A massive system has been built to replicate how humans react to products, apps, and websites, without needing humans at all.

Researchers at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology say their network has the ability to simulate the world with “persona agents.”

‘The agents successfully expressed … their assigned traits 91.5% of the time.’

Based off a core set of just under 600,000 “human-grounded” personas, coupled with 400,000 synthetic records, the group at MatrAIx says they have found a way to simulate real reactions to questions, products, and more.

The approximately one million personas were used as the basis to create an AI bot population of 8.3 billion, which MatrAIx says can be run like a simulation and act as one giant focus group.

This allows companies to use the simulated personalities to garner reactions to price changes, for example. MatrAIx tested this theory by running its simulation to see whether or not one million people would still buy a 12-pack of Coca-Cola after a $2 increase. The simulation determined 61% of the population still would.

In addition to evaluating hesitation after a price increase, the bots simulated willingness to continue after an AI assistant fails its task as well as latency tolerance for websites, meaning how long a person will use a slow website before abandoning it.

Other examples provided included evaluating a mental health chatbot or shopping on Amazon for an espresso machine under $200 to see which product the AI bots choose and why.

The approach extends to social media apps. Instagram was used as an example where a bot can search for recipes and then watch and save preferred videos. It was explained that the program could have millions of bots doing this at the same time.

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There’s just one problem. The agents in the massive simulation cannot be wholly trusted to act the way humans would. As with any AI agent, there is a possibility that an agent in the world sim could fail to perform as instructed or desired.

In Harvard’s controlled study of 400 trials, measuring the bots’ adherence to 10 behavioral attributes, the results were good but not perfect. “The agents successfully expressed or correctly suppressed their assigned traits 91.5% of the time,” the researchers wrote.

MatrAIx, headed by Xiaomin Li (Harvard) and Yuexing Hao (MIT), conducted over 16,000 evaluation trials across eight different types of tasks. They used three large-language models for their studies: Claude Opus 4.8, Chat GPT 5.5, and Claude Haiku 4.5.

Human evaluations of the persona quality, however, were actually lower, listed as an average of 4.135 out of 5, which equates to about 83%.

This roughly 8.5% rate of agents simply failing to adhere to a persona could have large implications for customers who use the bots on a large scale. In the example provided for Coca-Cola consumption, that carries the possibility of 85,000 bots not answering accurately.

But the deeper problem the study confirmed is that Earth’s billions of human beings can’t be accurately simulated by AI agents programmed to be well-behaved. It’s impossible to model and predict human behavior if the agents standing in for the humans aren’t allowed to behave in all the devious, dangerous, and flawed ways individuals and groups do.

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Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images

That raises the dark prospect that entities or governments seeking ultimate predictive power will have to build large-scale simulators where agents representing real people are allowed to have antisocial, criminal, sinful, or even evil traits and behaviors.

The alternative, deeper human research, is nowhere near as cheap and swift as AI modeling. Most research groups seem to say that human focus groups are not effective at garnering mass public appeal anyway, while at the same time surveys can be a bit more time-consuming. The trade-off is that they are still human.

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​Harvard, Mit, Chatbot, Artificial intelligence, Survey, Tech 

Electromagnetism, sonar, radar, Wi-Fi 1-5G, ultrasound, phone radiation, microwave radiation. What’s it all doing to me — or my kids?

You’ll have occasion to wonder: Is the technological environment messing with me? Terraforming my natural conditions of existence?

Every report is received with the same blinders.

Is it also making other people dumb, depressed, mean?

No one you see (most days) is actively sprouting new appendages where appendages should not be. Nothing so obvious. And while even the most somnambulant among us harbor suspicions that some sort of effects must accompany such rapid and overwhelming change as has been brought about over the last, say, 40 years, we aren’t on the whole prepared to give up Amazon next-day, streaming movies on-demand, or the hope of luxury on cosmic scales: space travel, life extension, weeks or months spent in video-sensorial orgasmo-ecstasy.

Still, if something goes up, it eventually goes down … right?

Queries into effects are usually enough to placate. “Studies show …” and “effects on rats don’t equate to effects on humans” and similar palliative or obscurant phraseology is most often “reason” enough to let us rest, trust it will be OK, and — let’s face it — get back to our jobs, which allow our existence in the system at all.

Here’s the problem with this palliative and avoidant (if sometimes necessary) circuit that puts wonder to rest. Researchers aren’t studying, at all, the effects of the invisible forces and entities swarming through us all day, every day. Not the combined effects, nor the cumulative effects, nor the interactive effects.

That’s a lot of whistling past the graveyard.

And we’re building out that graveyard at a breakneck pace.

It’s all connected

There have been some studies, of course. Ten years ago, University of Bristol researchers concluded that “anthropogenic (man-made) noise is a global pollutant, and there is rapidly accumulating evidence of impacts on a range of animal taxa.”

The most outstanding aspect of this study is how it shows that a slight alteration in one physical sense impacts another, separate sense. “Using field-based experimental trials on habituated wild dwarf mongooses,” the team reported, “we combine sound playbacks and faecal presentations to demonstrate that anthropogenic noise can disrupt responses to information from different sensory modalities.”

Auditory stimulus didn’t just affect hearing, but smell. “Our results,” the researchers concluded, “are the first to show that anthropogenic noise could alter responses to olfactory cues, strongly indicating the possibility of cross-modal impacts of noise pollution on information use.”

Ten years, later, where’s the mountain of follow-up studies doing what “the science” is supposed to do — systematically explore and clarify areas of life where there seem to be nettlesome problems, the solution to which might just make life better, more livable, for everyone?

No. The unpredictable ways that combined human alterations alter the environment are not studied. There’s no incentive. And there are many incentives to shut up, shy away, deflect, and deny. Every result is reported with blinders on. Every report is received with the same blinders.

Safety, efficacy, and effects on biological environment are willfully lost in the shuffle. If a corporation footing the bill for innovative tech X is incentivized by threat Y, whether coming from government pressure, insurance costs, or future damage, then an otherwise relevant study is constructed to leap those threat hurdles and quickly shuffle back offstage.

RELATED: Elon Musk’s new megaproject is about to transform Texas

Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto/Getty Images

What’s more, the various research fields are tightly siloed, so it gets ever harder for troublesome inquirers to connect the dots from evidentiary data scattered across disciplines.

Tracking the clues

And yet, there’s still a train of breadcrumbs for those skilled and patient enough to do some tracking.

Consider, for instance, that GDP correlates to overall ocean acoustic noise. It’s up 10-fold from baseline. The more stuff we pump out, the louder the oceans get. There’s no inherent upper bound.

Similarly, the air around us is filling up with artificial energy. Planetary ambient radio frequency power flux density — that’s how much RF energy is present in the environment — in the frequency range around 1 GHz has increased by a factor of roughly 10^18 compared to what existed naturally before humans built transmitters. That figure, for the less math-inclined, is one quintillion. If that figure is 90% exaggerated, that’s still one hundred quadrillion times more EMF-saturated than we were in a natural, pre-hypertech world.

Then, there’s artificial light. Eighty percent of the world’s population, and over 99% of U.S. and European populations, now live under light-polluted skies. The Milky Way is hidden from more than a third of humanity. Reliable estimates show light pollution increased about 8% per year between 2011 and 2022.

The point of these bread crumbs is simple: The research, such as it exists at all, always gets pigeonholed away, so the overall, combined impact of the manmade alterations to our living space can never been seen in its totality for what it really is. People ruefully joke that the government’s debt is so big that we can’t even conceive of its actual size. This is bigger. What we’ve amassed in terms of sound waves and frequencies is so enormous that it simply defies lexical categorization or comparison.

I’m sure it’s fine. We’ve positioned our best, brightest, and most moral as leaders.

Lies of omission

We seem to have overlooked what the ancients knew of themselves — that we live under limits emplaced by an omniscient and omnipotent higher power. The pathetic part, as so much of our given humanity is traded away for nothing of lasting value? If we were to actually stop and check in on success rates around life extension and ostensible cures, we’d see that our return on investment has so far been minimal. We’d realize we everyday people have spent our whole lives bombarded by the noise of sensational claims, devious scams, and schemes designed to deconstruct our common sense until we finally cave in.

Scientific “salvation” is always, of course, just around the corner — if not today, then surely tomorrow. Meanwhile, as the poor dwarf mongoose shows, we turn a blind eye to the truth. Stubbornly, we refuse even to look at, much less reckon with, the costs and consequences of the complexity we’ve introduced. Honesty with ourselves, in this economy? We’re just following incentives, fatalistically accepting whatever our circumstances might be. When the worth of a human lifespan is measured in fast-depreciating dollars, what do you expect?

​Tech, Pollution, Environment 

Anthony Fauci and other health officials who told Americans the COVID-19 vaccines were “safe and effective” had suspicions to the contrary, a new document drop from Republican Sens. Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) appears to show.

A newly released email from May 2021 seemingly reveals that the head of the Food and Drug Administration was so concerned about the novel mRNA vaccines that she advised Fauci and then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins to create a contingency fund to deal with the fallout from them.

‘We cannot ignore her.’

During the pandemic, Fauci was the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases director and the face of America’s mass vaccination campaign. He routinely emphasized the safety and efficacy of the vaccines and made a point of expressing his “extreme confidence” in the science behind them.

“I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we can have a veil of protection over this country that would end this pandemic,” he said during his televised vaccination ceremony in December 2020.

Behind closed doors, however, he had his doubts.

The immunologist privately highlighted, for instance, a potential association between vaccination and miscarriage in a Jan. 25, 2021, text exchange with the surgeon general and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

RELATED: Trump spares kids from being Big Pharma’s pin cushions — and the ‘experts’ are FURIOUS

JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP/Getty Images

“I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of,” Fauci told Vivek Murthy and then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. “Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”

Fauci — who was made aware later that day that initial pregnancy studies avoided “vaccination in first trimester due to possible fever and higher rates of miscarriage in first trimester” — stated publicly just days later that the data pertaining to vaccination among pregnant women “so far has no red flags.”

Private concerns were not limited to the vaccine’s impact on pregnant mothers and their unborn babies.

On Sunday, Sen. Johnson, chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, published a May 27, 2021, email sent by then-acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock to Fauci and then-NIH Director Collins regarding the perceived need to begin squirreling away scientific research funds to later investigate vaccine side effects.

“I have been contacted by a number of people who have experienced adverse events post COVID-19 vaccination (from all three of the current vaccines),” wrote Woodcock. “Many are healthcare professionals, some of whom I know. The symptoms do not fit together into a distinctive syndrome and most are not easily quantifiable or evaluated with standard laboratory testing.”

While cognizant that “during mass vaccination you will get a lot pf psychological reactions,” Woodcock was nevertheless sensitive to complaints among apparent vaccine casualties that “no one takes them seriously, no one knows how to treat them” and that there had been “no effort to study this.”

By the time the FDA commissioner sent this email, VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, had already received reports of 8,650 deaths associated with the COVID injection, with 39% of those deaths taking place within two days of injection, noted Johnson’s office.

After casting doubt on the ability of VAERS to detect the full spectrum of side-effect cases, Woodcock stated in the email: “I think it would be worthwhile to do a study and evaluate a cohort of these individuals” who allegedly experienced “adverse events” after receiving the vaccine.

“But of course $$ need to be made available, and you would need an investigator who is interested in ‘medical mysteries,'” wrote Woodcock. “I doubt the industry would support, for obvious reasons. But my experience is, that if you let a problem fester, then it will come back to bite you later and you are not prepared.”

Fauci subsequently told Collins, “We cannot ignore her. We should probably bring in CDC and see what Rochelle thinks.”

Johnson’s office noted that based on the information reviewed to date, it’s unclear whether Walensky was ever consulted.

Blaze News did not immediately receive a response from the CDC, the FDA, or an attorney representing Fauci. Woodcock could not be reached for comment.

Roughly three months after Woodcock echoed the complaints of apparent vaccine casualties, she celebrated the FDA’s first approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, which had previously been made available as a result of the agency’s Emergency Use Authorization authority.

“While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” Woodcock stated at the time.

Johnson expressed outrage over the newly released email, writing, “Why wasn’t the public alerted to their concerns? Why did they continue to push and mandate the COVID shot? Why weren’t Americans allowed fully informed consent?”

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​Covid-19, Vaccine, Anthony fauci, Food and drug administration, National institute of allergy and infectious diseases, Centers for disease control and prevention, Politics 

Nearly six months into the U.S.-Iran conflict, President Donald Trump has once again threatened military action against an ally with which America has enjoyed a positive relationship for nearly two centuries.

Although the president suggested in early July that America’s ceasefire with Iran was effectively defunct, the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding is only now formally expiring. Trump confirmed in an interview on Monday morning with Fox News’ Trey Yingst that there is, however, a back channel for peace talks with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — apparently bypassing mediators and Iranian political officials.

‘They’re dying.’

“They should put up the white flag of surrender,” Trump reportedly told Yingst.

“I have no time schedule. I’m not in a hurry.”

The president — who reportedly has the last remaining U.S. aircraft carrier in the western Pacific headed for the Middle East — indicated there remains the potential for peace, but he underscored on Truth Social around the time of the interview that “the number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon.”

According to Yingst, Trump said that despite the Iranians suggesting otherwise, the Iranians are feeling the economic pressure of the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

“They’re good poker players, but they’re dying,” Trump reportedly told Yingst.

RELATED: VIDEO: Trump says he will declare new US territory ‘pretty soon’ in the Middle East

Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Iran is reportedly seeking some relief via a parallel agreement with Oman — a deal aimed at resuming maritime traffic down the strait, which runs between their nations.

Iranian Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmail Baghaei revealed on Monday that “an understanding has been reached regarding the map of the transit route,” reported the Associated Press.

Blaze News has reached out to Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

When asked about the deal, Trump reportedly told Yingst, “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s**t out of them.”

When asked for comment, the White House referred Blaze News back to Trump’s remarks.

This is not the first time in recent months that Trump has threatened military action against the country of 5.3 million people, which has been attacked in recent months by Iran.

Following reports that Tehran was attempting to convince Oman to support its initiative to toll vessels transiting the strait, Trump said on May 27, “They would like to control it.”

“Oman will behave just like everybody else,” said Trump. “Or else we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that. They’ll be fine.”

The president said in a speech on Friday that “after we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.”

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​Strait of hormuz, Iran, Oman, Donald trump, Politics 

A Florida woman wanted for the murder of a father whose body was found with a zip tie around his neck and buried in a shallow grave has been arrested following a weeks-long, multistate manhunt, according to authorities.

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office said the U.S. Marshals Task Force on Thursday afternoon arrested 38-year-old Isabelle Johnson at a house in Cottondale.

‘She covered the body with cement so that the dog would not dig it up again.’

“We got her,” police proclaimed on social media. “Isabelle Johnson is in custody.”

Johnson was arrested while wearing a T-shirt with message that read, “Force to be reckoned with.”

WMBB-TV reported that Johnson appeared in court Friday morning, and she was ordered held without bond.

Police stated, “The arrest was the result of information developed by the Walton County Sheriff’s Office Cyber Crimes Unit on Johnson’s whereabouts.”

Authorities alleged that investigators searched for Johnson in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

Walton County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Dustin Cosson said investigators put in “tons and tons of man-hours” during the search for Johnson that lasted roughly 45 days, according to Fox News.

Fox News added that the broader investigation involved more than 40 subpoenas and over 20 search warrants.

On Friday afternoon, police announced that Johnson has been extradited from the Jackson County Jail to Walton County.

Johnson was wanted on an open count of murder in connection with the death of 43-year-old Jason Coulthart, whose remains were discovered June 25 in a shallow grave.

The New York Post, citing police, reported that Coulthart’s body was found “with a zip tie around his neck buried in a shallow grave, which was covered in concrete, with a black Cadillac parked over it …”

Coulthart initially was reported missing May 24.

“She killed the victim by placing a zip tie around his neck,” an unnamed witness told investigators, according to the police report.

Johnson’s roommate helped her dig a hole to bury Coulthart’s body, the police report also noted.

A witness added, “She covered the body with cement so that the dog would not dig it up again.”

The witness also told investigators that “he was aware of her ‘getting rid’ of a boy because he was ‘aggravating and irritating her,'” according to the police report the Post obtained.

The witness said the “boy” also was “threatening to interfere with Isabelle’s custody of her children,” the police report added.

RELATED: Alleged border-hopping black widow who drugged, robbed, and killed older men she met on dating apps faces extradition: FBI

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office said in a previous statement, “She’s a monster, not a beast.”

“Johnson frequently moves locations and often convinces others to help her by telling sympathetic stories involving domestic violence or other personal hardships,” according to authorities.

Investigators described Johnson as a “master manipulator,” according to ABC News.

Police said Johnson had multiple identities and aliases, including Harley, Jessica Elaine Bowman, Jessica Elaine Thrush, Jessica Elaine Thrash, and Jessica Dowdy.

Others have been arrested in connection with the case.

“Five individuals have been arrested for accessory after the fact to a capital felony as investigators continue efforts to locate Johnson, who has been actively evading law enforcement,” police stated.

According to WEAR-TV, 31-year-old Bobbi Wagstaff was charged with accessory to capital murder after the fact and possession of methamphetamine.

Martin and Sandra Leaverton, both 63, were charged with accessory after the fact to capital murder after investigators alleged they helped Johnson retrieve her belongings, provided a cell phone, and tried to help her find refuge outside Florida, WEAR added.

Michael Ray White, 74, and Kathleen Morris, 59, were charged with accessory to a capital felony after the fact and obstruction after they allegedly provided Johnson with shelter, transportation, and supplies while misleading police regarding her whereabouts.

Walton County officials said additional charges are expected.

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​Us marshals, Florida, Manhunt, Murder suspect, Shallow grave, Arrest, Crime 

Morbidly obese actress Chrissy Metz has lost 100 pounds after taking a GLP-1, but the left isn’t happy about it.

In an interview on “The Today Show,” Metz’s decision was shockingly met with concern by Savannah Guthrie — who pointed to the feelings of those in the “body positivity” movement.

And BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales isn’t surprised, commenting, “One of the things that just continues to be true about the left is that they just want to bring everyone else down.”

“They seemingly work to keep people fat via the body positivity movement where they’re cheering on obesity because somehow it makes you more strong and more powerful the fatter you are or something,” she adds.

In the interview, Guthrie pointed out that “a lot of people” have “admired” Metz because they “feel seen.”

“You’ve represented this whole community. And I don’t know if there are some people watching and have mixed feelings about it. And I don’t know that you have to provide an answer to them,” Guthrie said.

“But if there are people that are like, ‘Oh, Chrissy, I thought, you know,’ somehow they’re disappointed with this, what would you say?” Guthrie asked.

“Well, I think that it’s so important to put yourself first. And you know, as we age, sometimes we have health issues that we’re concerned about or want to get ahead of. And that certainly was my case. And I have to do what’s right for me,” Metz responded.

“You have to live your own life, and I have to do that for myself,” she added.

“Somehow, people are supposed to be disappointed that she’s actually trying to better herself,” Gonzales comments, before mocking Guthrie, “Let me explain to you why you’re letting people down by taking control of your health.”

And Gonzales, of course, doesn’t think Metz should worry about the “movement” she has disappointed, as she believes it’s just a way for unhealthy people to cope with their decisions.

“It’s just an insecurity thing where they’re like, ‘Actually, I’m proud that I’m morbidly obese,’” she says.

“I cannot be convinced that anyone actually thinks that way,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

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​Body positivity, Savannah guthrie, Today show, Weight loss, Sara gonzales, Chrissy metz, Glp1, Obesity, Blazetv show 

A night of drinking in Belfast gave Joe Rogan an epiphany: It’s never going to be that way again.

Joking with fellow comedians Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, and Ari Shaffir, the quartet were going through their usual roundtable of anecdotes when — as usual — some sage advice poked its head through.

‘Cameras have ruined young people.’

Just the flip

Rogan was recalling a night on the town in Northern Ireland, telling his friends about a literal drunken Irishman who was rambling about being willing to fight anyone. That experience, known only to him, is foregone history now thanks to modern technology.

“I miss those days where I could just go to a bar and just just pull up and just get lit. It was fun,” Rogan said on his podcast.

“It’s too hard” now, the comedian continued; it’s all about the phones.

“So this is like 2007 … there’s no cameras. There’s no phones. Nobody. There’s no iPhone yet. So it’s like people were just hanging out.”

Then even Normand, who is usually a sunglasses-wearing fly on the wall who provides inappropriate remarks, was in lock-step with how smartphones have caused generational issues for the youth.

“Cameras have ruined young people, [they] can’t cut loose.”

Rogan concurred, “Phones ruined everything in terms of like, people’s connection with each other.”

The 59-year-old has lived a long time in the spotlight; whether it was reporting from early UFC events, hosting “Fear Factor,” or doing stand-up tours, he feels confident pinpointing the exact place in time young people should be trying to replicate.

“The old phones, that was as far as we should have went. The flip phone that you could text on, and the texting sucked.”

RELATED: Move over, milk crates: Dorm rooms now come with interior designers — and five-figure price tags

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Rogan’s message been clear over the years: Put the phone away or face being “stuck,” only if for a few days.

“I’ve pulled back considerably like I was saying, over the last three months. … I just decided enough is enough,” Rogan continued. “I don’t like how I feel when I just scroll through doom.”

Having previously stated that he doesn’t want his phone anywhere near him while driving, Rogan, along with Gillis, has been signaling to young men that being disconnected from one’s phone can not only serve as an advantage, it can be a relief.

The dreadful feeling was Gillis’ angle, who felt like his decision to disconnect was thrust upon him, as opposed to a conscious move like that of Rogan.

Mirroring lawsuits against popular social media companies, Gillis said his exodus from platforms isn’t a choice, instead he “got lucky enough that I can’t look at it anymore. I can’t. It’s just negative.”

“It’s not like I’m like making a disciplined choice to be like, ‘I don’t want to look at this anymore,'” Gillis added. He hasn’t looked at Reddit in years, and he can’t even bring himself to look at X.

“It genuinely makes me feel bad,” he stressed.

“I don’t want to click on it anymore.”

RELATED: ‘House’ star Hugh Laurie responds to claims he supports men in women’s sports: ‘Firstly, f**k off’

Anna Barclay/Getty Images

Bro breakthrough

The four horsemen of “Protect Our Parks” represent the advanced status of a group of friends from different backgrounds who made it big.

The reflection men see in them is obvious; it’s like bros in a basement. This is specifically present when Rogan says things like, “There’s a UFC in L.A. If you guys want to take over the Comedy Store for a weekend,” as if they’re heading to the bar.

But in that commentary comes lessons for the next generation of young men:

“You don’t want to live in their world,” Rogan said of influencers and phone addicts.

The truth bombs culminated:

“You don’t want to be in their head, and they don’t want it either. And the only way for them out is to not do that. And if they keep doing it and keep living in that f**king same swamp of ideas, they’re never going to change.”

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​Comedy, Joe rogan, Ari shaffir, Mark normand, Shane gillis, Cell phones, Entertainment 

As the buzz of summer winds down, back-to-school season offers families a fresh start. Kids return to routines and extracurriculars. Moms like me return to schedules, snacks, playdates, forms, and the peculiar relief of getting everyone back on a calendar.

Before we get buried in backpacks and lunch boxes, though, parents need to brace for something harder: our children’s mental health.

Our children need adults willing to talk with them, challenge them when necessary, and remain present when the conversation gets uncomfortable.

A recent Wall Street Journal investigation described Oregon as an epicenter of pediatric gender medicine, with diagnoses of gender dysphoria and use of cross-sex hormones among minors rising sharply in recent years. Oregon has only about 1% of the nation’s teenagers, yet its clinics reportedly accounted for roughly 7% of gender-related mastectomies performed on teenage girls from 2019 through 2023.

Those numbers are shocking. But behind every one is a child. I was one of those children not very long ago.

When I was 16, I found Tumblr communities full of girls who sounded just like me. They were uncomfortable in their bodies. They struggled with anxiety, depression, isolation, and the feeling that they did not fit. Their stories felt eerily familiar. We fed off one another’s pain until many of us came to believe that being transgender explained it — and that changing our bodies might cure our mental distress.

I was already battling anorexia. I hated myself and hated the body I saw in the mirror. That is why the contrast in how adults treated my two forms of distress still haunts me.

When I told doctors and therapists that I was starving myself because I saw myself as overweight, they did not affirm that perception. They treated it as something to question and work through. But when I said my breasts made me uncomfortable, my gender distress was not challenged in the same way. I was told that transition could be the answer. No questions, no pushback.

Looking back, I was not born in the wrong body. I was a hurting teenager looking for belonging, certainty, and an explanation for my pain.

The reality is that adolescence itself is full of unstable explanations. Teenagers are awkward, lonely, impulsive, anxious, obsessive, and desperate to belong. They compare themselves with peers, test identities, reject identities, and search for language that makes their discomfort intelligible. Sometimes the first explanation that feels coherent is not the right one.

RELATED: Detransitioner sues Oregon gender clinics for ‘abhorrent misdiagnosis’ that ‘mutilated’ her body

Image source: YouTube video screenshot

Across the country — consider states such as New Mexico, where schools have adopted policies accommodating students’ asserted gender identities — vulnerable children can encounter adults who treat social transition as an appropriate response before parents even understand what is happening.

That should terrify parents, especially when gender distress appears alongside trauma, autism, depression, eating disorders, or a simple discomfort with narrow stereotypes about what girls and boys are supposed to be. Those possibilities should be explored, not hurried past.

Previous generations of girls were told, directly and indirectly, that happiness required becoming impossibly thin. Today, some distressed girls encounter a different promise: Maybe the body itself is the problem. The common thread is not merely social media or “woke” politics. It is vulnerability.

That’s why therapy should help a young person untangle difficult emotions, not merely supply a label for them. “Why do you feel this way?” and “What name and pronouns would you like me to use?” are not interchangeable questions. One opens an inquiry. The other can foreclose it.

As another school year begins, parents should remember that adolescence has always been messy. Teenagers feel awkward and lonely. They try things, fail at things, discover new passions, abandon old ones, experiment with style and music, and slowly begin to understand who they are. That process can continue well beyond high school.

RELATED: The right has a blind spot about young women

Blaze Media Illustration

Our children do not need adults who immediately affirm every explanation they discover online. They need adults willing to talk with them, challenge them when necessary, and remain present when the conversation gets uncomfortable.

Use the dinner table. Talk about your own failures and insecurities. Tell them what helped and what you wish you had understood sooner. Get them outside. A scraped knee from the monkey bars is often healthier than another four hours alone with an algorithm.

Most of all, do not surrender the hard conversations to strangers, schools, influencers, or online communities. Do not let someone else take the reins of your child’s life while you are still trying to figure out what happened.

The best back-to-school supply we can give our kids is not another lesson in identity. It is the reassurance that they do not have to change their bodies, their appearance, or every uncomfortable feeling in order to belong.

​Anorexia, Autism, Depression, Gender dysphoria, Mental health, Stereotypes, Transgender, Social transition, Lgbtq, Opinion & analysis 

Do you wear shoes in the house?

Or do you remove them every time you open the front door, place them tidily next to the closet, and proceed into your humble abode with only a thin layer of sock between your foot and the floor?

What does it mean that most households in America today are shoes-off households? Why is there a change?

This question of indoor footwear, or lack thereof, is a surprisingly interesting one. You might think it doesn’t really matter that much whether or not your shoes stay on while inside, but it is a somewhat fascinating little debate for the acute observers of our perpetually evolving American culture.

Sole survivors

There are a few different ways to view the shoes-in-the-house debate. The first layer is that of personal preference. For lots of families in America, it comes down to a mundane choice. Mom and dads on a random weekday just sort of come to the conclusion that they are going to either be a shoes-on or shoes-off household, and that’s what they do for the rest of their lives together. For others the decision is an inherited one. They grew up keeping shoes on, so that’s what their kids grow up doing. We do what we are used to; it’s tradition.

Beyond the simple choice of personal taste, there are geographical ways of looking at the question of rubber soles on wood floors. There are regional factors at play. The U.S. is a big place with lots of different climates, and taking shoes off or keeping them on wavers a bit from region to region. For those in the sloshiest and snowiest ares of the U.S., keeping your boots on inside in the middle of February is a nonstarter. For others, in the drier regions, keeping shoes on isn’t particularly concerning whether it’s July or February.

There are also global differences in the answer to the question of shoes inside the house. I should say it’s a bit hard to get reliable data on global attitudes regarding this question. All the maps you find are slightly different, and the sources aren’t exactly clear. I mean, what’s this polling really like? But taking account of all the available maps, the very west end of Western Europe, North America, Central America, and South America tend to be shoes-on, and the rest of the world is generally shoes-off with a few exceptions.

Don’t tread on me

Last but not least, a final aspect to this discussion is one of American history. Have you ever seen a photo of a family gathering or party in America during the 1950s in which the majority of adults are sitting or standing around inside without their shoes on?

Probably not, and if you have, it’s an exceedingly rare photo of an equally rare occurrence. Back in old America — think 1800-1950 — people kept their shoes on inside. The thought of a group of adult men and women sitting around showing their dirty socks to one another would be very preposterous, extremely undignified, and generally rude. No one was asking people to take their shoes off at the door in 1958 America.

Though America is still considered a shoes-on country by many foreigners, things have changed. There is a trending line running toward socks on the floors and shoes by the doors.

What does it mean that most households in America today are shoes-off households? Why is there a change? And what has brought it about?

It’s hard to say. Some might argue that increased immigration from countries where shoes-off is the norm has changed attitudes in America without people realizing their attitudes are being changed. I think there could be truth to this. Immigration obviously brings unforeseen impacts, though I’m not sure many Midwesterners are really that influenced by Asiatic household footwear norms. Any influence due to immigration is probably minimal when it comes to this very narrow matter.

RELATED: Yes, groceries are more expensive. Now what?

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Footloose and fancy-free

I think any change toward an increase in more shoes-off households comes more broadly from an increasing informality that has spread through our culture over the past four decades. People are now comfortable showing their bare socks and requesting others do the same when visiting their home.

Is that a good thing? Is it a sign of a closer community or a more generally friendly and approachable disposition?

I don’t know. Maybe, but probably not. People are not closer today than they were in the past. They know their neighbors less, community bonds are weaker, and social satisfaction is down. Robert Putnam’s 2000 book “Bowling Alone” documents all this well. The fact that more people host parties and request that guests take off their shoes says more about increased informality and less about closeness.

Toeing the line

Changing opinions about cleanliness play a role in this evolution. For some reason today, people really do not want any dust or dirt tracked into the entryway to their house. It’s not unreasonable to want a clean house. We all do. I have three kids in a small home and know how messy it can get. But brooms and vacuums exist, and they work. People certainly seem more concerned about any possible dirt being tracked in than they did a few generations ago.

I don’t think there’s an objectively right or wrong way. Shoes-on houses are good, and so are shoes-off ones. Though I do think it’s worthwhile to wonder what cultural changes signify, because they often mean more than what meets the eye. And no matter how logical it might be to remove shoes so as to keep a house cleaner, the change from 1956 to 2026 says something about changing attitudes regarding formality and presentation in the American home, and it’s fair to wonder if those changing attitudes are related to broader developments in the society, many of which are not terribly good.

Is there some strange connection between requesting that guests remove their shoes and pajama pants in the airport? In the American context, probably yes.

As for me, I’ll keep wearing my sport coat at the airport and my loafers in the kitchen.

​Indoor footwear debate, Shoes in house, Global differences, Lifestyle, Culture, Etiquette, Hospitality, The root of the matter