Some personal news. Today, I’m leaving The Atlantic after almost 17 years and moving my writing to Substack. It would be convenient, for the purposes of crafting an exciting departure announcement, to have a dramatic exit story: a fight, a grievance, a shouting match with an editor that ended with me hurling a bunch of leather-backed Thoreau volumes across the open-plan office. That is not the case here. I love The Atlantic, and I'll remain a contributing writer there. But after almost two decades at one publication, I wanted to write for myself. The things I've published that I'm most proud of—whether it was the original abundance agenda essay, or my piece on workism—emerged from a very personal expression of frustration, or confusion, or curiosity. I want to know what my thinking and writing is like if I lean into a more independent and personal writing life. That's brought me to Substack, which is already home to an astonishing share of my overall reading. I'm excited to join their community and excited to build my own. The name of the newsletter should be easy to remember: Derek Thompson. The newsletter will have three main pillars 1. Abundance 2. The frontier of science and technology—GLP1s, AI, biotech, energy breakthroughs—covered in a way that’s both curious and skeptical 3. The anti-social century & the social crises of anxiety and aloneness Thanks to The Atlantic for 16.8 incredible years and thanks to everybody who follows me across the river. - dt

What happened is scientists discovered chlorofluorocarbons were bad for the ozone, countries believed them, the Montreal Protocol was signed, and CFC use fell by 99.7%, leading to the stabilization of the ozone layer, perhaps the greatest example of global cooperation in history.

The optics here are exquisite. No notes.

Lots of directions to go with this, positive and negative, but I will just point out: There is a genre of 21st century male “I have perfected the game of life” routine that essentially assumes the absence of other people

Holy crap. Pancreatic is one of the deadliest cancers. New paper shows personalized mRNA vaccines can induce durable anticancer T cells that attack pancreatic cancer. 75% of patients cancer free at three years.

Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.

This is just silly. If NPR receiving less than 1% of its revenue from federal government programs makes it "state-affiliated media," does Tesla accepting a $465m loan from DOE and benefiting from EV consumer subsidies make it "state-affiliated enterprise"?

Imagine trying to manage a supply chain right now. Every 48 hours, the White House is announcing, or un-announcing, or re-announcing, or creating massive carve outs to, a new trade rule. Why would anyone anywhere build a new factory under these conditions?

How to fix Presidents' Day. 1. The two most common months for presidential birthdays are October and November. 2. So, Presidents' Day should be in early Nov on—hm, let's say—the 1st Monday. 3. Huh, that's about when America votes. 4. Presto: Voting Day is a national holiday.

New paper from Norway: Banning smartphones in school - significantly decreased doctors visits for psychological symptoms and diseases among girls - reduced bullying among both genders - improved girls’ GPA and attendance rates - largest effect sizes were among the poorest kids

"How Couples Meet" chart, updated July 2019 web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/R…

Either seatbelts work, or they don't. If you're requiring that they be installed in every car, then let people drive drunk at 100 mph the way the Founders intended. If they don't work, then let's stop manufacturing seatbelts entirely. Pick a narrative and stick to it.

I wrote about “Hygiene Theater”—how restaurants, gyms, and subways have wasted millions of dollars on fancy cleaning plans to defeat a mostly airborne plague and made Americans more confused and unsafe in the process. theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

Barstool's world is covering - the unionized MLB - the unionized NFL - the unionized NBA - the unionized NHL - the unionized MLS ...

TIL: google news occasionally features the author photo instead of the article art 😂

2023 study: “Our thesis is that a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults."

It takes less than two seconds to see that Musk’s framework — I’m a free speech absolutist … unless anybody threatens to shut off Twitter access, in which case, I’m for or against whatever they want — is laughably unworkable

We really did it. We took a growing US manufacturing economy, declared it broken, started a trade war, and ... broke US manufacturing. In last 48 hours: - Philly Fed Survey: "New orders fell sharply, from 8.7 in March to -34.2, its lowest reading since April 2020" - NY Fed Survey: Expected orders and shipments plunging Again, this is a policy to revive US manufacturing.

Pretty wild if the story ends up being that big pharma was doing clinical trials on diabetes medication and sorta kinda accidentally discovered a weight-loss miracle drug ... and then, wait, oh-by-the-way, it's also the cure for addiction?

I love how the FDA statement on Tylenol looks like the top was written by RFK Jr and the bottom was written by very annoyed scientists overruling him Top: Tylenol associated with increased risk of autism and ADHD Bottom: By the way, the quality of evidence for this guidance is godawful and all other pain-relief medicines are terrible for the fetus!

I'm a New York Times Reader. And I've Noticed Something.

For the first time since WWII, every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share, via @jburnmurdoch 2024 Democrats are the red dot. Absolutely critical context to any postmortem.

Life in 1776: - heat is such a luxury that Thomas Jefferson can’t write in deep winter bc his ink freezes (one reason perhaps why Independence Day is in July) - nighttime darkness is such a burden that George Washington reportedly spent $15k in today’s dollars on candles every year (our first POTUS was a literal dril tweet) - fuel is such a burden that firewood is 28 percent of US GDP (more than health care and manufacturing combined today)

Wow. Just one poll, but “Welcoming Afghan translators to the US” looks like the most popular and bipartisan policy idea I’ve seen in a long, long time

What makes me most angry is that there's nothing Americans "get" from destroying USAID in a way that directly results in the death of the world's poorest children. It barely even qualifies as an act of selfishness. We're doing it for nothing. The debt picture is completely unchanged. Being an insanely rich country that controls its own currency means we have a genuinely magical ability to save hundreds of thousands of lives around the world with a budgetary rounding error. And MAGA's like: "No thanks, it sounds woke."

One effect of Joe Biden stepping back in the race is that even though we’re not getting the full mini primary, there is suddenly a lot of attention being paid to Democrats who are just much much much much better at delivering bite-size talking points about progressive politics

1. Raise tariff 2. Collect bribes 3. Reduce tariff It's really that simple. The challenge with describing the economic strategy of the Trump admin is that it's not an "economic" "strategy," it's a "create pain -> collect payoff" mafia formula run over and over again, and admin defenders have to pretend that Trump receiving personalized gold bars from Switzerland is simply the best way we know to help Iowa farmers

On average, time spent - with family peaks at <15yo - with friends peaks at 18 - with coworkers peaks at 30 - with children peaks at 40 - with your partner peaks at 70 - alone peaks at the end fascinating chart (ht @Alex_Radke)

What’s the best explanation for why all these schools turned against the SAT around the same time and why they all re-embraced standardized testing at roughly the same time? (Besides herding behavior)

Austin is building housing like crazy. Rents are down 7%. But rather than frame this achievement as a win for renters—or for the arg that housing prices respond to supply growth—WSJ frames it pretty clearly as bad news across the board.

This sweaty online lust to obliterate the judicial system and declare martial law is genuinely disgusting stuff.

This is the chart that has launched a thousand takes. The conclusion seems obvious: Everything the govt touches goes to infinity in price. Everything pure capitalism touches goes to zero. But there's another way of looking at this graph that dramatically changes the story.

I don't think China has figured out any technological magic to building stuff. I think they're like: "It's a train station, Michael. What could it cost, 15,000 man-hours and 20 diggers?" And they throw 1,500 workers at the problem and make them dig and lay steel for 10 hours.

$400 billion of annualized capex for a high-tech "mirror mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all" interlocutor

It's "interesting" to watch the right-wing outrage sausage get made. 1. Judge: Trump can attend son's graduation if trial is on track, but no official ruling yet. 2. Trump (lying): Judge told me I'm "prohibited" from attending my son's graduation, what an outrage. 3. People desperate to feel righteous anger when they log online buy the lie, rather than spend 7 seconds Googling the underlying news.

There is a 100% chance that this graph is a core reason for America's surge of anxiety and depression. Time spent with other people has plummeted—for every age group, ethnicity, gender, geography, and income level. washingtonpost.com/opinions/…

Two weeks ago, Marco Rubio said USAID “has little to show since the end of the Cold War.” Days earlier, a Lancet study estimated that USAID global health programs have saved 90 million lives—not since 1991, but since just 2001.

So, I wrote about Alex Berenson. theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

Homicides are plummeting. In all 10 cities with the most 2023 homicides—for which we have data—homicides are falling. The pandemic crime wave is crashing hard. If these percentage decline numbers were percentage growth numbers, it would be the lede of every cable news show—>

I think it's rude to over-generalize, but my opinion of a lot of left-wing media is unfortunately well-summarized by these two facts: 1. The Chapo guys refused, repeatedly, to talk to me and Ezra after we were pitched for their show during the abundance tour. 2. Now, Will insists that my inviting Mamdani on my show to discuss our political disagreements (like, half the podcast is about how we don't see eye to eye on housing policy and transit costs) amounts to my total capitulation to the tenets of democratic socialism. If you think the only way to talk to somebody you disagree with is to first surrender to them, you don't have a theory of persuasion. You have a theory of insularity and insecurity. Anyway, Mamdani was really wonderful to talk to, and we still disagree about housing, rent freezes, transit costs, public sector unions, the degree to which NYC's problems are principally a function of insufficient spending, etc. It's okay to have conversations with people you think are wrong and who think you're wrong. It's fine! Not that painful. Kinda fun even.

it's funny/sad/astonishing that we're in a situation where trump's multiple indictments were political advantageous to him, and biden's exoneration is politically terrible for him

The Netflix revolution and streaming media is, for now, one of the most successful profit-destroying interventions in modern business history

Americans at ~every level of income say they need a 30%-50% raise "to feel happy." Make $50k? "I need about 75k." Make $75k? "I need about 100k." Make $150k? "I need 200k." Make $200k? "I need 350k."

approaching, and surpassing, frightening level of Veep

Where I am: 1. Biden is running consistently behind not only Trump but also swing-state Democratic senators, suggesting he faces not only an R vs. D problem but a Biden-specific problem. 2. The Biden problem is clear: Voters think he's too old. 3. There's no plan to fix it. The underlying problem itself is unsolvable: Time is an arrow. The consequence is obvious: Every unscripted Biden TV appearance these days has viral moments of scrambled thinking, aborted sentences, and logical inconsistencies, which testify and solidify the age thing. So the campaign (which I feel some real sympathy for) is left with a strategic Catch-22. All efforts to reduce the salience of Biden's age ironically do the opposite: keeping him away from reporters raises questions, and putting him on camera creates moments. Replacing Biden with Kamala is incredibly risky. Holding a mini primary is ludicrously risky. There's no point in downplaying the risks here. But high-risk high-reward strategies become more rational as you become more confident in your disadvantage. I think the main difference between where I am vs. where Biden defenders are is that I've become really, really, really confident that Biden's age—not Trump, not Project 2025, not January 6, Biden's age—is the durable centerpiece of this election. It is a profoundly losing issue. And it's not a solvable problem.

The timeline goes: 1) Florida was relatively spared by early COVID wave 2) By early 2021, its COVID deaths-per-cap were avg 3) There was a round of self-congratulation 4) Delta crushed FL; the state is now 7th in deaths/ capita 5) We're just .... pretending (4) never happened

The largest outbreak in South Korea came from a church. The largest outbreak in France came from a church. The latest outbreak in Germany came from a church. The latest CDC investigation traces a rural Arkansas outbreak—from a church. theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

These graphs never fail to astonish. The COVID hospitalization risk is MORE THAN 10X higher for the unvaccinated—at every. single. age. level.

This appears to be Casper's business: Buy mattress at $400. Sell at $1,000. Refund/return 20% of them. --> Keep $400, on avg. ... then spend $290 of that on ads/marketing. ... and $270 on admin (finance, HR, IT). --> Lose $160. Repeat.

This paper should be a bombshell. Due to the electoral college and the extreme blue-state concentration of Democrats, Republicans are expected to win 65% of presidential contests in which they narrowly lose the popular vote.

re: Scientific American's endorsement of Kamala Harris for president I wish I saw more scientists grappling with the tradeoffs at stake here. In fact, a 2023 paper found that the journal Nature's endorsement of Joe Biden 1. "caused large reductions in stated trust in Nature among Trump supporters" 2. "lowered the demand for COVID-related information provided by Nature" 3. "reduced Trump supporters’ trust in scientists in general" 4. while "estimated effects on Biden supporters’ trust ... were positive, small and mostly statistically insignificant"

I'm confused. I was reliably told that leaking an old Alito opinion was treasonous destruction of a sacred institution, but now the Court's conservative camp is just plainly describing to reporters the full behind-the-scenes tick-tock of the Dobbs case weeks before the decision.

The war against mRNA research is genuinely insane. The mRNA COVID vaccines were a spectacular success at reducing severe illness among adults. Their benefits outside of COVID remain uncertain. That’s … what the science is for. Instead, according to the NYT: - “States and federal health agencies are playing on public wariness about vaccines to cancel research into mRNA more broadly” - “The N.I.H. had already canceled or paused many grants studying mRNA vaccines, and asked for an accounting of all other research it funds on mRNA, which scientists fear is a step toward terminating federal funding” - “Dozens of bills in legislatures from Montana to New York would regulate or ban products that contain mRNA, beyond Covid shots and including products that are not on any market”

In the last 48 hours: - BioNTech announced human trials for cancer vaccines using mRNA technology - Moderna announced promising data on a 3-in-1 respiratory vaccine—a FluRona shot that also protects against RSV LFG 🚀 🚀 🚀

Like everything ⁦@jburnmurdoch⁩ makes, this chart is amazing. The sharp decline in conscientiousness and rise in neuroticism among young people is astonishing. But also of note: literally every age group has gotten less extroverted in the age of the smartphone

The US has the fastest growth rate of any G7 country. And the US has the lowest annual inflation of any G7 country. And Americans hate it!

The very emotional discussion right now about whether Twitter has the right to de-platform Trump should widen the lens and see that the list of corporations that essentially came to the same conclusion include such famous wokesters such as (checks notes) the PGA and Deutsche Bank

Incredible snapshot of upper-middle-class college anxiety. Elite colleges have affirmative action for the very, very rich. Lower income students, who are less likely to apply, have a small advantage. This cashes out as a clear bias against upper-middle class applicants.

By a 52-21 margin, Americans think asking Ukraine to investigate Biden is an abuse of power, per USAToday poll. The gap among independents is huge: 45%-16%. It's even close among Republicans: 30%-40%. Doubling down like this is ... unbelievably risky.

If you wake up on a Casper mattress, hail Lyft to get to your desk at WeWork, use DoorDash to order lunch, and get an Uber home, you've spent the day interacting with companies that will collectively lose nearly $13 billion this year. theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

New study: An analysis of 400 occupations found that taxi and ambulance drivers had the lowest proportion of deaths from Alzheimer’s—raising the possibility that constant stimulation of the hippocampus, used for navigational and spatial processing, might be protective

What is HAPPENING here? Between 2012 and 2023, it appears that average OECD reading, math and science scores have declined consistently. This is not (just) about pandemic learning loss. It’s not about one US city. It’s not even just the US. This is the entire developed world.

Kyrie played at Duke University, which has for years had immunization requirements for the flu, Hep-B, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio, rubella, and TD/DTAP/TDAP. I'm trying to imagine refusing a meningitis vaccine at 18yo in order to challenge "perceived control of society."

New SF public school plan would - eliminate homework and weekly tests from counting toward semester grade - allow students to take the final exam multiple times - convert all B grades into As, and all Fs into Cs It’s hard to see the difference between this policy and what you’d get if a bunch of 10yos locked the teachers in a closet and rewrote the rules.

Telling Americans we’re gonna abolish taxes and also find trillions of dollars lying around in tariff payments is sort of like telling my kid I stole her nose and found it behind her ear; it only works if the subject doesn’t understand how anything works. My daughter’s excuse is she’s 18 months old. I’m not sure what the administration’s excuse is.

The most interesting secret of "Blue Zones"— places where ppl live extra long lives—appears to be, sadly, improper record-keeping. The number of ppl living 100+ years just happens to ~mysteriously~ drop sharply after the introduction of state-wide birth certification.

The Biden administration working with social media companies to throttle what they considered COVID misinformation might or might not have been legally principled, but it did at least pretend to have a substantive moral argument that was something like, "We don't want people to die and we're willing to take drastic steps to block information we believe might lead to their death." The moral argument for the FCC and president going around telling media companies to fire their progressive talent or else risk the wrath of the state seems to be "we believe we were treated unfairly, and now we have power, so suck it, losers," which I understand as an emotional reaction, but it really does seem notable that I haven't heard anybody even pretend that there's a deeper principle at stake here.

New Harris-Guardian poll: - 56% say US is in recession (reality: 7 straight quarters of positive GDP growth) - 49% say stocks are down YTD (reality: S&P500 up 12%) - 49% say unemployment at a 50-year high (reality: U3 has been under 4% longer than any period since the 1960s)

I think a fun running series would be something like: What's that business's actual "business"? EG: Airlines don't make money by flying ppl around. The profits come from credit cards. What are other industries whose profit center would surprise most people?

Malaria vaccine!!! I'm gonna try to learn more about this, but a 77% effective malaria vaccine is automatically in the running for Best News of the Year. Malaria kills 400k ppl annually, mostly children. Perhaps no other infectious disease consistently destroys more life.

It’s impossible to ignore the fact that the Omicron wave—and the reactions to Omicron from officials—has emboldened a group of Americans who were never really Anti-Vax but are now very, very Vaxxed And Done With All Of This.

The idea that "We're in another Gilded Age" is thrown around a lot, and sometimes it's lazy and vague, but nakedly corrupt quid pro quo between plutocrats and bureaucrats—say, a convicted felon helping the president's family make a bunch of crypto money and getting his conviction wiped out—is pretty much exactly what the Gilded Age was

The next time Biden gives a speech about reducing cost of living expenses, I want him stepping out of a life-sized Klimt painting diorama wrapped in a golden robe studded with rubies and emeralds. “My fellow Americans,” he begins, rubies jingling, “these diaper prices amirite?”

At the risk of being misunderstood in several ways, can I point out that it's a little weird how many people walk around outside with masks, with no one around them at all, and then go into restaurants and take off their masks to talk to friends?

New @DataProgress poll: - 52% of Americans under 45 have lost their job, had hours reduced, or been furloughed -35% of Americans under 35 now say they don't have health insurance dataforprogress.org/memos/co…

Here’s what I don’t understand about this line of criticism. The CEO of SVB wasn’t under a rock. He was … a director at the San Francisco Fed! The idea that Fed policy snuck up behind him and sabotaged his investment strategy makes no sense.

"Cheese, by far, was shown to be the most protective food against age-related cognitive problems, even late into life" (via @bpmehlman)

This sure looks like Republicans saying “the border is such an urgent crisis that … we are going to ensure nothing is done about it for 12 months, while we campaign on the complaint that nothing is being done”

Every defense of the Trump tariffs is at odds with the actual underlying policy. Like, how do you go into office thinking "We must build a durable and dependable supply chain that reduces our reliance on China, a geopolitical adversary" and then - attack the CHIPS and Science Act, which had already brought chip-factory construction to all-time highs - kick us off with 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada - antagonize Canada with threats of invasion - announce new tariffs on Europe - raise tariffs on Asian countries where US suppliers have moved factories, in order to diversify away from China - send Peter Navarro on TV to explain that we're not negotiating ... and most importantly! ... - pursue an overall agenda of PROUD CHAOS to ensure that nobody has any idea what tariffs will be in 1 week, much less 1 month, much less 1 year, so the capital needed to finance the return of manufacturing freezes at the same time that we trash the stock market

One lesson of DOGE is that a lot of federal govt spending is sent to old ppl (social security, Medicare) and affluent individuals/orgs (defense, health spending) but the spending with the highest “lives saved per dollar spent” tends to go to v poor people or to scientists working on ignored diseases So if you’re trying to slash govt spending without upsetting old/affluent interests you’re (a) going to fail to find meaningful cuts and (b) inevitably gutting some of the most life-giving programs. (And that’s bad.)

There are no libertarians in a pandemic.

I’ve really enjoyed Twitter, was never on Team Hellsite, and originally rooted for Elon to succeed. But this is a disaster. High debt, negative cash flow, main biz down 50%, annualized subs = barely 1% of old revenue, and the plan is…Tucker TV and Andrew Tate affiliate fees?

Now that's three CDC studies—from a Chinese restaurant, a Korean call center, and an American choir practice—all finding that talking, laughing, singing in close quarters, in unventilated interiors, for many hours, is the perfect storm for a COVID super-spreader event.

3 true things that are hard to keep in your head, but not THAT HARD. 1. Voters hate inflation, and there's been a global incumbency backlash to prove it, which played a huge role in Trump's big victory 2. The U.S. economy out-performed the developed world in growth, productivity, real wages, and beyond 3. Part (2) remains a strangely uncovered story, in part bc popular partisan media roots for teams rather than outcomes. Here's today's WSJ oped page cheering the end of a cursed era when our poor beleaguered s&p 500 only rose ... [checks stocks] 54 PERCENT IN FOUR YEARS

This seems pretty important: There's an ongoing collapse in pro-institution sentiment among Republicans—who disapprove of colleges, big corporations, tech firms, media, entertainment, and unions. Basically: Everything is bad, except church. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20…

I wrote about the collapse of face-to-face socializing in in the 21st century. From 2003-2022, American adults reduced socializing by 30%. For teens, the decline was nearly 50%. There is no record of any period in history when ppl spent more time alone. theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…

New paper: More than 40% of white Harvard admits are “ALDC”: athletes, legacy, Dean’s interest (donors' kids), or children of faculty Researchers find: 1. 70+% of such admits would be rejected w/o preferences. 2. Without ALDC preferences, total admits would be more diverse.

Amazing chart. 1. Teens' self-reported relationship with parents is near an all-time high and has generally increased since 2000 2. Teen satisfaction with life generally rose in between 1990 and 2008 and went straight down 2012-2020 via @jean_twenge, @JonHaidt

The policy chaos, I think I’ll survive. Watching Trumpsplainers rapturously praise each set of tariffs with the same energy they use to praise their cancellation—and then, praise their reinstatement, and recancellation, and re-reinstatement, and re-recancelling—might, actually, kill me.

Nobody knows what’s going on. You’ve prominent Trumpsplainers saying the goal of the tariffs is to raise trillions in revenue and move us off income taxes. You’ve got folks who seem super plugged into the Trump-tech alliance like Palmer saying no no no, the goal is the opposite: a world of no tariffs and fully free trade . These are completely incompatible goals. You can’t raise govt revenue over a ten year horizon with a tax that is *designed to disappear*. There’s no playbook to see here. There’s no smoke filled room. Nobody knows what’s going on and the market knows that nobody knows and that—even beyond the specific tariff numbers — is why stocks are puking.

Gutting scientific funding and scaring away talented immigrants while raising the cost of manufacturing stuff in America is, genuinely, like something we’d be forced to do after losing a war to a geopolitical adversary that deviously sought to hamstring US technological power for generation.

Our entire trade policy seems to be driven by our president’s deep fondness for being on the phone. Guy just loves phone calls. The more the better. A whole geopolitical paradigm built on loving to press receiver-to-ear and hear “Donald I’ve GOT to talk to you!” on the line.

I have no idea how this affects Musk’s behavior in Washington, but the situation with Tesla is - total unit sales declined in 2024 - meanwhile, he did his very best to alienate Democratic consumers - then, Tesla sales in Europe fell 50% - then, Tesla shipments in China fell 49%

~me and my female friends think the male loneliness crisis is pretty funny~ is fine group-chat fodder, but it's a weird thing to keep in a lefty essay that's ostensibly trying to figure out how and why men are fleeing the left

New study: Research shows liberals have worse mental health than conservatives. But what if you ask about "mood" to avoid possible conservative stigma around "mental health" issues? A: "When respondents were asked to assess their mood, the gap between liberals and conservatives disappeared. Conservatives were actually somewhat less likely than liberals to provide a highly positive rating of their overall mood."

I wrote the cover story of the February issue of The Atlantic. It builds on a lot of reporting I did throughout 2024, and I'm really proud of it. It’s called: THE ANTI-SOCIAL CENTURY The thesis: Rising solitude is the most important social fact in American life today. The historic amounts of time that Americans spend alone and in their homes is reshaping the consumer economy—from dining to entertainment to delivery—warping our politics, alienating us from the realities of our neighbors and villages, and changing our very personalities. Here are the basic facts: 1. In the last few years, in-person socialization has declined, for every demographic group, to its lowest point on record 2. The typical American is now alone more than in any period where we have decent data, going back to at least 1965 3. Americans now spend an extra 99 minutes in their homes compared to 2003—a trend that crept up slowly before the pandemic, before exploding and remaining at a seriously elevated level. As Princeton’s Patrick Sharkey wrote in a 2024 paper, the homebound trend isn't just about remote work. Homebound life has “risen for every subset of the population and for virtually all activities” from eating to praying. 4. America's social depression is far-reaching. The share of adults having dinner or drinks with friends on any given night has declined by more than 30% in the past 20 years. The share of boys and girls who say they meet up with friends almost daily outside school hours has declined by nearly 50%. I don’t think these trends are simple. In many cases, they’re not even simply bad. (Ordering delivery: totally fine! Eating more meals alone, year after year after year: not so great!) But to see these trends—and their effects on American society—more clearly, I thought this phenomenon needed an anchoring, a naming, a media artifact for people to talk about, even if only to point out that I’m wrong. So, I wrote this.

What the hell is going on at the New York Post

The year is 2032. Brock Purdy is 157-0. The entire league still thinks he's a system QB, so the 49ers can retain him on a cheap <$5m/year contract and lavish him with expensive weapons. He is the career leader in QBR. Nobody has any idea if he's actually good.

If you work at WeWork, drive home with Uber, and then order food by DoorDash, you're engaging with three companies that are projected to lose about $13 billion this year.

Harris now leading in PA/MI/WI in @NateSilver538's latest. Up 1.1%pts nationally.