Elijah Nolond🇺🇸

@grok what historical figure do my tweets and replies remind you of?

@mattyglesias @DouthatNYT Declining effective fertility rate has really only been a story post 2010. From 1990 to 2010 it went from like 2.08 to 2.06. Earlier declines also seem correlated with leaving some social discontent

@DouthatNYT These are reasonable points, but fertility decline is a very longstanding trend

I saw a few raised eyebrows about the suggestion in my weekend column that low birthrates play an important role in the rise of populism. Here are a few arguments about how the link works. (1/x) nytimes.com/2026/04/18/opi…

@neontaster Tbf hasn’t @mattyglesias of all people taken heat for being willing to say controversial things about how racism and sexism are not exogenous forces with 100% explanatory power

Try this with racism or sexism and see how far it gets you.

I'll bite. Let me focus on one bit in your writing, because it's crucial for understanding the dynamic between Israel and moderate Democrats like yourself. Suppose a two-state solution is implemented. It's all signed, borders agreed, Jerusalem is divided, euphoria, we're partying like it's the '90s. There's peace. Three years later, there is a mega-attack, several times the scale of Oct 7. Thousands dead. Perhaps it's the PA government, which was never honest about peace. More likely, it's after a Hamas-led coup. Or perhaps it's by a rogue Hamas cell that the PA government could nver fully reign in (Hamas operates in the Jenin area and defies state sovereignty much as Hezbollah does today in South Lebanon). Either way, thousands are dead, the scenes even more apocapyptic than on Oct 7. The Israeli government declares war on the State of Palestine. They also announce: "We agreed to Palestinian statehood on the assumption that it's the price of peace, but there is no peace; our citizens have been massacred. Therefore, the peace agreement is null and void. We derecognize the State of Palestine and will reoccupy its territory". Question: what will you do? What will be your reaction? Will you say: "That's totally fair, I was wrong"? Or will you call for deescalation, urge Israel to give a proportional response, explain that it wasn't Palestine, it was Hamas, and demand that Israel sit down with the Palestinians to find a diplomatic solution (*another* diplomatic solution, this time *really*!) to avoid a *third* Oct 7-like event? For Israelis contemplating the wisdom of placating the moderate wing of the Democrats by agreeing to a two-state solution, it is absolutely crucial to know what moderate Democrats like you would do in such a scenario. Please reflect on the question, and please be honest with me and especially with yourself.

@mattyglesias @MaxNordau Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to determine the borders of two sovereign states moderated by a sovereign Kurdistan.

@MaxNordau Articulate a political endgame for Palestinians that is neither ethnic cleansing nor perpetual statelessness.

The belief that global perceptions of Israel are totally unrelated to Israeli conduct is extremely widespread, both in Israel and in American pro-Israel circles. It's also wildly implausible and helps explain a lot about both Israeli behavior and Israel's cratering reputation.

@kunley_drukpa This is accurate. Mostly spent time in Maun and while the airport is fairly new (and built by China) the infrastructure remains very dilapidated. Some nice restaurants and hostels squirreled away though. Had myself a nice espresso while I was there

WHAT IS BOTSWANA LIKE? 🇧🇼 Sometimes people talk about Botswana as one of the most developed, advanced countries in Africa, point to it as example of competent government significantly improving quality of life. This is sort of true but has to be asterisked that that is relative to the rest of Africa and also Botswana is a giant empty desert with Okavango swampland to the north so what counts as developed in that context is probably not as grand in scope as you might imagine Of course I like Botswana but it obviously isn’t Wakanda, would describe it as more ‘a few towns in the Kalahari’ - a couple of which have some modern Chinese made buildings (or if they’re not Chinese made they at least look Chinese made aesthetically). Outside of this the country is largely more traditional African villages. Gaborone specifically, Botswana’s capital, has just over half a million but it doesn’t really feel very grand in scale… reminds me of somewhere like Boulder City, Nevada or Alice Springs, Australia. Suburbs aren’t all townships but they sprawl a bit out, some townships do exist but nowhere near on the level of South Africa There is a modern downtown area that looks impressive from certain angles in images online but if you go there in person you can walk one end of that downtown to the other in about 15 minutes. You can’t really fairly think of it as some high economic activity CBD. There are a couple of nightclubs and air conditioned gyms, a few rooftop pools, ‘nice’ restaurants, there are some shopping malls but they aren’t exactly Dubai-type malls, a lot of the bigger brands they do have there are just imported from South Africa - actually I think Namibia is more modern with respect to these kinds of amenities too and then actually again would say both countries… you can broadly kind of conceive of them as provinces of South Africa in terms of development, infrastructure etc When I say Botswana’s development is relative then I mean that the capital looks like a clean regional South African city, ie it’s Basically Fine. An improvement actually over South Africa in the sense there is less crime. Other towns like Francistown and Maun… they’re not really full towns in the proper sense, again maybe you can think of them as sort of rural Nevada roadside type settlements with less amenities than Gaborone. Botswana only has 2.4 million people living there Botswana is quite fortunate in that it 1) had a string of mostly competent leaders under Seretse Khama onwards and 2) has large, well-managed diamond mines. What exists isn’t bad by any means though also it isn’t going to blow anybody away. Botswana ‘as a success story’ today is represented then in the transition from a traditional Tswana village societies to a few modest sized cities in the desert where the inhabitants have some disposable income. Even still it is a mostly undeveloped though not unpleasant country with smaller developed pockets that if only referenced in statistical terms make the place seem like it punches more above its weight than it probably actually does

Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software. 5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed. 6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost. 7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm’s way. 8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive. 9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret. 10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed. 11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice. 12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin. 13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet. 14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war. 15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia. 16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk’s interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn. 17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives. 18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within. 19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all. 20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite’s intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim. 21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful. 22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what? Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska techrepublicbook.com

@DerekPederson3 What were the “most likely” counterfactuals that would be better than what actually happened in Gaza?

I supported the war to remove Hamas from power after October 7th, but Israel's supporters have got to own up to the fact that, barring something unexpected happening this was far worse than any of the United States' wars in the Middle East.

@simonsarris People act like they have no agency. It’s pathetic. No one’s gonna come save you or leap from your phone screen into your arms. But you probably walk past half a dozen eligible young women every day. Almost any plane you board has a cute girl sitting alone in the waiting area.

"And I don't see hordes of women beating down their doors." Is like 90% of the problem I think. Everyone expects someone else to do the work. But the work is desire/desiring, there's no substitute !

@AppleTV This looks really good

A new thriller series from the producers of Homeland. Coming May 8 to Apple TV. #Unconditional

@wwwojtekk When my dad visited the summer after the wall fell, his room and board at a decent hotel was $0.15/day. How things change.

It is a great country that you should visit (for example, for IIPF in 2027 iipf.org/cng.htm), but what is remarkable about pictures like this is that many places in Poland nowadays feel like Antwerp, Uppsala, Dublin or Milan, not that it is some European outlier.

@Empty_America A lot of RW ppl are totally innumerate especially about things like this. A handful of cases this century of it going wrong are touted as the likely outcome. Nearly everyone who does this is fine. More danger from falling trees than strangers with a trek like this

Why are these guys so timid? Tons of women do this stuff and its almost always fine. Probably less risk of death than driving the route in a car.

@TrueSlazac I mean there’s been a couple of massacres by the RSF of comparable scale these past couple years that no one heard of.

I feel insane for never having heard of that before, what do you mean South Sudan killed TWENTY THOUSAND Nuer civilians in only four days

Population pyramid of Asturias: The autonomous community with the lowest TFR on mainland Spain. 0-14: 9.80% 15-64: 61.84% 65 and over: 28.36% Foreign population: 6.80%

@Empty_America My dad had a friend in college who was an Afghan refugee. He was like 30 but would need to show his UN refugee documents (a whole sheaf of papers) whenever he went to the bar

What was the date when "ID" became a necessity for life in America? Most Americans in 1900 had no such thing, most likely didn't even have a birth certificate. Birth certificate was first, then SS card/drivers license, then DL became de facto identity card, etc

@CoreyWriting ED overall is like 13%. For Yale it is 11%. There are definitely some not so brilliant kids at Vandy, but that’s true for everywhere now. Yale’s 25th percentile SAT is like a 1480

Vanderbilt has very aggressive early decision rounds. Their ED 1 admit rate is like around 30% I know of students who had like 1450 SATs and go into Vanderbilt during Early Decision. These were smart kids, but they wouldn't have stood a shot at Harvard or Yale if they applied.

@CoreyWriting @DerekPederson3 This also affects retention of EHC in the military. The opportunity to be paid to get a degree at many of these schools is a strong retention incentive for many high performers (in part because it’s legible in a post army career). LibertyU doesn’t have the same appeal

Dumb culture war brain rot. Removing elite human capital from critical institutions like the military only makes America weaker.

@atlanticesque UWS is not Hyde Park. At all

University of Chicago: Placement of bright kids amidst a ghetto, produces future generations of central bankers, hardened against the lamentations of the lumpenproles Columbia University: Placement of bright kids amidst a ghetto, mostly produces flaccid communists What’s up

@robkhenderson Remarkable book, I read it last year and it’s really a brilliant encapsulation of the effect of culture on everything

I was honored to write the foreword for the 25th anniversary edition of "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass" by Theodore Dalrymple." Out on April 30. Preorder your copy: a.co/d/0d2PyDST

Reid Wiseman told his two teenage daughters where to find his will before he got on this rocket. He’s raised them alone since their mom died of cancer six years ago. Right now, he is 252,757 miles from home, farther from Earth than any human being has ever been. Wiseman grew up outside Baltimore. Got rejected from the Naval Academy, went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute instead, studied computer engineering. Became a Navy fighter pilot, flew F-14 Tomcats (the jet from Top Gun) on combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Two Middle East deployments by his mid-twenties. He saw a Space Shuttle launch in person in 2001 and couldn’t let go of it. Applied to NASA while at sea on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. They picked him. Nine people out of 3,500 applicants. His astronaut class, nicknamed “The Chumps,” included Jeremy Hansen, the Canadian who’s floating next to him right now. Wiseman’s first trip to space was 165 days on the Space Station in 2014. Two spacewalks. Thirteen hours outside the hull in nothing but a suit. He climbed all the way up to Chief of the Astronaut Office, the person who decides which astronauts fly and which ones sit. Then he gave it up in 2022 to put himself back on the flight list. His wife Carroll was a nurse in a newborn intensive care unit. She got cancer. Fought it five years. Died in May 2020 at 46. His mother died from Alzheimer’s just weeks before that. Wiseman raised both daughters by himself after that. NASA’s own bio says he considers being a single parent his hardest challenge and the best part of his life. Even while she was dying, Carroll told Reid not to step back from his career. She made him keep going. His brother is a Navy SEAL. His father is 83 and battling cancer too. The old man told reporters he wanted to stay alive long enough to see his son launch. Before liftoff, Wiseman’s daughters snuck homemade cookies into his flight bag. He posted a photo with them in front of the rocket and wrote “I’m boarding that rocket a very proud father.” The previous distance record from Earth belonged to the Apollo 13 crew. 248,655 miles, set in April 1970, and it was an accident. An oxygen tank blew up and the emergency route home happened to swing them farther out than anyone before. Wiseman broke that record by 4,100 miles, and his distance is on purpose. Today he flies within 4,600 miles of the Moon, photographs stretches of the far side that were too dark or at the wrong angle for any of the 24 Apollo astronauts to see, and watches a solar eclipse that nobody on Earth can see, only the four people inside that capsule. Then he turns around and spends four days flying home to his girls.