36 key ideas in 2026

the-26-most-important-ideas-for-2026 is very thought-provoking!  My comments are not intended to be critical, but rather simply to expand thought a bit more.

1. Here are 10 “important ideas” he did not mention.  Perhaps my view is less limited to 2026 than is his and, of course, he couldn’t cover everything. .

Optimistic perspectives that are progressing but won’t make a big splash in 2026 need to receive funding:

1. Energy advances (fusion, such as Commonwealth and Helion; geothermal, such as Fervo; as well as solar, wind, etc.) can improve economies and life, while reducing cost, pollution and war.
2. Climate change technology advances will continue, including agricultural advances (such as The Land Institute), carbon sequestration (such as C-Questra), etc.  Why I Stopped Being A Climate Catastrophist is a good article.  Despite being a strong environmentalist for 60+ years, I have been a climate change moderate for several reasons.  One is that we really don’t know what will happen in the future.  Secondly, Bjorn Lomborg makes some good points, including that critics ignore that fewer people are dying from exposure to cold.  I do think we should try to reduce our impact on planet warming and climate change.  I support renewable energy as part of an “all of the above” strategy with a trend away from combustibles.  I’ve supported a carbon tax and incentives to buy fuel-efficient cars but not electric car manufacturing mandates.
3. Assuming we don’t kill the golden goose, there will continue to be major biotech advances such as individualized treatment (e.g., Singula Institute and ETH Zurich).

Things we should be able to turn-around if our citizens get together and insist on positive changes:

4. The loss of heroes and denigration of merit are huge problems.  We need secular and religious heroes to inspire people!  (Recognizing their flaws is fine as long as we honor their contributions.)
5. Our public education system needs serious improvement.  Most important: we consign students in inner cities to inadequate education but even in wealthier areas, education can be improved.
6. We have a desperate need to reward integrity in politicians, media, and institutions.  Our parties lie to us about each other to gain power through our anger.  We must demand that politicians and institutions bring us together, using heroes of various characteristics to demonstrate that we all have similar values.  Rather than stressing differences (identity politics), we should stress our similarities and show that diversity helps us achieve our common goals.  We must address our national debt, which is typically stated as $38 trillion, but is $95 trillion if you assume Social Security and Medicare will continue unchanged indefinitely.  The 2026 election will be important to see whether extremists or centrists win in each party’s primaries and in the November elections.
7. I fear the trend toward George Orwell’s 1984 with increasing government intrusion in our lives (as exists in China and is growing in other countries) and a world carved up between super-powers (which seems to be a Trump-effect).

Things that seem harder to control:

8. The continual explosion of more-and-more info and our fast-paced world increase mental disease because they strain the capability of the human brain.
9. It also is increasingly difficult to determine the truth.  This has been a great fear of mine since I watched “Forrest Gump”.  Tip: On Chrome, there are three vertical dots to the right of the URL (see below).  These dots lead to info about the credibility of the site.

10. A new “arms” race is building, not only among major countries but also minor countries and factions (such as terrorists).  Offensive weapons can be built very cheaply.  While this may stymie the Orwellian world, it is not positive.

2. Many of his issues can be compressed into a single point: while there is more to learn, our population is shortening its attention span and spending more time on escapist/leisure activities.  This threatens our future, including our long-term freedom vs. possible Chinese conquest.
3. He also identifies some overall trends that comprise multiple subsets that have very different consequences.

Here are the 26 issues he identified with a few comments:

1. The end of reading: CT: There are multiple issues mixed here
1. Reduced adult leisure reading doesn’t bother me.  It may not be productive use of our time.  Reading on-line is superior as you can delve quickly into side issues and share your sources/observations more easily.
2. Replacing child/teen leisure reading with videos might not be bad.  Reading helped us understand life and how our lives might turn out.  But “a picture is worth 1000 words”, and video with sound is better than a picture.
3. Biographies: the reduction in heroes is a big problem.  I don’t think reading biographies has been sufficiently replaced with video biographies.
4. Technical, informational reading is critical and requires attention span.

2. The triumph of streaming video:
1. CT: Replacing print with on-line is good (see 1a) but social media is dangerous because of silos and false info.
2. CT: It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the use of YouTube.  Its “how to” and educational videos are great!  It democratizes education, by making it available instantly, everywhere, with no marginal cost.

3. Goodbye, movie theaters?

4. TikTok might be melting your brain: “a systematic review of 71 studies with 98,000 participants … in 2025 … [found] heavy short-form video users showed moderate deficits in attention, inhibitory control, and memory.”

5. The whole US economy right now is one big bet on artificial intelligence: CT: robots could turn life upside down

6. Get ready for a wave of anti-AI populism

7. Generative AI is probably much better at (certain aspects of) our jobs than we’d like to admit: CT: on this issue, he unpacked related issues that have different impacts.

8. Young Americans are becoming more disconnected from the economy: CT: people at all ages are choosing to be unemployed.

9. The share of liberal non-religious high school seniors who say life “often feels meaningless” has doubled since the early 2000s: We should learn from his data that religious and conservative youth have better mental health.

10. The only currency is currency (Or: Have you noticed that the only remaining global virtue in the world is money?): CT: We don’t teach values as well as we did in the past.  This gets back to heroes, religion, and our education system.

11. The accelerated decline of fertility among rich countries is going to have some fascinating global implications:  CT: One of these issues is going to be related to water, which will become increasingly valuable.

12. Is alcohol over?

13. Americans aren’t drunk. They’re high.

14. Marijuana isn’t good medicine.

15. GLP-1 drugs are already remarkable, and today they’re probably less effective than they’ll ever be.

16. GLP-1 drugs will probably reshape the food and drink industry: CT: I agree.  The impact of GLP-1 drugs is going to be huge in terms of health, life expectancy, healthcare spending, junk food industry, gym industry, etc.

17. The future will be hot, high, and lonely.

18. And one more thing about drugs: The right’s vaccine politics are insane.

19. Young people are screwed because of housing. So … what’s the matter with housing?  CT: One positive is that both parties want to ease permitting bottlenecks.

20. Blocked from homeownership, low-income renters are gambling with their housing money

21. America’s “monks in the casino” are calling for help

22. Negativity bias rules everything around me: I’ve wanted to see a “Good News” TV channel for 40 years.  True, most people wouldn’t watch it, but it would get a following.  The world is way better off than in the past.  The green revolution (Norman Borlaug) was a huge success; diseases have been reduced by sanitation, vaccines, medicines, etc.; healthy food is shipped around the world, hence available all seasons; etc.  There is less poverty and the poverty is less intense.  We have more comforts and products, more affordable and they last longer.  But TV/video raises people’s expectations, causing more dissatisfaction than in the past despite things being so much better.

23. The Past Sucked, Part I: Be glad you don’t live in Italy in the mid-500s

24. The Past Sucked, Part II: The U.S. used to suffer from a very different housing crisis

25. Progress is as much about the institutions we build as it is about the truths we discover

26. Great art can save lives.

The Cost of Health Care in the USA

 The USA spent $4.3 trillion on health care in 2021, up 2.7% and averaging $12,914 per person.  (per cms.gov)

There are many things we could do better but some of the criticism of our healthcare system is misplaced.   The following all contribute to the high cost of health care in the USA.  This is not a comprehensive analysis, but rather just a quick list I put together tonight with a bit of research to try to quantify my numbers.  I encourage your contributions to this question:

1)  We spend a lot of money on health care during our last six months of life.  Other countries don't do that.  An article argued that we grossly overstate the percentage of health care costs that are in the last year of life, but even this study found that it was 13%  and that was in 2011.

2)  Our medical malpractice lawsuits cost between $50 billion and $150 billion annually.  As that source indicates, lots of studies are biased.  There are at least 3 sources of cost: liability and court costs, unnecessary tests and treatments and higher liability insurance premiums for doctors.  Whether related to this reason or not, we do a lot more screening for cancers.   As a result, we find small cancers that might never develop, yet spend money treating them.  I believe personally have encountered unnecessary heart care and endocrine care.  As a criticism of our health care system, my doctor told me not to worry about my severe chronic arthritis until it hurt, at which time he’d give me medication.  I went to a functional doctor who suggested a dietary change that reduced my arthritis.

3) Each hospital strives to have the most current (expensive) equipment.  Other countries don't have such high technology available in so many places.  In addition to the cost of so much technology, it encourages over-use.

4) Many of us want the health care system to address anything that goes wrong.  We should take more personal responsibility and change our practices to have better health,  The OECD averages 9.4 hip replacements per 1000 people over age 65; we average 15.6.

5) We are sedentary people, increasing our health system needs.  We are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions.

6) Our military helps protect the world, but returning vets have significant needs.  Unfortunately, we don't address those effectively, causing a lot of other problems.

7) People from other countries come here for help.  That might raise our costs.  It also suggests that our system may not be so bad.

I’m not denying that we can improve our system.  I’m simply suggesting that we be fair and appreciative of the service we get and ways we contribute (unnecessarily perhaps) to the costs. 

 

How to Deal Monuments to Robert E. Lee and more generally

The Charlottesville murder and injuries are clearly totally unacceptable and should be strongly criticized by all of us.

The Charlottesville violence makes my commentary about renaming or destroying monuments, buildings, etc. more important, albeit probably much more controversial than it otherwise would have been.  It seems odd to seem to be on the side of white supremacists, but my reasons for my belief likely differ from theirs.  Of course, no matter how strongly I might disagree with someone on some issues, there are other issues on which we likely can agree.

One of Yale’s residential colleges was named “Calhoun College” in honor of Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.  While at Yale, I visited Calhoun College frequently because a close friend lived there for three years.  Also, my wife (Tina) spent a week at Yale as part of an experiment in having females residing on campus the year before Yale went co-ed.  She resided in Calhoun College.

There were protests against the name of Calhoun College for several years.  I was not inclined to agree with the demands that the college be renamed.  When Yale signaled that it might rename the college, my first reaction was that Yale was caving in to student protestors instead of fulfilling its obligation to educate them.

Yale created a committee to establish principles to apply when a question of renaming a building arose (Report of the Committee Regarding Principles of Renaming) and another committee to apply those principles to the Calhoun College issue (Recommendation to Rename Calhoun College).

After reviewing those papers (which I recommend that you read at the above links), I concluded that Yale had given careful thought to the issue, created a valuable process/paper and had applied those principles appropriately in renaming Calhoun College to Grace Murray Hopper College, in honor of an eminent mathematician who led efforts to develop the first computer compiler language and later was “the person most responsible for the success of COBOL during the 1960s”, according to her biographer, Kurt Beyer[i].  She taught 10 years at Vassar (where she earned her BS degree in math and physics in 1928), before joining the Navy in WWII.  She eventually became a rear admiral.  Ms. Hopper received a master’s degree (1930) and a Ph.D. (1934) in mathematics from Yale.

With that background, I’d like to address the specific issue of monuments, schools, stamps and other tributes to Robert E. Lee.  Please note that my comments are specific to Robert E. Lee and do not extend to Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson or others in the Confederacy, nor to the Confederacy as a whole or its flag.

As explained more fully below, I believe Robert E. Lee was a true USA hero!  Lee gave very serious thought to his actions and made decisions based on carefully-pondered moral principles rather than his personal advantage.   He was a very reluctant secessionist and was the face of reconciliation after the war. Honoring Robert E. Lee is in our nation’s interest, as we would benefit greatly if more people mimicked his behavior.  My respect for Lee is independent of his decision; it is tied to his integrity in making his decision.  Who are we to question his decision made after deep, excruciating introspection? 

To me, Lee’s principal legacy is the importance of basing decisions on principles of honor, duty and integrity.   We have a dire need for people to make decisions based on such principles today.

Furthermore, honoring Robert E. Lee provides a remembrance that there were good people on both sides of the Civil War (as in other wars).  That thought-provoking benefit should not be expunged lightly.  We need to respect people with whom we disagree and to find areas of agreement.

I am distressed when I hear people describe Lee as a “traitor”.  Loyalty was a core value of his.  If a child’s parents divorce and the child is required to choose which parent with whom to live, is the child necessarily acting in a traitorous fashion to the parent the child does not choose?

Supporting diversity involves appreciating the uniqueness of every individual and trying to understand and respect their thought processes.  Tarnishing Lee solely because he was a part of the Confederacy is a violation of the fundamental principles of fairness and diversity.

In accordance with Yale’s guidelines, it would be easy to create plaques explaining why we honor Lee.  Doing so would have significant educational advantages, as well as dissolving some people's concerns about Lee statues.  Public input as to wording could be solicited and considered by a committee appointed to draft such wording.  The Charlottesville mayor (who is African-American) made an excellent suggestion along these lines.

If desired, a Robert E. Lee statue could be replaced with a statue in which he is not in military uniform. 

One of Yale’s principles is to try to judge the individual through the lenses available at the time of his/her life, rather than applying revisionist history.

During Lee’s life, people rarely traveled far from the place of their birth.  Local and state loyalties were predominant, which is very different from today’s transient habits and loyalties.

Lee was highly-respected in his lifetime, even by Northerners during and following the war.  Despite having no need to do so, Ulysses Grant invited Lee to visit him in the White House during Grant’s presidency.  Do we know better than Lee’s contemporaries?  In some cases, we might because more evidence may have developed over time than was known at that time.  But in Lee’s case, I don’t think damning evidence has been discovered since his death.

If he was a scoundrel, why did West Point name a barracks after him?  Why did the Army build Fort Lee?  Why did the Navy name a ballistic missile submarine in his honor?  Why did the US government mint several stamps in his honor?  Why did Teddy Roosevelt extol him?  If the statues are to be destroyed these other “honors” should also probably be removed and a lot of schools, roads and counties should be renamed.

To me, it seems unfair to accuse Lee of wrong- doing for choosing to defend his state, life-long friends, neighbors and family, rather than to bear arms against them.

Although he felt the North had acted improperly toward the South historically, Lee wrote that he “would defend any state” and “can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union” and that he was “willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation.” 

“The Union vs. Virginia” presented him an impossible choice, leading him to state “I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia.”   

He wrote “If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native state?” 

Remaining in the Union’s army seems as though it would have been the easier and more profitable decision for him, but he opted for honor.  Envision a future world run by the United Nations.  In such a world, any action against another country might be perceived to be wrong, because all issues should be resolved by the UN.  In that world, razing a statue of Winston Churchill (because Churchill declared war on Hitler) would seem similar to razing a statue of Robert E. Lee because people today don’t think he should have favored his state over the Union. 

Lee played the role of a general, not of a politician.  When the South lost, he resisted suggestions that guerilla resistance continue.  He supported reconciliation, rejoiced that slavery was ended and chastised other Southerners who complained about the post-war situation.  

Lee had contributed significantly to the USA  before the Civil War (in the Mexican War and as Superintendent of the US Military Academy) and he contributed to it significantly afterwards (as a well-recognized advocate of reconciliation and as president of Washington and Lee University, where he was revered, apparently by all, including minority students, from 1865 to his death.)

In 1856, 6 years before the war started, Lee wrote to his wife “slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country”.  But he also felt that slavery was better for African-Americans than their lives in Africa. 

While a Confederate general, Lee supported his wife’s and daughter’s illegal school for slaves on their property.  He stated that education was important before freedom and voting rights could be granted and that education of African-Americans was beneficial for both races.  So although he felt slavery was better for African-Americans than their lives in Africa, he supported educating African-Americans to improve their lives (and to help everyone).

Lee’s father-in-law left him slaves, decreeing that they should be freed within 5 years.  Lee tried to rehabilitate his father-in-law’s debt-ridden estate but found it difficult, partly because the slaves had understood that they would be freed immediately, hence resisted his rule.  He had escaped slaves whipped.  But he freed the slaves after 5 years. 

He supported his wife’s and mother-in-law’s efforts to liberate slaves and send them to Liberia.

He suggested inviting slaves into the Confederate Army with a chance at freedom in return for meritorious service.  However, he allowed his army to capture free slaves, then arrange for them to be sold back into slavery.

Despite my strong respect for Lee, clearly there is room for criticism of Lee, through contemporary lenses and particularly through modern lenses.  Lee was a complex man but he seems to have consistently worked hard to live up to his moral code and should be respected and honored for doing so.  (As a young man, he went through West Point with no demerits, which underscores that he was a disciplined man of principle even at a young age.)

Destroying Lee statues is a slippery slope.  When one statue is censored/razed, the barrier to the next statue, book, movie, school name, stamp, etc., is diluted. 

I think it is clear Lee’s decision to side with Virginia did not reflect a desire to protect slavery.  Destroying commemorations of Lee is a slippery slope not only relative to Washington, Jefferson and others who owned slaves but also to many other people we honor.  No one is perfect; we can find reasons to justify destroying any monument --- and people will create such arguments if we encourage them to do so.

Ironically, Lee might support destroying the monuments honoring him or removing the Confederate markings.  In 1869, he refused to participate in a commemoration of the Battle of Gettysburg, writing "I think it wiser ... not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered."  I would cite this as further proof that we should honor Lee as a statesman with tremendous integrity.

I think we have more important issues to discuss as a country than tearing down existing monuments.  These debates detract by taking time, media space and fracturing our population.  Defendants of Lee view statue destruction as an example of one part of the population trying to impose its views on another part of the community. 

If we are going to engage in such discussions, at least we should engage in orderly discussion based on principles similar to those enunciated by Yale.  Such orderly thought is critical to avoid the slippery slope mentioned above.  We should act with integrity and fairness rather than venom.

---

[i] https://news.yale.edu/2017/02/10/grace-murray-hopper-1906-1992-legacy-innovation-and-service

51-year-old attorney returns to work paralyzed

Follow this link to a story of a tremendously bright and successful attorney who has returned to work after being paralyzed by a skiing accident at the age of 50.

http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444233104577595571430731982.html?mod=WSJPRO_hpp_LEFTTopStories#printMode

Role Models

We honor poor role models.  We should honor people who live the values we admire.  Schools and streets should be namned after them and students should learn about them ( perhaps one each day).  Here are stories of such heroes:

http://jewishworldreview.com/1111/salute_to_a_liberator.php3Salute to a Liberator  by Mordechai Schiller

Capt. Chad Fleming's Experiences

Today I had the privilege of meeting Chad Fleming, a true hero! (The following sites don't document his experiences adequately.  See www.underarmour.com/shop/us/en/freedom/gear-packs;   www.lonesurvivorfoundation.org/joe_nichols_video.html; www.army.mil/article/30410/Rangers_race_in_New_York_City_marathon/).  I'm not going to detail his ordeal and the example he sets of maintaining meaningful goals despite huge barriers and never giving up.  Instead, I'll relate one of his experiences that explains why it is important to protect our country and another that demonstrates our risk of losing what we have.

Life in Iraq: Capt. Fleming was involved in a shoot-out that resulted in the deaths of two of Saddam Hussein's sons.  He and some of this comrades later drove around town in a car that had belonged to the sons.  Capt. Fleming observed that the townspeople on the street all scurried inside buildings when the car came into view.  It reminded him of western movies in which people cleared the streets when known gun-slingers came into town.  So he stopped his car and questioned an Iraqi, who explained that people were hiding because they feared that the brothers were still alive.  They did not trust reports of the sons' deaths. 

Why were they scared?  Because the brothers would come into town and if they saw an attractive lady, they would take her away.  If a male in her company objected, they'd take that male also.

They took the ladies back to their palace and when they, after extracting their desired favors, were done with the ladies, they put them in two cages on either side of the swimming pool and watched as tigers mauled the ladies to death.  If the males objected, they were then put in the cages with the tigers.  Capt. Fleming said our troops found skeletons under the cages.   This experience lives with him and inspires his efforts to defend our country and way of life.

We need to improve: I mentioned to Capt. Fleming that it is very upsetting to me that our government, starting with Viet Nam, wants our citizens to live their daily lives oblivious to our wars.  I think we should be keenly aware of the war effort, supporting our soldiers and mourning, on a daily basis, the loss of their lives as well as innocent bystanders who are called "collateral damage" by our government.  We have a right to oppose war, but those who support the war should contribute money and time and should sacrifice in order to support the war effort in whatever way we can.  Trying to hide the war is morally repugnant and I am embarrassed and upset with myself because I spend many days without thinking of the war.  (Note: I did not have the presence of mind to include the wording about our "right to oppose war" while speaking with Capt. Fleming, but I think it is important to acknowledge that right here.)  My comment stimulated Capt. Fleming to describe the following experience.

He and 3 other veteran amputees were invited to participate in the coin toss before one of the Baltimore Ravens' playoff games (in early 2011, I believe).  They were coached about where to stand and what to do.  Just before they were about to go out on the field, an official of the Ravens told them they could just relax and enjoy the game because they did not need to go out on the field.

Capt. Fleming asked why the plans had been changed.  He was told that the administration had called.  President Obama would be speaking to the USA people on TV the next night and the administration did not want so many of our citizens to see these amputees on the play-off telecast.  It was hard for me to hold back my tears when Capt. Fleming told me this story.  And I did cry when I related this story twice today.  We should not put up with such behavior by our politicians.  I also think that we should criticize the Baltimore Ravens for acceding to this request by the administration.