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BOOKS

An EdTech Tragedy:A groundbreaking UNESCO book on the damage wrought by ed-tech during COVID school closures around the globe Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch

https://www.afterbabel.com/p/edtech-tragedy?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

In The Anxious Generation, we focused on the emergence of the adolescent mental health crisis that began in the early 2010s. However, since the book’s publication one year ago, we have learned even more about worrisome trends in education that closely mirror those in mental health: after decades of stability or gradual improvement, test scores in the U.S. and around the world began declining notably in the 2010s.

While widespread attention to declining test scores intensified during and after the COVID-19 pandemic—with many experts attributing the downturn primarily to COVID restrictions and the rapid movement to full remote learning—the declines actually began much earlier. Evidence from The National Assessment of Student Progress (NAEP) clearly illustrates this earlier decline. As shown in Figure 1, after decades of slow and steady gains, American students started to give back those gains after 2012, particularly among students who were already performing at lower levels.

But as with the mental health crisis, it wasn’t just an American thing. In December 2023, Derek Thompson wrote an essay in The Atlantic titled, It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber.

Here’s a figure from that essay (re-graphed by us), showing that the decline is happening across the dozens of countries that participate in PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). As with the mental health declines, these decline started after 2012, not 2020.

What could cause such an international decline in learning? One plausible explanation is the arrival of the phone-based childhood, which, as we showed, arrived between 2010 and 2015. However, there is a related hypothesis that is more proximal to the educational decline: the sudden appearance of a laptop or tablet on every student’s desk. To be clear, the intentions here were good. In 2010, for example, the U.S. Department of Education recommended that schools provide every student with “at least one Internet access device…Only with 24/7 access to the Internet via devices and technology-based software and resources can we achieve the kind of engagement, student-centered learning, and assessments that can improve learning in the ways this plan proposes.” But the outcome seems to be bad for most students—especially students who were already struggling.

Let’s Fix Education: Episode 193, “Big Picture Thinking” Celebrating the work of Linda Goudsmit by Bruce Deitrick Price

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/28433/let-fix-education-episode-193-big-picture-thinking

Pundicity page: goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com

BIG PICTURE THINKING

I want to celebrate the work of Linda Goudsmit. She is that rare miracle today, a big thinker. Her topic is understanding life in the 21st-century, the forces that are dragging it down, and how we can make it better.

The academic world forces scholars into small niches. They must all be specialists of something in particular. So, you won’t find big thinking there. I think we need more big thinking. Linda Goudsmit shows, in clear candid prose, what that looks like.

Knowledge-phobia, that’s the disease so prevalent in our world today. Apparently, the public schools will have to call 911 if any students start to learn anything. Oh, the horror. I think we need more knowledge. From K onward.

Some of the world is just lazy. Another big part of the world is constantly propagandizing. No matter what they pretend to care about, they are always pushing the same message. I think we need less propaganda, more love of Truth.

A few years back, I sent an email to Linda Goudsmit asking her what is the most important theme in her work. She said freedom. I had already decided that was the single word I would pick for that question. We had never discussed philosophy but somehow knew that if you don’t have freedom, you don’t really have much else.

Myself, I am a rampant generalist. Pretty much all my life I’ve been a novelist, painter, poet, art director, and now a passionate voice for education reform. But compared to Linda Goudsmit, I am stuck in a rut. So I readily appreciate her range and the tremendous amount of work that goes into studying all the facets she studies.

Now Linda Goudsmit deserves some sort of Oscar. Her most recent book is titled Space Is No Longer The Final Frontier — Reality Is. There are more than 370 pages, in 45 chapters. You will find a tremendous range with chapter titles such as:

Nora Kenney Faith in the Age of AI Ross Douthat’s book offers modern readers reason to believe.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/believe-why-everyone-should-be-religious-ross-douthat-review

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, by Ross Douthat (Zondervan, 240 pp., $26.99)

Religious belief can feel like the last refuge from pervasive technology. When New York Times columnist Ross Douthat called our society “decadent” in 2020, the threat of such technologies seemed comparatively distant. Innovation appeared stagnant, and our most pressing crises were updated versions of age-old conflicts—battles over “identity,” a scolding progressive moralism, and a plague.

Just five years later, the landscape has shifted. Drone warfare, cyborg defense experiments, and ChatGPT are among the signs of rapid technological acceleration. These developments make religious faith feel more urgent—not as a reactionary impulse, but as a steadying force. “Can religion save us from artificial intelligence?” asked a 2023 Los Angeles Times piece. Perhaps—but that religion would need to be something solid and enduring, not “moralistic therapeutic deism,” tribal wokeism on the left, or neo-paganism on the right.

Enter Douthat’s Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. His new book doesn’t frame itself as a response to technological advances, but in the wake of his The Decadent Society and developments since, it’s easy to read it that way.

Ned Ryun’s “Must See” Documentary: American Leviathan—The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism Ned Ryun’s American Leviathan warns that the unelected Administrative State threatens America’s constitutional republic, urging populist unity to dismantle its power. By Thaddeus G. McCotter

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/22/ned-ryuns-must-see-documentary-american-leviathan-the-birth-of-the-administrative-state-and-progressive-authoritarianism/

ore than merely a companion piece to his bestselling book of the same name, Ned Ryun’s documentary film, American Leviathan: The Birth of the Administrative State and Progressive Authoritarianism, further explores and explains the perils the proponents and practitioners of the unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucracy pose for our constitutional republic.

A project of American Majority and Iron Light, which was directed by Jason Rink and edited by Keith Wahrer, American Leviathan commences with Mr. Ryun as our narrator, and we are subsequently led through the labyrinthine Leviathan with the able assistance of both intellectual and political defenders of our freedom, who describe the origins and aims of the Administrative State (as well as its subgroup of intelligence and police power-wielding entities known colloquially as the “Deep State.”)

These devotees of “first principles” and “permanent things” include elected officials, such as U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.); and U.S. Representative Chip Roy (R-Tex.). Further, the documentary also interviews intellectual luminaries from academia, MAGA-aligned “think tanks,” and practical policy shops: Mark Corallo, Steve Cortes, Rachel Bovard, Wade Miller, Mike Davis, Bradley Watson, Elle Prunell, and Jeff Clark.

The impetus for Mr. Ryun’s documentary is succinctly put by Mr. Bradley Watson: “‘Our Democracy’ has become synonymous with an embrace of the Administrative State. Anything the Administrative State is doing, anything the Deep State is doing is identified by the left with ‘Our Democracy.’ And, in fact, it is the enemy of our constitutional republic.”

He is correct.

Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny

The powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.

Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come.

In vivid, thrilling detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime.

Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.

“This book is a testament not only to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship—a fight he gave everything for, including his life. Through its pages, readers will come to know the man I loved deeply—a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage. Sharing his story will not only honor his memory but also inspire others to stand up for what is right and to never lose sight of the values that truly matter.”—Yulia Navalnaya

How the Fate of the West is Tied to the Fate of the Jewish Nation By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/how_the_fate_of_the_west_is_tied_to_the_fate_of_the_jewish_nation.html

Why is Israel alone forced to justify its existence and questioned when it stands up to those who would annihilate it?  Why was a worldwide campaign of hatred that reeked of anti-Semitism unleashed on Israel when it responded to the October 7, 2023, attack, while there was no criticism of Hamas?  Why has the U.N. censured the Jewish state more times than any other nation, even China, North Korea, and Cuba combined?

The answer runs deeper than geopolitics, says conservative commentator and legal scholar Josh Hammer in his debut book Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.  Western civilization is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and its enemies know well that to deny the existence of God and destroy individual rights, private property, and freedom, they must first destroy the Jews.  Ergo, he argues, the preservation of the West is contingent on the welfare of the Jewish people and the Jewish state of Israel.

It was the People of the Book who first introduced the world to monotheism, and along with it, to ethical and legal codes that became the basis for the establishment and preservation of all civilizations.  The West drew upon the Judaic idea of humankind as the pinnacle of God’s creation to give primacy to individuals, their freedom, and their rights.  Many of America’s Founding Fathers admired Jewish history, culture, and its legal and moral teachings.

God made a promise to the Jews to protect them as long as they kept his covenant and followed his commandments.  The Hebrew Bible speaks of the Divine Revelation of the Decalogue to Moses at Mount Sinai, the 613 mitzvot of the Torah, and the seven Noahide laws.  The seventh Noahide law, as mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud — to establish courts of justice — is perhaps the first expression of the need for neutral forums and judges to deliver justice.  It is by obeying these laws — divine and temporal – that Jews, often at great cost, have survived millennia of persecution.

Peter Beinart’s Dilemma How does a Jewish writer who hates Israel address October 7? by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/peter-beinarts-dilemma/

Now 54, the American Jewish writer Peter Beinart, author of the new book Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza, is one of the most prominent of those lamentably multitudinous commentators in whose view Israel can hardly do anything right and the Palestinians can hardly do anything wrong. Asked about Palestinian violence, he’s been quick to blame it on Israel. While wringing his hands incessantly over Muslim suffering, he’s displayed a chilling indifference to the plight of Jews in Iran. He’s even routinely refused to identify Islamic terrorist atrocities in Europe and elsewhere as acts of jihad, or to concede that there’s anything at all about Islam and its teachings that should cause concern to Westerners who live alongside the religion’s adherents.

Long a champion of the two-state solution, in 2020 Beinart wrote a New York Times op-ed announcing a change of heart. Whereas “the dream of a two-state solution that would give Palestinians a country of their own” had once let him hope that he “could remain a liberal and a supporter of Jewish statehood at the same time,” that hope had been “extinguished” by Israel’s de facto annexation of the West Bank and the denial of “basic rights” to its inhabitants. Hence the time had come “to abandon the traditional two-state solution” and “imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state” – which could mean “one state that includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem” or “a confederation that allows free movement between two deeply integrated countries.” Yes, admitted Beinart, some Palestinians had committed terrorist acts against Israeli Jews, but after all “members of many oppressed groups” had done the same. (For Beinart, Muslim terror is always a desperate reaction to Western oppression, never part of a coldblooded, Koran-inspired effort to expand the umma.) Dismissing Jewish concerns “that anything short of Jewish statehood would mean Jewish suicide,” Beinart quoted an Orthodox rabbi who’d “spent more than a decade forging relationships with leaders of Hamas” as saying: “I have yet to meet with somebody who is not willing to make peace.” Well, that op-ed certainly didn’t age well.

Dr. Marty Makary’s ‘Blind Spots’ Book Is At Odds With Established Findings By Benjamin Rushe

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/03/dr_marty_makary_s_blind_spots_book_is_at_odds_with_established_findings.html

Marty Makary is well-known for writing informal autobiographical books critiquing medical practice in America. Given that he is poised to lead the FDA, it should concern people that his book, Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health, has some serious biased presentation of data inaccuracies. How can Dr. Makary claim he is qualified to run the FDA when he presents controversial data in such a biased style?

Blood pressure

In Blind Spots, Makary rhetorically asks: “Can we lower high blood pressure by improving sleep quality and reducing stress instead of throwing antihypertensive medications at people?”

While that sounds like a good idea to someone who doesn’t know any better, it leaves something out. According to the NIH, essential hypertension makes up 95% of hypertension cases and has no modifiable cause (i.e., it’s not sleep or stress-related, it’s genetic). In other words, it exists in people who already get plenty of sleep and are at a good weight, et cetera. That is fundamental knowledge known by medical students and non-degreed ancillary healthcare workers. To the extent Makary implies otherwise, he’s just wrong.

Blind Spots promotes using silicone and other breast implants for cosmetic surgery. Makary states in his book chapter titled “Silicone Valley” that “…evidence was never presented that silicone breast implants caused any woman to suffer lupus, cancer, or another condition” (emphasis added). That is a statement so outrageously wrong that suggests that he never actually reviewed the data, and/or raises the possibility that Makary’s book or chapter was ghostwritten by a nonscientist.

Here are the actual facts: The largest ever study performed (nearly 100,000 patients) at the University of Texas showed that silicone breast implants are associated with a higher risk of certain autoimmune disorders, as well as stillbirth, scleroderma and melanoma.

The Moral Inversion of Antisemitism A review of Robert Spencer’s new masterpiece, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-moral-inversion-of-antisemitism/

After Oct 7, Robert Spencer, the eminent scholar of religions and expert on Islamic terrorism, witnessed the irrational return of antisemitism, not just on the left, but also on the right.

“Fervent and articulate opponents of globalism and socialism began sending me articles in which globalists and socialists rehearsed all the alleged evils and misdeeds of Israel,” he writes.

“Vociferous critics of the United Nations began citing its figures on civilian deaths in Gaza.”

In response, Spencer began working on what would become his latest book, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’. Spencer, already the author of numerous critically acclaimed books touching on the intersections of religion and history including ‘Empire of God’, about the Byzantine Empire, ‘The Palestinian Delusion’ and his recent, ‘Muhammad: A Critical Biography’, once again goes back in time and perhaps further so than his past books have ever traveled before.

In  ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’, Spencer traces the origins of antisemitism to an initial pagan reaction against the translation of the Bible until “in the ancient world, revisionist versions of the accounts in the Jewish scriptures became a cottage industry.” Antisemitism became a way to rebut scripture and with it the moral foundations of a divine religion. The more contemptible the Jews were, the less reason there was to respect anything that Moses and later prophets had to say. This echoes the moral inversion that Spencer now sees all around him on social media in which the Jews attacked on Oct 7 become the perpetrators and Hamas becomes the victim.

In trying to understand this present day moral inversion, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’ travels through the ancient pagan world, from Egypt to Greece and Rome, through to the rise of Christianity in which Spencer, a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church, grapples with the troubled history of antisemitism in Christianity, and then on to the Muslim world.

“Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Our Security” by Chuck Brooks

In a nutshell, Artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, 5G, IoT and others will require new approaches and understanding for cybersecurity as they offer uses for cyber-defenders but also cyber-offenders.

For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be able to help make decisions more effectively by prioritizing and acting upon data. Speech recognition, learning planning, and problem-solving are some of the fundamental tasks for which computers with AI are built. While AI and ML are valuable instruments for businesses, hostile governments, and malicious hackers are already using AI and MI as tools to find and exploit an organization’s cyber defenses.

Quantum Computing  operates by utilizing the unique characteristics of atoms and subatomic particles. It will allow for completely new forms of cryptography, analytics, and calculation at incredibly fast speeds. Unfortunately, the same computational capacity that makes it possible to tackle complicated problems can also be used to compromise cybersecurity. This is because current cybersecurity protocols usually encrypt sensitive data, like passwords and personal information, using pseudo-random numbers. However, quantum computers can break the techniques used by traditional computers to generate random numbers, which poses a serious risk to any organization that uses standard encryption tools.

5G will enable faster networks with greater capabilities and reduced latency or lag times will be possible for businesses thanks to 5G. For the business community, 5G will have enormous advantages. Higher traffic capacity and enhanced dependability are only two of the many advantages that advanced 5G and wireless networks will offer. The ability to access broadband will empower millions of people. Unfortunately, hackers will be able to use the speed and connectivity to their advantage too, enabling the rapid proliferation and targeting of malware.

The Internet of Things (IoT) includes all hardware and software that can be read, recognized, located, addressed, and/or controlled over the internet. The growth of the Internet of Things has totally changed how cyberattacks work and how big the attack surface is getting. Because IoT devices don’t have security built in, hackers have many ways to get past cyber defenses and steal data.