Distrust, Heat Deaths, Power Laws
Links and recommendations
From the archives:
Why You Should Trust Trust and Distrust Distrust
The Psychology of Morality:
My new lecture series “The Psychology of Morality” is now available exclusively at Peterson Academy.
I delivered six lectures in front of a live studio audience that explore the origins of morality. The course examines the distinction between moral philosophy and moral psychology, showing how emotions and intuitions often guide our judgments more than rational principles. It also investigates frameworks such as Haidt’s moral foundations theory and Gray’s moral dyad theory. The series also covers dark personality traits and their relationship with moral behavior, and concludes by examining the relationship between morality and happiness, sex differences in moral judgment, and moral development across the lifespan.
Enroll here for immediate access.
Here’s the trailer:
Links and recommendations:
Ambassadors of Ugliness by Theodore Dalrymple
How Europe Became the World Champion of Heat Deaths by Maarten Boudry
Race, Income and Why Some Democrats Have the Luxury of Opposing School Choice by Brian Kisida
America the Beautiful by Norman Podhoretz
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter/X, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
You can follow me on TikTok here
Three interesting findings:
1. Men’s child care time has increased in the past few generations. Millennial dads are now spending as much time with their kids as baby boomer moms once did. Interestingly, though, modern fatherhood shows a class-based divergence: Highly educated dads are investing more time and energy into parenthood, while working-class fathers are spending slightly less time with their kids than they did a generation ago (source).
2. Professors at leading US universities were asked to evaluate applications for a tenure-track STEM position. The applications were identical for all participants. The study revealed a 2:1 preference for the female applicants. (source: A Billion Years of Sex Differences by Steve Stewart-Williams).
3. Power laws exist even within the top 10 richest people. Elon Musk is worth more than the bottom 5 combined. (source).
The paperback version of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class is now available.
If you have gained any value from this newsletter and want to support my work, please buy a copy today. For yourself. For a friend or a loved one. If you can’t afford it, please support your local library.
Order your copy now:
Audible (I narrated the audiobook myself)




