Links 16.2025
On a Personal Note
Happy Easter, everyone!
I was planning to post my personal canon this week—but since we’ve already had quite a few special editions this year, I figured it’s time to return to regular programming for a bit. So this week: back to the usual format. That said, some absolute bangers coming your way.
BTW, I’ll be in Vilnius and Prague next week—catch me if you can!
Христос Воскресе!
What abundance can’t achieve
While Ezra Klein’s Abundance is the talk of the town in liberal elite circles, I’ve had my reservations about yet another technocratic, materialist escape route from the populist hellhole we’re living through. As much as I’m a Cornucopian and techno-optimist, I just don’t see how this agenda actually mobilizes liberal voters—let alone brings any of them back.
I think liberals will only do well when they recognize that in times of crisis and flux, we have to offer more than spreadsheets and policy tweaks—we might need a sense of meaning, cause, and direction. And if we can’t offer that, we should at least have a theory of how to take care of our most essential need: security.
As usual, Janan Ganesh is a pure pleasure to read—and delivers plenty of quote-worthy punch lines, like: “you can build or grow your way to civic sanity.”
Of course, it’s just commentary, and the empirical evidence on this is far from settled. But you’ll quickly see why it fits my priors!
The authors of Abundance trace urban disorder back to scarcity, which is fair up to a point, but also a bit of an intellectual knight’s move. The more direct question of law enforcement is still awkward to bring up in polite company.
Ever since the French Revolutionaries extolled liberté, égalité and fraternité, assuming that sécurité would take care of itself, the Enlightened have had a blind spot for this stuff. Their enemies don’t. Defeating them will take a liberalism that builds, no doubt, but also one that protects, and even condemns.
[…]
Almost everything the authors [SG: Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson] propose is worth doing for its own sake. More stuff for more people is an honourable cause. Listen, I would build a fourth runway at Heathrow.
Just don’t expect it to make the slightest dent on politics.
The biggest head-scratcher in the modern world is the lack of correlation between abundance and voter happiness. In the US, which has boomed for much of the century, populists are rampant. In Europe, which mostly hasn’t, populists are rampant. If we track one place over time, the picture is no less confounding. East Germany has been getting richer and richer since it came in from the cold. Its propensity to vote for the hard right has gone up over the same period. […] You can’t build or grow your way to civic sanity.
[…]
If not abundance, then, what is it that might defang the west’s rebellious voters? Which abstract noun should guide liberals in politics? I can give you one syllable less than the authors. Order. Whether it is the order of national borders, or the order of being able to walk unaccosted through cities, there isn’t enough of it for public tastes.
Who Is Left Behind? Economic Status Loss and Populist Radical Right Voting
Okay, this one is highly interesting—especially for long-time readers.
First, it kind of bolsters the point that it isn’t inequality per se that triggers populist attitudes; but rather the relative loss of status (kinda think Whiteshift). In other words: less Piketty, and more Sandel or the Fukuyama of ‘Identity.’ One might say that’s nothing new for us—we covered that early on.
But here’s the kicker of this paper: rather than demanding redistribution or class-based politics (i.e. what you would traditionally expect), groups experiencing relative status loss actually become more culturally (!) conservative and more anti-redistribution. WTF.
I mean, this basically nullifies the old talking point that rising inequality will naturally boost support for the traditional (i.e. redistributive) left. The evidence here now suggests the opposite. Status anxiety ain’t just material after all! (Again, just think about the vibe shift of young white males)
This also vindicates the Great Political Realignment hypothesis: the old binaries between cultural and economic divides are outdated. Today, economic shocks and cultural reactions are deeply entangled. In fact, the real political poles are now formed downstream from culture: cosmopolitan openness vs. national closedness.
Abstract
Citizens’ resentment at losing out to the rest of society is commonly regarded as the foundation of the demand for the populist radical right (PRR). Yet whether this motive has an objective economic basis remains disputed. Relying on European Social Survey individual-level data from 23 elections across Western Europe, combined with Eurostat data, I demonstrate that the PRR polls better among social classes facing economic status loss. To do so, I leverage a novel positional measure of income. This approach allows me to gauge economic status loss as a distinct experience from worsening financial circumstances, which has been the initial focus of empirical research. Evidence that economic status loss is the economic engine of PRR support is corroborated by data on cultural stances and redistributive preferences. My study confirms the complementarity of cultural- and economic-based explanations of PRR voting and reveals one electoral consequence of rising economic inequalities.
The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion’ of Babies—and Their Mothers
Normally, I don’t share such kinda gossip-y pieces; but this kinda psychological profile of Elon is just too fascinating to pass up. The WSJ just dropped a piece on the fixer who manages Elon’s… let’s say, harem logistics.
Yes, it’s interesting from a management perspective. Yet, what really stands out is the insane levels of narcissism Elon has reached. Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of the few true Millians who truly hypes up the most absurd displays of eccentricity. But naming your child Romulus? Not just the mythical founder of Rome who murdered his brother, but also a descendant of Zeus aka King of the Gods. Bruv!
The article is basically a case study of the delulu self-grandification that seems to run deep in the Bronze Age Pervert-inspired God Emperor cult of MAGA. And besides documenting Elon’s unsettlig attitude of constantly abusing any form of power dynamic, it covers everything from his unhinged ways of sliding into DMs, to the financial arrangements he offers his baby mommas ($15 million lump sum + $100k/month), to his Genghis Khan–meets–Ottoman Empire vision of a palace for his harem.
Wild stuff.
While Musk posts sometimes dozens of times a day on X about right-wing politics or his companies, among other things on his mind, he often interacts with lesser-known users. He replies to them and sometimes interacts through direct messages, some of whom he eventually solicits to have his babies, according to people who have viewed the messages.
Cryptocurrency influencer Tiffany Fong was covering disgraced crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall when Musk started liking and replying to her posts. […] That was about when Musk sent her a direct message asking if she was interested in having his child, according to people familiar with the matter. The two had never met in person.
[…]
While she was pregnant, Musk had urged her to deliver the baby via caesarean section and told her he didn’t want the child to be circumcised. (Musk has posted on X that vaginal births limit brain size and that C-sections allow for larger brains.) St. Clair is Jewish and circumcisions are an important ritual in the religion, and she decided against a C-section. […] When she was in the hospital being induced for labor in September, Birchall texted her about leaving Musk’s name off the birth certificate, according to texts viewed by the Journal.
She complied with the request to not name Musk on the birth certificate. Not long after the birth, Birchall pushed St. Clair to sign documents keeping the father of the baby and details regarding her relationship with Musk secret in return for financial support. The offer was a one-time fee of $15 million for a home and living expenses, plus an additional $100,000 a month until the baby turned 21.
[…]
Birchall was involved in acquiring the property for a compound in Austin where Musk imagined the women and his growing number of babies would all live among multiple residences, according to a person familiar with the matter. He is involved in other property deals across Musk’s different businesses.
Gen Z women are choosing older men over guys their own age — and it’s not because they’re sugar daddies
Okay, when I started reading this, I really didn’t expect it to take that turn 💀
According to 19-year-old Liza, who’s dating someone in his late twenties and sat down with the outlet, “I’d go on the odd date with someone my age and more often than not it would end up in a straight-up argument when he started saying Andrew Tate makes good points.”
Her boyfriend? “Super chill, a feminist — and weirdly, so are most of his mates. He missed all the manosphere stuff and it shows.”
Now, on a serious note. We all know this chart:
The reason why all the GenZ sadies are farmed by millennials is the absolute brain rot among Zoomer men. Remember my hot take that millennials will be the smartest generation of humans that ever lived—and that it’s all downhill from here (at least in terms of raw brain power)? Well, here we go.
With Gen Z women said to be leaning more progressive and outspoken, and Gen Z men increasingly choosing conservatism, many young women say they’re struggling to find likeminded mates — instead, finding better matches a few years up the generational ladder.
There are numbers to back up the claims — only 56% of Gen Z report having had a romantic relationship in their teens, compared to 78% of boomers. That’s not just a drop; it’s a plummet.
The so-called “gen-blend” relationship could be the answer — Bumble says it’s booming, with 63% of users reporting they’re totally fine dating outside their age group.
Peace,
SG