ICYMI

• The Democratic National Convention featured celebrities like Steve Kerr, Oprah Winfrey, the Obamas, along with a who’s who of prominent Democrats. Did it move the electoral needle? Some say yes. Others not so much.

A Recommended Resource

• We commend Jon Dickson’s Undeceptions podcast for those who like some rich history, spoken in a tantalizing Austrailian accent.

Articles

• A comprehensive article outlining Harris and Trump’s platform on the issues.

• Lakelight Speaker John Inazu explored the connection between institutional health and cancel culture in his latest blog post.

• On the benefits of “Job-Crafting” for long-term career satisfaction.

• The key to innovation: love the problem, not your solution.

• Anthony Bradley outlines some important factors behind the decline of Church attendance.

Paywalled

• Recommended Pre-Reading for Our Good Work Summit:

  • Human Uniqueness in the Age of AI

  • The Pitfalls of AI Worship

• Elon Musk’s evolving religious views. (WSJ)

• David Brooks’ argues that emotions are guiding lights, not impediments, to sound decision-making. (NYT)

• Douthat on the contrasting visions of masculinity being offered by Right and Left. (NYT)

• We at Lakelight have been reading philosopher Byung Chul Han recently. Here’s a profile of the “Internet’s New Favorite Philosopher” published in The New Yorker.

• Stephen West was a high school drop out working a warehouse job, and then he launched a philosophy podcast on Spotify that currently amasses 2 million monthly listeners. (The Atlantic)

Data

• The Demographics of Harvard

  • Politics: An infamous 2023 survey of the Harvard Faculty by The Harvard Crimson found that 77% identified as “liberal” or “very liberal,” followed by 20% as “moderate,” and fewer than 3% as “conservative” or “very conservative.”

  • Religion: Harvard’s first year students’ most popular religion is Agnosticism, with Atheism coming in second place. In total, nearly half of Harvard’s first-years chose one of those two options when asked their religion. For comparison’s sake, about 12% of the general population identifies as atheist/agnostic. (source)

  • Sexual Identity: 38% of Brown students, 35% of Princeton students, 29% of Yale and Harvard students, and 21% of Cornell students identify as LGBT+ (source)

One Last Thing

• I Have Been Saying It For Years: When Other People Interrupt It’s Rude But When I Do It, It’s a Sign of Enthusiasm