November 2025

Ask how,  not why

More ways to save democracy by talking about it… Ask people to explain “how” their ideas would work, rather than asking “why” they believe in them: Curiosity is contagious. There’s a “mirroring effect” in which the inquisitiveness is reciprocated: “Because you were curious, now they’ll want to be curious back.” If we avoid challenging people…more

November 21, 2025 - Language, Politics

Count on the surprises

I remembered air-raid drills when I was in elementary school, how we knelt, heads down against corridor walls with our bare hands supposedly protecting our bare necks, hoping that if nuclear war ever happened, Los Angeles would be spared. But the threat of nuclear war is gone, at least for the present, because to our…more

November 21, 2025 - Futurism, World, Writing