Brothers Judd Blog

If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians. -Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943)

June 2026

Health

LUDDISM NEVER HELPS:

What If AI Chatbots Are Saving Lives?: The case for banning teens from AI chatbots rests more on fear than evidence. (Adam Omary and Jennifer Huddleston, Jun 10, 2026, Human Progress)


In a survey of over 1,000 adolescents and young adults, 13 percent had used a chatbot for mental health support, and more than 90 percent of those found it helpful. In another study of over 1,000 users of Replika, a popular AI chatbot, 30 reported without solicitation that their artificial companion saved them from suicide.

We do not know how many lives generative AI has saved by improving access to mental health care. But for every incidence of AI psychosis or suicide, there may be dozens of unobserved positive outcomes. Policy that presumes only the worst outcomes also prevents the best.

Energy

ECONOMICS TRUMPS IDEOLOGY:

Solar power hits new milestones in the US even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy (JENNIFER McDERMOTT, June 10, 2026, AP)

Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.

“For years solar power has risen in the U.S. electricity mix,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and data analyst at Ember. “At the same time, coal power has lost its status, first as the largest source in the U.S. mix, and then gradually over the years has fallen even further.”

Founding

WE ARE ALL GORSUCHIAN:

PODCAST: Neil Gorsuch on the Declaration of Independence, Originalism, and Separation of Powers: “There was nothing inevitable about it. Absolutely nothing,” the Supreme Court justice tells Reason’s Nick Gillespie. (Nick Gillespie, July 2026, reason)

Reason: What is the main lesson America should be thinking about as we approach our 250th birthday?

Gorsuch: We’re going to have a lot of fireworks, and there are going to be some good barbecues and parades, but I hope we take a moment, too, to reflect on the gift we’ve been given and the challenge we face. What I mean by that is, the Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it: that all of us are equal; that each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government; and that we have the right to rule ourselves.

Our nation is not founded on a religion. It’s not based on a common culture even, or heritage. It’s based on those ideas. We’re a creedal nation. I hope we take a moment to reflect on that and to recommit ourselves to that.

One more thing: the courage it takes to defend those ideas. They were not inevitable. The stories of the men, women, and children in the book, I hope, will inspire children to realize the courage it takes to carry those ideas forward in their own time.

Russia

UNFAIR TO VILLAGES:

Putin’s ‘Cringe’ Weekend of Humiliation: His effort to put on a show of strength didn’t fool anyone. (Cathy Young, Jun 09, 2026, The Bulwark)

RUSSIAN PUNDITS AND JOURNALISTS ABROAD HAD CHOICE WORDS to describe the just-concluded St. Petersburg International Economic Forum: “A freak show.” “A fake.” “A Potemkin village.” For that matter, even the quasi-dissident Russian businessman Dmitry Potapenko, who still lives in Russia and was in attendance at the event, remarked in a YouTube interview that there was “more cringe” (yes, “krindzh” is now a Russian word) than usual—perhaps the perfect way to describe this year’s installment a once-prestigious event dating back to 1997.

For striking examples of krindzh, look no further than the American guest list, where the big names were conspiracy-theory blogger Candace Owens (who is known for many things, but the one Russian commentators found especially juicy was her crusade to prove that French First Lady Brigitte Macron is a man) and “influencer” Andrew Tate, who is also known for many things, especially multiple charges of human trafficking and sexual assault, including against minors. Even many Kremlin loyalists were annoyed by Tate’s presence—among them Ekaterina Mizulina, a prominent crusader for “traditional values” and for a “safe Internet” (i.e., censorship), who grumbled that Russia has enough of its own “dubious bloggers” and doesn’t need to import them. For some reason, no one pointed out that the forum’s American lineup included a convicted child molester, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who spoke on a panel and shared his wisdom that “today Europe is a rabid dog.”

Sport

PEARL JAM SESSION:

He Gave It All to Help the Knicks Win in 1973. He’s Still in Pain Today.: Earl “the Pearl” Monroe was part of the last championship team. Now 81, he has thoughts on what really matters. (David Waldstein. June 9, 2026, NY Times)

More than half a century later, after dozens of surgeries and unrelenting pain from a punishing career on hardwood floors and concrete playgrounds, those words still echo, even though it is not so easy and carefree to be Earl Monroe these days. Not that he would complain. An acknowledgment of his constant pain, from his feet to his head, had to be coaxed out of him during a chat at one of his favorite restaurants not far from his home in Harlem.


Now 81, Monroe is paying the price for his Hall of Fame career and all the joy he brought to Knicks fans in the 1970s. He was not known as Earl the Pearl just because it rhymed. His is one of the most apt nicknames in sports: He was elegant, sophisticated, cherished; and it still applies.

Outwardly, it appears as though he has been retired for 6 years, not 46. He bears the unmistakable aura and presence of an elite athlete, even though he uses a walker, which he hates and vows to chuck aside one day.

But he has endured more than 40 operations, he said, including a knee replacement, two new hips and spinal fusion. He can barely turn his head because of the pain in his neck.

“Every time I make a little progress, I’m back in the hospital,” he said. “Mentally it’s hard, because I know I can’t do things anymore. It’s disheartening. But then you think about people facing harder things. I say something for them in my prayers at night.”

Monroe dislikes discussing it all, but he understands that fans and admirers still care about him and want to know how he is faring, and hope he can infuse the current team with some of that elusive championship mojo.

But more important, in his view, is that by sitting for an interview, he would get to shine a light on one of his enduring missions, the charter school in the Bronx that bears his name.

Soccer

NATIONALITY IS A CHOICE:

How migration became a key to World Cup success (Ben Brindle, June 5, 2026, The Conversation)

The 2026 World Cup will feature more foreign-born players than any previous edition. Nearly a quarter of the 1,248 players selected for national teams were born in a different country from the one they will represent.

In some squads, the proportions are far higher than this – 96% of Curaçao’s players were born abroad, as were 85% of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s and 73% of Morocco’s. Overall, foreign-born players make up the majority of footballers in eight of the tournament’s 48 squads.

One Economy to Rule Them All

…ALL BOATS:

What Liberals Get Wrong About the Middle Class (Stephen J. Rose and Scott Winship, 6/08/26, NY Times)

In a recent report, we measured class using constant, inflation-adjusted thresholds. The “core” middle class shrank, but so did the classes below the middle — the poor, the near-poor and the lower middle class.

In 1979, 36 percent of families were in the middle class. At first, it looks ominous that by 2024, a smaller number — 31 percent — could claim that status. But it’s only worrisome if you overlook that over the same period, the upper middle class grew to 31 percent of families from 10 percent. Meanwhile, the number of Americans falling short of the middle class — once more than half — dropped to 35 percent of all families.

The traditional middle class shrank because so many families became better off over time, not because more people fell short. At the same time, inequality rose, too. The higher up the income ladder a family reached, the more disproportionate the improvement. Rather than the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, rich and poor alike grew richer — albeit at much different rates.

Homocentric Universe

WHY EMPATHY IS SELF-DELUSION:

The moderately easy problem of consciousness (Noah Smith, Apr 27, 2026, Noahpinion)

You know you’re self-aware, but that’s about it — you aren’t telepathic, so you have no way of seeing into anyone else’s mind and knowing what it’s like to be them. Actually, it gets worse — you don’t even know if you were really self-aware five minutes ago. For all you know, you could have been created by a powerful computer and given a complete set of false memories.1 The past version of you is just as alien to your currently self-aware self as any of the people around you.

This is known in philosophy as the “problem of other minds”. It’s closely related to the “hard problem of consciousness” — the question of how physical processes give rise to subjective experience. The problem of other minds means that the hard problem of consciousness will never fully be solved. Since you’ll never know whether other people are really conscious, you’ll never be able to get hard scientific evidence about why they’re conscious. You can never explain something if you don’t know if it’s true or not.

Similarly, you’ll never know what it’s really like to be someone else — whether the color red looks to you like it looks to them, whether they feel pain the same way you do, and so on. In fact, you’ll never even know what it was like to be you in the past. Subjective experience is incommensurable.

Sympathy is ample.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

You Missed

One Economy to Rule Them All

DELTA BLUES:

Republican Liberty

SHE’D HAVE BEEN A CONSERVATIVE ON THE WARREN/BURGER COURT:

Long War

THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:

Environment

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET:

Copyright © All rights reserved | Blogus by Themeansar.