I am a child of the Enlightenment. I think irrational belief is a dangerous phenomenon, and I try to consciously avoid irrational belief. On the other hand, I certainly recognize that it's a major phenomenon for people in general, and you can understand why it would be. It does, apparently, provide personal sustenance, but also bonds of association and solidarity and a means for expressing elements of one's personality that are often very valuable elements. To many people it does that. In my view, there's nothing wrong with that.

The US and Europe are committing suicide in different ways. In Europe it's austerity in the midst of recession and that's guaranteed to be a disaster. There's some resistance to that now. In the US, it's essentially off-shoring production and financialization and getting rid of superfluous population through incarceration.

It [the internet] probably has the effect of weakening personal associations.

Anyone in a position to overcome barriers to free thought and communication should do so.

Modern China; one also finds many things that are really quite admirable.

In any case, it is better to have some deal than no deal, but it's interesting that Obama picked the day of implementing of Iran deal to impose new sanctions on North Korea.

Legalizing marijuana would make a lot of sense, I don't think there's a single case of marijuana overdose on record and tens of millions of users. It's much less dangerous than alcohol, for example.