The Atlantic

Some people who want a relationship—badly—are deciding that the effort of searching for love isn’t worth it, Faith Hill writes.⁠ https://lnkd.in/eTuUZhU4 ⁠ Some people simply stop dating. “They still want a relationship—and they wouldn’t refuse if one unfolded naturally—but they’ve cycled between excitement and disappointment too many times to keep trying,” Hill writes. “Quitting dating means more than just deleting the apps, or no longer asking out acquaintances or friendly strangers. It means … [imagining] that they’ll never find the relationship they’ve always wanted. Facing that possibility can be painful. But it can also be helpful, allowing people to mourn the future they once expected—and redefine, on their own terms, what a fulfilling life could look like.”⁠ ⁠ “Drew Clement, a 37-year-old in Ohio who told me that his ‘entire approach to life changed’ when he quit dating,” Hill writes. “He used to attend concerts often, but he was always distracted by the possibility of romance—he’d make eye contact with someone in the crowd, then spend the rest of the show thinking about smiling their way or trying to get their number. But he doesn’t worry about that anymore. For the first time, he’s just watching the stage and listening to the music.”⁠ Read more: https://lnkd.in/eTuUZhU4

People love underdogs—and perhaps that’s why the public, especially the American public, is drawn to stories in which everyday people push back against wildly difficult, often unfair circumstances, Jared Sullivan writes. https://lnkd.in/eRgcKBQS “As a writer, I’m attracted to these accounts because they tend to be full of what William Faulkner once called ‘the old verities and truths of the heart’ that stories need to succeed—that is, ‘love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice,’” Sullivan continues. In Sullivan’s new book, “Valley So Low,” he, too, tells an underdog story, following a small-time Knoxville lawyer who takes on the powerful Tennessee Valley Authority after a disaster at one of its coal-fired power stations sickens hundreds of blue-collar workers. “Over the five years I spent working on it, I looked for inspiration in nonfiction books that took a similar shape,” he writes. “The ones that most resonated were immersive, carefully created works of journalism that followed ordinary Americans facing long odds.” The authors of these books in many cases spent years collecting details to bring their characters to life on the page to a degree typically reserved for fiction—and “even though the protagonists don’t always win or come out ahead, exactly, they at least endure, which is often its own sort of victory,” Sullivan writes. Read more about these true stories that read like thrillers: https://lnkd.in/eRgcKBQS

Elon Musk has long dreamed of redesigning the world in his own extreme image, Franklin Foer writes. Trump may be his Trojan horse: https://lnkd.in/ekEj5jSi

“Each introvert has their own appetite for socializing, and extroverts still need alone time to recharge,” Isabel Fattal writes in The Wonder Reader. Others “fall somewhere in the middle.” Explore what these labels can tell us—and what they can’t explain:

Donald Trump has brought dehumanizing language into American presidential politics, Anne Applebaum writes. https://lnkd.in/eyJQNzg8 When he describes his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin,” Trump is using words that belong to a particular tradition: “Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often,” Applebaum writes. Stalin used the same kind of language, referring to his enemies “as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be ‘subjected to ongoing purification.’” Mao Zedong described his political opponents as “poisonous weeds.” “In each of these very different societies, the purpose of this kind of rhetoric was the same. If you connect your opponents with disease, illness, and poisoned blood, if you dehumanize them as insects or animals … then you can much more easily arrest them, deprive them of rights, exclude them, or even kill them,” Applebaum writes. “If they are parasites, they aren’t human. If they are vermin, they don’t get to enjoy freedom of speech, or freedoms of any kind.” Until recently, this kind of language was not a normal part of American presidential politics. “In the 2024 campaign, that line has been crossed,” Applebaum writes. Trump has said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and that they have “bad genes.” He refers more broadly to his opponents—American citizens, some of whom are elected officials—as “the enemy from within … sick people, radical-left lunatics.” “In using this language, Trump knows exactly what he is doing. He understands which era and what kind of politics this language evokes,” Applebaum continues. “Several generations of American politicians have assumed that American voters, most of whom learned to pledge allegiance to the flag in school, grew up with the rule of law, and have never experienced occupation or invasion, would be resistant to this kind of language and imagery. Trump is gambling—knowingly and cynically—that we are not.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eyJQNzg8 📸: Jon Cherry / Getty

A network of conservation organizations has a new strategy to help migrating birds: pay farmers to create “pop-up” habitats. For High Country News, Natalia Mesa reports on the farmers transforming their fields into much-needed wetlands:

Ever wish you could just talk to your dog? Dog-communication researchers are beginning to use artificial intelligence to try and decode dog barks. But don't get too excited: It is still very early days. “It’s got huge potential—but the gap between the potential and the actuality hasn’t quite emerged yet,” Vanessa Woods, a dog-cognition expert at Duke University, told me. For my fellow dog lovers out there, here are five things I learned while reporting this piece: 1. Feral dogs and wolves don't bark as much as pets, which suggests communicating with us is part of why dogs bark. (!) 2. Researchers don't even know what's there, as far as linguistic system. They might not even necessarily use words and sentences and paragraphs, one professor working in this area told me. 3. AI can possibly help, because large models are excellent at pattern recognition—so maybe they can find patterns that help explain what specific barks are saying in what context. 4. But one big impediment to using AI to do this kind of work is a lack of solid, giant bark datasets (lol). 5. Another big challenge is that no pup will ever be able to confirm its findings are true, because ... you know. 6. Overall, we should remember that dogs are already really good at communicating with us! I certainly know when my dog would like more food. :) This was a fun one. ---- #dogs #AI

Elon Musk has long dreamed of redesigning the world in his own extreme image, Franklin Foer writes. Trump may be his Trojan horse:

The killing of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar “offers a golden opportunity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory and begin pulling troops out of Gaza,” writes Hussein Ibish. But nothing will change because neither party wants it to:

AI hype has come to dog research.