Society

First Google and Facebook, then the world. Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech.

Real reform in American politics won’t come from a new party — but from breaking investors' grip and rebuilding power from the ground up.

ProPublica has obtained the blueprint for the Trump administration’s unprecedented plan to turn over IRS records to Homeland Security in order to speed up the agency’s mass deportation efforts.

The Pentagon bans foreign citizens from accessing highly sensitive data, but Microsoft bypasses this by using engineers in China and elsewhere to remotely instruct American “escorts” who may lack expertise to identify malicious code.

Two patients. One incoherent medical system.

Why the Kleptocratic Nightmare Made Me Reconsider Elizabeth Warren

Silicon Valley’s final dream is a world without institutions. But what works for a startup doesn’t work for democracy

Explore the Black Panther Party’s original 1966 Ten‑Point Program by Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale. Full text, historical context & key themes.

With apologies to Dorothy Thompson, whose 1941 essay in Harper’s, “Who Goes Nazi?” remains a worthwhile read on the cultural archetypes of who is drawn to fascism, and who would never go down such …

If your chief goal is to find a middle ground with the far right on social issues, you’ll end up condoning its values—just ask Keir Starmer.

And how everyone else can get rich too.

Hello premium customers! Feel free to get in touch at ez@betteroffline.com if you're ever feeling chatty. And if you're not one yet, I'm sorry that I paywalled this, but it took me so much effort and drove me a little insane. Back in September 2024 I wrote about

Why the Most Important Political Philosophy of the Last 300 Years Is the One Nobody Understands

Our systems are collapsing, let's design what comes next. Join our salon of utopian thinkers to reinvent governance, reimagine capitalism, and architect a better future. Click to read The Elysian, by Elle Griffin, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Political parties have locked the public out of parliament. Citizens' assemblies are keys we need to unlock democracy.

Some fine and welcomed news from the Pacific Northwest

Freedom, liberty and independence are human rights. But they depend on responsibility. Responsibility to others, to our future, to the community. Responsibility for our actions and our choices. The…

The strongest defense can be summed up in just two words.

Not-my-favorite-guy-in-the-world Matt Yglesias talking about what Republicans actually mean when they talk about cutting Medicaid: I think you could see there’s a mismatch in the way Mike Johnson characterizes this. He talks about: We’ve got all these able-bodied young men who are sitting on the couch all day

While the Professional Moderates Clutch Their Pearls

I see three levels at which we could try to fix cultural drift: specific cultural trends, cultural evolution process parameters, and meta mechanism/institutions.

As generative artificial intelligence tools continue to proliferate, pushback against the technology and its negative impacts grows stronger.

A repost from the Noahpinion archives, with a few updates.

We have to decide which story we believe in.

On this Fourth of July, we declare independence again

A couple weeks ago I linked to a conversation that discussed how social media services can make us think that everything is a 50/50 issue. It also gives us the impression that the angriest, mots extreme voices represent everyone on either side of every issue. This week, Hank Green