Massively Parallel Peace and Democracy Building Links for the Week of January 12, 2025
Newsletter #311 - January 12, 2025
Note: This is the first of a two compilations of links collected over the holiday break.
Reader Suggested Links
Highlighting links suggested by our readers. Please send us links to things that you find useful.
US Politics
The opposition to Trump isn’t inert. It’s reflecting — and that’s good. — Thoughts about efforts to develop more constructive and effective ways of challenging President Trump's plans to make major changes to our government and society.Progressive Left
The Democrats’ Culture Denialism — An argument that Democrats need to recognize that their recent defeat is a reflection of public disapproval of much of their platform (and not just problems with their campaign or Trump's unscrupulous tactics).Superpower Conflict
Nations Prepare for a Post-European World — In the wake of the serious problems facing so many European societies, thoughts about how the world is adapting to the continent's declining influence.Progressive Left
Why I Am No Longer Woke — An extensive exploration, with lots of citations, of the complex arguments for and against "woke" philosophies.US Politics
Trump could be setting himself up for a ‘powerful’ early failure — A review of the many pitfalls that President Trump will have to overcome before he can successfully implement his ambitious agenda.Israel / Hamas War
The Altneu Antisemitism: Part I — A two-part essay explaining how the antisemitism of today differs from earlier eras.Israel / Hamas War
Why Is there no Palestinian State? — A comprehensive review of the history of past efforts to create a Palestinian state (and a review of obstacles that still need to be overcome).
Colleague Activities
Highlighting things that our conflict and peacebuilding colleagues are doing that contribute to efforts to address the hyper-polarization problem.
Countering Bad-Faith Actors
Thwarting conflict profiteers to save the republic — A review of the way that conflict profiteers are trying to break us apart, and efforts to break the influence of those profiteers.Culture and Religion
How does the internet derange and divide us? — Zach Elwood lists ten ways social media is harming us before discussing what we can do to stop or address the harm.Developing a Unifying Vision
The Prosocial Ranking Challenge: Experiment Launched! Project Midpoint Update — Jonathan Stray's update report on the Prosocial Ranking Challenge progress and future plans.Media Reform
Faces of X || Capitalism, Gender, Race, & Abortion — A series from Synthesis Media showing opposing points of view on hot-button topics, and how they may not be so opposing after all.Bridge Building
Bridge Pledge — Bridge Grades for Congress objectively identifies the most collaborative and least polarizing politicians by sorting bridgers from dividers based on voting records, bill authoring, and other public third party data.The Hyper-Polarization Threat
The Brain on Authoritarianism — Better understanding the brain’s response to fear, toxic othering, and threats to social identity will help pro-democracy organizers to confront the authoritarian playbook.Bridge Building
The Reunited States — A film based on Mark Gerzon's book of the same name, follows four everyday heroes as they journey across the US to bridge racial and political divides.Constructive Advocacy
Overcoming despair and apathy to win democracy — Lessons on movement building from one of the founders of the Serbian student movement that brought down dictator Slobodan Milosevic.Superpower Conflict
Diplomacy at the End of History, Part III: Diplomacy and Multilateral Cooperation | Thomas Greminger — From the Toda Peace Institute, the third of 3 videos featuring Ambassador Thomas Greminger and Toda Peace Institute Senior Research Fellow Keith Krause on Track II diplomacy, mediation and development policy..Saving Democracy
Reasons To Be Hopeful in 2025 – BCB #131 — From our colleagues at the Better Conflict Bulletin, an essay explaining that people on the other side aren't as extreme as we think, support for violence is low, and people are investing more in healthy conflict.De-Escalation Strategies
Three Ways I Have Updated My Priors Since the Election — Reflections from Daniel Stid on what the election meant and how we can best move forward from it.Theories of Change
Why protests work, even when not everybody likes them — From Waging Nonviolence, an article explaining that organizers must learn to embrace the polarizing nature of protest in order to use it effectively.Civic Education
The Unify America Challenge: A Worthwhile Tool for Deliberative Pedagogy — A description of a new tool to help colleage students engage in constructive discourse. The tool promotes communication skills, encourages students to listen to diverse voices, and underscores the shared values that transcend divisive political issues.Civil Society
New Civic Information Index offers crucial insight into civic health in the US — The pioneering data tool monitors the health of local information and civic ecosystems across the country. It underscores journalism as a key part of the local infrastructure necessary to enable robust, thriving communities.
News and Opinion
From around the web, more insight into the nature of our conflict problems, limits of business-as-usual thinking, and things people are doing to try to make things better. (Formerly, Beyond Intractability in Context.)
Media Reform
How Jonathan Haidt Won the Fight Against Smartphones in Schools — For those who might think that it is impossible to successfully challenge the system, a report on the increasingly successful campaign to get smartphones out of schools.Culture and Religion
Ramaswamy Is Uninvited From My Sleepover — A thought-provoking look at a big, but seldom recognized, cultural divide that exists within society's meritocratic elites.Runaway Escalation
Something must change: Or something will break very badly — A provocative essay that reflects on the nature of contempt and the dramatic ways in which it alters interpersonal and societal relationships.Climate / Environment
California’s Climate Time for Choosing — An illuminating look at the priorities set by California's ruling Democratic Party (and the debate over how those priorities have affected the state's susceptibility to wildfire.)Disinformation
These Bizarre Theories About the L.A. Wildfires Endanger Everyone — A revealing look at the way in which those on both the left and the right are trying to take political advantage of California's devastating wildfires.Superpower Conflict
It’s September 2026, and the Pentagon Is Alarmed — For those who have trouble imagining how the social media platform TicTik could suddenly become a major national security threat, a description of how a crisis over Taiwan might unfold.Communication Complexity
TikTok Is Harming Children at an Industrial Scale — From Jon Haidt, an explanation of the threat that TikTok poses to today's young people.Communication Complexity
New Report: TikTok Brainwashed America’s Youth — Another report on the threat posed by TicTok and another look at the complex ways in which social media is transforming our society.Family / Gender / LBGTQ+
Six-Chart Sunday (#49) – The Kids Aren't Alright — Another collection of revealing power points. This one highlights challenges facing young people.Progressive Left
Critical Race Theory Is an Inversion of History — An important challenge to the social justice left's interpretation of history and a reminder of the central role that Britons and Americans have played in developing modern conceptions of justice and fairness.US Politics
Trump’s Return Is a Civil Society Failure — A review, with lots of citations, of the factors that political scientists see as responsible for President Trump's return to power.Climate / Environment
Revenge of the Fossil Fuels — A comprehensive and illuminating window into the workings of the global energy market and the staggering challenges faced by those who really want to limit carbon emissions.Authoritarianism
It Was a Bad Year for the World’s Autocrats — For those who might think that autocracies' ascendance is inevitable, welcome news that they too can have bad years.Superpower Conflict
Trump Is Right That Pax Americana Is Over — Reflections on the collapse of the Pax Americana that has dominated the global security environment for the past 75 years (and thoughts about what might come next in the coming Trump era).Superpower Conflict
How Chinese Hackers Graduated From Clumsy Corporate Thieves to Military Weapons — An alarming look at the intensity and sophistication of Chinese attacks on our information infrastructure (and the ways in which these attacks could cause catastrophic harm in a major conflict).Social Complexity
The Age of Depopulation: Surviving a World Gone Gray — For the first time since the Black Death of the 1300s, global population is declining. This article explores the many profound implications of this trend.Violence
An Astonishing Level of Dehumanization — Reflections on the alarming degree to which violence against society's "oppressive" elites is now seen as justifiable.Psychological Complexity
A History of the End of the World — A somewhat lighthearted essay that puts today's "doom and gloom" thinking in a broader context. The challenge is to sensibly separate real from exaggerated fears.Saving Democracy
Democracy in 2024 was noisy and chaotic. It was also resilient. — A more reassuring look at democracy's travails -- one that asks us to separate the chaos and conflict that are a feature of democracy from its real problems.Social Complexity
Why Liberals Struggle to Cope With Epochal Change — Reflections on the possibility that the global society in which we live is now in the midst of a period of radical change -- change that will seriously challenge the ways in which liberals think about the world.Education
How Higher Education Can Win Back America — An example of the kind of reform-oriented thinking that will have to become widespread if our institutions are to regain the public's trust.
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About the MBI Newsletters
Two or three times a week, Guy and Heidi Burgess, the BI Directors, share some of our thoughts on political hyper-polarization and related topics. We also share essays from our colleagues and other contributors, and every week or so, we devote one newsletter to annotated links to outside readings that we found particularly useful relating to U.S. hyper-polarization, threats to peace (and actual violence) in other countries, and related topics of interest. Each Newsletter is posted on BI, and sent out by email through Substack to subscribers. You can sign up to receive your copy here and find the latest newsletter here or on our BI Newsletter page, which also provides access to all the past newsletters, going back to 2017.
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