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Monday Miscellany, 10/19/26

Monday Miscellany, 10/19/26

Last updated on: October 19, 2026 at 8:20 am by Gene Veith

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Monday Miscellany, 10/19/26 2026-10-19T08:20:42-04:00 Gene Veith

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The limits of indoctrination. Techs think AI will cure cancer, so smoking is trendy. The percentage of gay and bisexual teens is in “free fall.”

The Limits of Indoctrination

Many Germans are confused and worried. Despite decades of left-leaning political indoctrination in schools, German young people are going to the right and the hard right. What happened?

Alexander Dinger and Lennart Pfahler write about the phenomenon in their Politico story, The Far Right Is Winning. These Young Germans Show Us Why. The deck states the problem: “Germany educated its youth to prevent a new rise of fascism. They are turning to the far right anyway.”

For decades, Germany assumed that its youngest citizens would be the strongest defense against a return to an authoritarian past that convulsed not just the country but the world. Today, parts of that generation are moving in the opposite direction — drawn to a far right that has learned how to turn rebellion into political influence.

At first, it seemed to be working. But lately, young voters have shifted. In 2021, most voters aged 18 to 24 voted for the Greens or the liberal Free Democrats. In Saxony-Anhalt, where Luther used to live, only 17% of that demographic voted for right wing parties in 2021. In this year’s September election, 41% voted for the right. A poll found that 51% of young people in Schleswig-Holstein agreed that Germany needed “greater courage to embrace a strong sense of national identity,” a phrase with Nazi connotations for many Germans.

I’m not saying this is necessarily a good thing, an upsurge of wholesome conservatism among the young. Some of that is happening, but some of the popular new ideologies really do harken back to World War II. What I’d like to focus on is the failure of indoctrination.

“Since the 1950s, German educators have sought to make democratic education central to schooling,” say the reporters. “The Nazi era also became a central subject across the curriculum, reinforced by visits to concentration-camp memorials and other sites of remembrance.” They cite a teacher who “observes that masculinity, dominance, strength and a certain coldness toward others have increased sharply among young people. “

Why is this happening? The article cites reasons such as young people’s bad experiences with immigrants, their need for a sense of identity, the influence of social media.

But this also shows something about schools and their students. Students don’t necessarily buy into what their teachers are trying to indoctrinate them into. In fact, that often makes them rebel against it.

This may be encouraging news for those worried about the current leftward bent of many of our school systems and universities. But it is also a lesson for parents and Christian schools. Cramming beliefs down the throats of children and adolescents at the threat of bad grades or other punishment can create a reaction against those beliefs. Influence–especially spiritual influence–must go beyond indoctrination. Personal support, concern for their problems, and respect for their experiences carry more weight with young people and will cause them to give you a hearing. Young people, especially today, are searching for identity. Word and Sacrament can give them the identity they crave and need, a Christian identity that lives deeply in their lives

Techs Think AI Will Cure Cancer, so Smoking Is Trendy

After many decades, smoking has been in decline. It has even become socially unacceptable in many, perhaps most, circles, due mainly to scientific evidence that smoking tobacco can cause cancer. But smoking cigarettes has come back in vogue in Silicon Valley. This is because many tech developers are convinced that AI will soon cure cancer. Therefore, they can smoke without having to worry about their health.

Leanne Maxwell has published an article in the San Francisco webzine SFist entitled Smoking Becomes Trendy In Silicon Valley as Some Researchers Believe AI Will Cure Cancer.

Some of the smoking seems to be performative, making a statement of the smoker’s confidence in the new technology. Maxwell cites Palantir executive Shyam Sankar–who disapproves of the trend–calling it a “mass psychosis.” “Sankar claimed that some AI researchers have taken up smoking to demonstrate how strongly they believe the technology will eventually cure cancer.”

Maxwell cites other opinions:

Jake Jolis, a general partner at Los Angeles-based Zeno Ventures, told the outlet that founders who smoke can appear less concerned with pleasing venture capitalists, which may make them more appealing to investors. Jolis said he had invested in two founders who smoke and that both had performed well, although he does not actively seek out smokers.

So companies whose founders come across as not caring about appealing to investors are more appealing to investors? That doesn’t make any sense, but it may reveal something about the mentality of both the investors and those they are investing in.

“Other founders have been more direct about the perceived benefits of betting on AI,” says Maxwell. “Avi Schiffmann, CEO of AI wearable startup Friend, told Fortune, “By the time you do get lung cancer, our AI robots are supposed to have cured that.”

The Percentage of Gay and Bisexual Teens Is in “Free Fall”

Washington Post reporter Casey Parks has published an article with the headline The Number of Teens Who Identify Themselves as Gay or Bisexual Is in “Free Fall.”

All teenage demographics have dropped at least somewhat. But, according to the researcher,

The decline is particularly striking among ninth-grade girls, according to Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University who published her analysis of the 2025 data on her Substack “Generation Tech.” In 2021, 30 percent of ninth-grade girls identified as lesbian or bisexual. Last year, 17 percent did.

“It really does look like a free fall,” Twenge said. “But what’s causing it is unclear.”

The “free fall,” Twenge found, mostly comes from a huge drop in the number of freshmen girls who identify as bisexual. While 26 percent of ninth-grade girls identified as bisexual in 2021, only 13 percent — half as many — did in 2025.

“If it was politics, why would that only have an effect on ninth-graders and not 17- and 18-year-olds?” she asked. “It maybe has something to do with it, but it’s clearly not the only thing going on. It’s a mystery.”

It sounds like sexual orientation is not innate, but that culture has something to do with it.

decline of homosexuality in teenagers

Effectiveness of political indoctrination

Gay and bisexual teenagers

politics of German young people

revival of smoking

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