Music: Tom Misch — ‘It Runs Through Me / I Wish / Movie’
A theory of reality as more than the sum of its parts
Natalie Wolchover writes: In his 1890 opus, The Principles of Psychology, William James invoked Romeo and Juliet to illustrate what makes conscious beings so different from the particles that make them up. “Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they,” James wrote. “But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite…
Stephen Wolfram: Is mathematics invented or discovered?
George Soros’s embattled cause of an open society
Michael Steinberger writes: On a clammy Tuesday morning in Paris at the end of May, George Soros, the world’s second-most-vilified New York billionaire (but worth many billions more than the other one), addressed the European Council on Foreign Relations, an organization he helped found a decade ago. Described by the woman who introduced him as a “European at heart,” the Hungarian-born Soros, who made his fortune running a hedge fund and is now a full-time philanthropist, political activist and freelance…
Putin is not our friend, no matter what Trump says
David J Kramer writes: Russian prosecutors last week released a list of Americans they want to question in connection with their bogus criminal case against Hermitage Capital founder William Browder. I was one of a number of current and former U.S. officials on that list, which has become known as “Putin’s enemies list.” Browder, American born but a British citizen, used to be the largest portfolio investor in Russia until he crossed wires with the Kremlin. His visa was revoked…
Koch brothers back grassroots effort to support immigration
Time reports: As the son of Mexican migrant workers and a veteran of the George W. Bush Administration, Daniel Garza has been frustrated by President Donald Trump’s hard-line approach to immigration. To push back on it, he’s revving up a grassroots effort to lobby Congress, backed by the billion brothers Charles and David Koch. As head of the conservative mega-donors’ LIBRE Initiative aimed at Hispanics, Garza will be organizing five public rallies in the next week aimed at shaking loose…
The peculiar numbers that could underlie the laws of nature
Natalie Wolchover writes: In 2014, a graduate student at the University of Waterloo, Canada, named Cohl Furey rented a car and drove six hours south to Pennsylvania State University, eager to talk to a physics professor there named Murat Günaydin. Furey had figured out how to build on a finding of Günaydin’s from 40 years earlier — a largely forgotten result that supported a powerful suspicion about fundamental physics and its relationship to pure math. The suspicion, harbored by…
Music: Mangal, Darehan & Shayan — ‘Naseebaya’
Inside Bannon’s plan to hijack Europe for the far-right
The Daily Beast reports: Steve Bannon plans to go toe-to-toe with George Soros and spark a right-wing revolution in Europe. Trump’s former White House chief advisor told The Daily Beast that he is setting up a foundation in Europe called The Movement which he hopes will lead a right-wing populist revolt across the continent starting with the European Parliament elections next spring. The non-profit will be a central source of polling, advice on messaging, data targeting, and think-tank research for…
In private, Trump vents frustration over lack of progress on North Korea
The Washington Post reports: When he emerged from his summit with Kim Jong Un last month, President Trump triumphantly declared that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat and that one of the world’s most intractable geopolitical crises had been “largely solved.” But in the days and weeks since then, U.S. negotiators have faced stiff resistance from a North Korean team practiced in the art of delay and obfuscation. Diplomats say the North Koreans have canceled follow-up meetings, demanded…
If this is not treason, then what is it?
Daniel W. Drezner writes: Last year, I speculated that Trump would engage in “omnibalancing”: “My fear is that the Trump White House will choose to tighten its relationship with foreign adversaries because they are viewed as less immediately threatening than either Congress or the special prosecutor.” Twelve months later, Congress has become very docile, but the special prosecutor has not. Equally important, many Trump supporters have made the same call: better to side with the Russians than with fellow Americans…
The Sierra Club declared war on Scott Pruitt — and won
Aaron Mak reports: Of Scott Pruitt’s many bad weeks of press, the first week of June may have been his worst. Pruitt had been under scrutiny since his appointment as head of the Environmental Protection Agency for his close ties to the industries he was supposed to regulate. He had done little to quiet his skeptics. For the past few months, news stories had detailed his questionable interactions with energy lobbyists and exorbitant spending on air travel and security. By…
Support for the Endangered Species Act remains high as Trump administration and Congress try to gut it
The endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep. USFWS By Jeremy T. Bruskotter, The Ohio State University; John A Vucetich, Michigan Technological University, and Ramiro Berardo, The Ohio State University The Endangered Species Act, or “the Act,” is arguably the most important law in the United States for conserving biodiversity and arresting the extinction of species. Congress passed the ESA in 1973 with strong bipartisan support (the House voted 355-4 in favor of the law) at the behest of a Republican president,…
For Facebook, Trump is, above all, a valued customer
BuzzFeed reports: In the days following Donald Trump’s election victory over Hillary Clinton, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg placed a secret, previously unreported call to the president-elect during which, sources told BuzzFeed News, he congratulated the Trump team on its victory and successful campaign, which spent millions of dollars on advertising with Facebook. The private call between Zuckerberg and Trump, which was confirmed by three people familiar with the conversation, is just one in a series of private endorsements from Facebook…
Trump’s War on the Poor has just begun
William J. Barber II and Karen Dolan write: Mission accomplished in the “War on Poverty.” So declares the White House, which in a white paper released last week from the president’s Council of Economic Advisers claims that the war is “largely over and a success” and that it is time for more stringent work requirements for public assistance. Never mind all the decades President Trump’s party has spent trashing anti-poverty programs to justify shredding them: The new narrative states that…
Justice Department plans to alert public to foreign operations targeting U.S. democracy
The Washington Post reports: The Justice Department plans to alert the public to foreign operations targeting U.S. democracy under a new policy designed to counter hacking and disinformation campaigns such as the one Russia undertook in 2016 to disrupt the presidential election. The government will inform American companies, private organizations and individuals that they are being covertly attacked by foreign actors attempting to affect elections or the political process. “Exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize…