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Society

Articles on social trends, public life, institutions, norms, conflict, and the way people behave in groups.

Faith, Delusion, and the Fortress of Haredi Judaism

Faith, Delusion, and the Fortress of Haredi Judaism

Ultra‑insular religious communities maintain strict separation, rigid authority, and selective engagement with modern systems, creating tensions between doctrine and lived reality. Their survival strategies can harden into closed worlds where fear, tradition, and control shape collective life.

From Crown to Constitution: America’s Two-Century Struggle for Authority

From Crown to Constitution: America’s Two-Century Struggle for Authority

From 1600 to 1800, authority in North America shifted from royal rule to popular sovereignty. Colonial autonomy, resistance to taxation, revolution, and constitutional debate transformed law from a tool of monarchy into a system grounded in consent and contested power.

Adjoint Sampling: Teaching AI to Create Better Samples, Faster

Artificial Intelligence

Adjoint Sampling: Teaching AI to Create Better Samples, Faster

Adjoint Sampling trains diffusion models to sample from unnormalized densities with far fewer energy evaluations, using stochastic optimal control, replay buffers, and symmetry-aware architectures to scale efficiently and achieve strong results in molecular conformer generation.

The Criminal Profile and Crimes of Edward Theodore Gein

Ed Gein, shaped by isolation and domination from his mother, committed grave robberies and two murders, creating artifacts from human remains. Declared legally insane, he spent life in institutions, and his crimes became templates for major horror characters.