A plague of safetyist hysteria, quit letting nonprofits boost terror and other commentary

“Americans have lost the ability to assess risk,” warns The Wall Street Journal’s Barton Swaim.In her new book, “Worth the Risk,” Allison Schrager argues that roots of the problem go back nearly a century, but over the years we’ve sought to avoid risk altogether.

Yet risk-aversion creates its own problems.E.g., the Federal Reserve tries to avert downturns, but “recessions rid economies” of inefficiencies.

Meanwhile, the “terrorized response” to the pandemic “normalized alarm”; we now go “from one moral panic to another.Yesterday, the Omicron variant; today, data centers and the AI apocalypse.” A new poll finds 46% of Americans see a moderate or significant risk “AI will destroy humanity”; another 17% think it’s near certain.

“This is, to use a technical term, bananas.”“Terrorist groups have a long and documented history of using nonprofit organizations to fundraise and spread their ideology abroad,” observe The Free Press’ editors, and new reporting shows that two nonprofits “taking advantage of the tax-exempt status afforded to charities and universities” are “seeking to advance the ideological mission of terrorist groups like Hamas.” The Malaysia-based, US-tax-exempt MyFundAction “has a track record of unabashed support for Hamas,” while the Islamic University of Minnesota has a close relationship with “a Turkey-based nonprofit” that’s “designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.Office of Foreign Assets Control.” In 2001, “American policymakers were caught flat-footed, allowing terrorists to disguise their fundraising via nonprofits.” A quarter-century later, “there is no excuse.”California Democrats took aim at YouTuber Nick Shirley’s “anti-fraud crusade” with Assembly Bill 2624, a k a the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” fumes Reason’s Josh Pauzé, which “prohibits online disclosures of personal information” with the intent to “threaten an immigration support worke...