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I am a little behind w Baris podcasts. I enjoyed a lot of the Junger conversation BUT Honestly (pun intended) my jaw dropped when he make the ludicrous statement that Republicans were “especially” to blame for weaponizing political division.

The Left controls virtually all of the institutions that form public debate and opinion from the media to the academy to cultural and certainly the government.

He is simply delusional in making that statement and makes me question other things he might say or write about.

As I write this, former CIA agents are admitting what we already know regarding their willingness to support Biden over the laptop. Further no rationale thinking person believes the FBI was not partisan in its pursuit of Trump and connecting him to Russia. Or their lack of interest in pursuing Hillary or Biden for enriching themselves or their families. I guess for Junger that isn’t weaponizing.

The cancellation of people with beliefs that were “mainstream” 10 years ago is uniquely a progressive response. Whatever republicans might do gets magnified beyond anything proportional.

Yes January 6 was terrible. But so were the Antifa and BLM rioters in 2020. For those keeping score, the 2020 riots were multiple times more violent (deaths) and costly than Jan 6. It’s not even close. Look it up. And for those who reflexively say that our democracy is at stake were the same people who invaded the Madison Wisconsin statehouse for several days. These are also the same people who allow falsehoods like “hands up don’t shoot” or “mostly peaceful “ persevere. Also the same who stand silently when the 1619 author says something like “it’s not destruction if it can be fixed w insurance”. Lovely.

Proportion and perspective folks.

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I appreciated the points made about mortality rates for soldiers and young mothers. Both men and women have an equally vital and dangerous role to help grow their communities. I have often felt like a 'warrior' for bringing 4 children into the world. Now I will own it and cite my source ;)

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For the same reason they marry women.

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Tyler Cohen advised Bari to become a conservative. I consider myself a strong conservative but I identify with Bari because she seems to be dedicated to truth over ideology. I don't think she's likely to spout lefty talking points like men can get pregnant, that words (or silence) are violence or that all whites are oppressors and all blacks are victims. We undoubtedly disagree on many things but even on those she would be willing to have an honest conversation rather than joining the Stanford Law students who shouted down a federal judge to prevent him from speaking. And I'm thrilled that she and Nellie are experiencing the joys of motherhood.

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"You get answers ranging from SVB was too woke, to it had poor risk management, and everything in between."

"Being woke" can cause problems for reasons other than the consequences of the wokeness. It can also mean that you're focused on something other than what you ought to be doing with your time, which has consequences.

If I say that a high school student's grades are suffering because he plays video games all day, I'm not implying that video games literally cause bad grades. I'm saying that gaming time is coming at the expense of schoolwork time.

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"There’s a phrase in English: be a man about it. It sounds sexist. I think it’s actually the opposite. I think what the phrase is saying is it’s very possible to be an adult male and not a man. Not mature. No one says be a woman about it, because I think society understands that it’s because the stakes of pregnancy are so high for women that it’s much harder to be an adult female and immature."

No one says "be a woman about it" because female attractiveness is not behavioral. Male attractiveness very much is.

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It makes us feel alive.

And you usually don't have to listen to some female without an unexpressed thought, droning on and on.

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Is Sebastian still an atheist? Does he not recognize his near-death experience as God’s attempt to get his attention? I cannot understand how grown humans can watch their children enter the world and not see God’s love in the absolute essence of their beings. God tapped Sebastian on the shoulder for a second time when he survived his episode.

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Sebatian Junger fantastic. The article about the N Korean escapee was great too, best article anywhere in a month. Give us more like this!

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Wow. Sebastian Junger. He is a.thinker. This is the content I am here for. And the recent piece by the woman who escaped N Korea was the best article i read anywhere in month. More of this instead of dteary

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To my surprise, this article was really an epiphany for me. I came back to the U.S. after several years overseas. I was not in the military or in the Peace Corps, but I lived in small rural communities probably similar to a Peace Corps experience. In addition to hard work, there was lots of time for just spending time with people, just talking or doing small things.

Returning to the U.S. was literally the hardest thing I ever did after living abroad. Everyone was just whooshing around, there was never any time for anything, people seemed disconnected even from those they called friends as they just ran, ran ran. I was really rattled and had a very difficult time adjusting. I couldn't connect with old friends, and I thought maybe I wasn't suited for life here. I almost left the country, never to return. I finally settled in a small community, developed a network of friends, and slowly adjusted. I've mentioned this difficult period to many people throughout the course of my life.

Years later, moving to a more urban environment (nothing like a NYC, but still...), I experienced some of the same adjustment, but this time I was better prepared for the shock.

Sebastian's observation that the PTSD wasn't in country but rather upon return, and his adding that 25% of Peace Corps workers suffer something similar, completely resonated and helped me better understand this difficult transition. It also gave me a broader perspective about what's going on in our society generally. His comment about not owning a smart phone was spot on. At the very least, there should be a "leave your phone in a box" day to remind people that those strange creatures all around them are their fellow human beings.

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More great interviews.

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Wow Tyler Cowen, just wow!

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Some of us men don't seek danger. My big adventure was a bicycle trip Seattle to Boston after I graduated from college. Just before the trip, I'd purchased Bell hard-shelled helmet serial #7022--I was a very early adopter. I'd probably bicycled at least 10,000 miles by the time I embarked, so I was very comfortable on a bicycle, I knew others who had done it, and it seemed a safe thing to do (I would not have made the same trip on a motorcycle, and in fact, except for having ridden about a mile once on the back of a motorcycle, I've never been on one). And now, as an official senior citizen, who has ridden probably close to 70,000 bicycle miles (in the last 25 years never without one of those lime green jerseys that's visible from the International Space Station), I'm looking forward, later this year, or next, to driving across the country and back, as it's now nearly 50 years since I made that last x-country trip by surface.

I do have a second cousin, Tom Hornbein, who is one of just two people ever to have ascended Everest via the West Ridge. I'm rereading his book about that expedition, and I've read Into Thin Air, in which around 15 people climbing Everest, during the same season, die. The mountain climbing is interesting, and I'm proud of my cousin, but I'm not in the least interested in doing anything like that for myself. (Hornbein's partner on Everest, Willi Unsoeld, later died in an avalanche on Mt. Rainier.) My only brother has also never sought out danger.

I did take my niece for flying lessons when she was 7. But I knew that was an incredibly safe thing to do, and a lot safer than teaching someone to drive, which I had done. There's nothing to bump into in the air, and an instructor had his own set of controls. Although I don't think he had to use them at all. She did so well he gave her an extra take off and landing.

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I would love to see a story, from a different perspective, from less famous women war reporters. Kathy Gannon, severely injured AP reporter in Afghanistan. Anja Niedinghaus, photographer who was killed. The epic former BBC reporter Jacky Rowland. All women I met in Kosovo, Israel, Afghanistan.

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Mar 25, 2023·edited Mar 25, 2023

Listen to Sebastion; understand MAGA.

My rural neighbors actually believe their communities and families and history are at stake. The authentic MAGA men really believe fighting the left is worth dying for. These men hope they would be willing to fight to the death to keep their women women, their girls girls and their boys boys so as men they can die to protect them. All men to be men need others to die for, or at least we need others who we believe would appreciate our often untested, often inadequate, courage to die for them.

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