidency in 2022, the liberal establishment was in ecstasy. Their verdict that the centre was holding was as understandable as it was unfounded. In reality, Macron’s second term helped the ultra-Right become France’s strongest political force. Last week, Mark Carney and Anthony Albanese defeated their Trumpish opponents to retain the prime ministerships of Canada and Australia, respectively. Once again, news of the revival of the political centre may prove a centrist delusion.
Yesterday’s much-discussed debate between Douglas Murray and Dave Smith, hosted by Joe Rogan, almost perfectly epitomises the divide on the political Right. Murray is a neoconservative intellectual and one of the most prominent public defenders of Israel; Smith is an anti-war libertarian comedian and firm anti-Zionist. The conflict in Gaza has provided a clear fault line for their differences to be exposed.
Here’s one snippet of many on twitter
Dave Smith & Douglas Murray Get Into a HEATED Debate Over “Trusting the Experts” pic.twitter.com/meXxPKvTcB
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) April 10, 2025
Here’s the full podcast
Have you heard of the phrase ‘basic white girl’? No, nor me, until I ran a series of workshops to help teenagers prepare for, amongst other things, university interviews. A number of courses would be mentioned and immediately dismissed by some as ‘basic white girl’ courses. These included: psychology (80% female), English literature (70%) and sociology (77%). (‘Basic white girls,’ I learned, also love side-stripe baggy trousers, Taylor Swift and being pretty.) These subjects represent the extreme trend in universities becoming female dominated: 57% of UK undergraduates are now female. The balance of academic teaching staff at universities in 2022-23 is 51% male and 49% female, but the wider university staff is 55% female. Is it possible that what happened in primary schools, where only 15% of teachers are male and secondary schools (35%), will happen in higher education? Are boys already self-excluding from this female-dominated world?
Generation Z, that enigmatic demographic of men and women born between 1997 and 2012 or so, have been presumed to hold wildly progressive views. In the stereotype of public imagination this is – or has been – a group that will go to the wall for net zero, dump a partner if their views on gender politics give them the “ick”, or leave any job that has the temerity to demand their presence in the office.
Except it may not be true. A growing mass of evidence suggests that far from the Leftie snowflake cohort of lore, Gen Z are disparate in their politics and care about the same things older generations do – jobs, houses, security – more than culture wars or social issues.
Britain’s got a problem, and it’s not the one the chattering classes are bleating about. It’s not climate change, pronouns, or gaslighting Netflix series probing what’s gone wrong with boys. No, the real crisis is a hole in the nation’s heart—a gaping wound where loyalty, pride, and (dare one say it) the willingness to defend this Sceptred Isle used to reside. The white working-class lads who once formed the backbone of Britain have had enough. Derided, scorned, and blamed for every ill under the sun, they’re no longer signing up to die for a country that’s made it clear it doesn’t want them. And who can blame them?
Former Defence Secretary Lord Hammond—hardly a rabble-rouser—sounded the alarm in The Telegraph earlier this month. “Young men are unprepared to fight for Britain,” he warned. He’s got a point. Back in 2015, a Gallup poll found just 27% of Brits would willingly take up arms for their country—one of the lowest figures in Europe. That was a decade ago, mind you. Today, you’d be lucky to find a lad from Bolton or Barnsley willing to take a bow for King and Country, let alone a bullet.
The stories beyond the rise of untimely deaths
The window had no curtains, no blinds. Though the back of a big screen TV obscured a portion of the view into the living quarters of the duplex. Passing by I’d often see a young man on a couch, facing the TV, controller in hands, inexplicably wearing a medical mask over his mouth and nose; inexplicably, I say, because he was alone. I’d only ever seen him leave to take the trash out. He’d walk with stiff and jagged gestures, with the unsteadiness of old age though he looked to be in his 40s.
Neighbors didn’t judge; he was a veteran and Lord knows what he’d seen.
After a handful of underwhelming relationships and dozens of disappointing first dates, Andrea Vorlicek recently called off the search for a husband.
The 29-year-old always thought she’d have found her life partner by now. Instead, she’s house hunting solo and considering having kids on her own.
“I’m financially self-sufficient enough to do these things myself,” said Vorlicek, a Boston-based accountant. “I’m willing to accept being single versus settling for someone who isn’t the right fit.”
Today is World Happiness Day. So, like every year on 20 March, you are likely to see a lot of headlines reporting on the publication of the annual World Happiness Report. ‘Finland is again ranked the happiest country in the world [while] the US falls to its lowest-ever position’, a headline in the Associated Press ran this morning. Forbes even got philosophical, promising ‘5 Life Lessons From Finland, Once Again the World’s Happiest Country’.
Published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University, the basic message of the report has remained the same since its launch in 2012. The happiest countries in the world are in Scandinavia; this year, Finland is followed by Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. America, despite being one of the richest large countries in the world, persistently underperforms: this year, the United States only comes in 24th out of the 147 countries covered in the report, placing it behind much poorer countries like Lithuania and Costa Rica. The United Kingdom has also experienced a steady decline in the league table; ranked as the 13th happiest country in the world at its peak, it has now declined to 23rd position.
Canada drops to 18th in 2025 World Happiness Report rank, among the ‘largest losers’
In 1987, Forbes published its first billionaires list, featuring 140 individuals whose combined wealth totaled $295 billion. At the time, the richest person in the world was Japan’s Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, a real estate tycoon worth $20 billion.
Today, the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, is worth $419.4 billion, roughly 21 times as much as Tsutsumi at his peak and more than two million times as much as the median net worth of an American household, according to exclusive data from global wealth intelligence firm Altrata.
As the ranks of global billionaires have swelled dramatically in recent years, a new category of ultrarich has emerged—the superbillionaire. Musk is one of just 24 people worldwide who qualify for that distinction, which is defined as individuals worth $50 billion or more.
