Society

Gary Chartier | Defenders of freed markets have good reason to identify their position as a species of “anti-capitalism.”[1] To explain why, I distinguish three potential meanings of “capitalism” before...

It’s the end of an era.

Algorithms are no longer a Get out of Jail free card. The Third Circuit ruled that TikTok must stand trial for manipulating children into harming themselves. The business model of big tech is over.

A new peer-reviewed study claims that cryptocurrency enthusiasts are higher in "Dark Triad" traits than your average person.

A Q&A with David Neiwert, America’s foremost writer and thinker on far-right extremism, on what might happen if Trump wins—or loses

When a group of libertarians set about scrapping their local government, chaos descended. And then the bears moved in.

Robinson has been blamed for stoking the unrest, but the tentacles of disinformation are global. Nafeez Ahmed uncovers a worrying nexus of tech platforms and far-right conspiracy – with links to Europe, Russia and the January 6 insurrection

Playing the state’s energy market has become more profitable than mining bitcoin

The privileged classes would never dream of saying one form of family life is better than another. So why are they always married?

As part of the xz discussion, some asserted that “paying maintainers doesn’t work—we tried to give people money and they wouldn’t take it.” Suffice to say, at Tidelift, we think... Read More

There’s no evidence that banishing sex buyers from Aurora and other “areas of prostitution” has had any impact, either. By…

For decades, military practitioners and academics have come up with theories, evidence, and examples that indicate that offensive cyber operations might revolutionize modern warfare. Others have made an equally impressive case that refutes that such operations would even be relevant, making it hard to reach any definite conclusions. This paper introduces a novel analytical framework to assess offensive cyber operations based on the circumstances of their use across the different phases of war, from shaping operations prior to the conflict to the actual battlefield. This framework substantially simplifies the key questions of practitioners and academics in order to pose the more direct question: Where, when, and how might offensive cyber operations affect warfare outcomes, both today and in the future?

Link: The Changing Role of the U.S. Dollar / Brookings TLDR: Whether it’s sanctions overuse, U.S. political dysfunction or crypto-led fintech innov…

Breaking down Trump's ties to Russia and his effort to extort the Ukrainian government for political gain.

Map found on reddit

at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

Lurking among us are anonymous heroes who quietly amplify social cohesion. Here's what we can learn from them.

Readers discuss a guest essay that argued that we should be.

boo fucking hoo, you sad losers

Here’s a hypothetical situation. You decide to build your own steam generator plant and connect it to the electric grid. No matter where you live, you’d probably have to meet a ton of r…

American history is much more about rapid and cheap transport than about extremes of population density.  Even New York, our densest major city by far, became dense relatively late in American history.  To this day, the United States is not extremely dense, not say by European or East Asian standards. But in American history, themes […]

Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

A 17-year-old student has launched a dedicated portal to exposing Germany's 'secret' pirate site blocklist to the public.

An anthropologist explains the roots of our workaholism and offers a vision of a more leisurely future.

In August 2023, we launched 404 Media with a novel idea: pay journalists to do journalism. Here we are, a year later.

The party had lost hope. Now it has it back.

Limited liability has come to cover for not just incompetent but also criminal conduct. But what to do?

In May, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the editor of the New York Times Opinion section. In the brief missive, Rep. Pelosi pointed to four legislative reforms to reinforce American democracy that House Democrats passed in 2022, only to see the bill, the Freedom to Vote:

By Erica C. Barnett A sad spectacle played out at Seattle City Hall today, as council members who support a…

Surveillance Watch is an interactive map revealing the intricate connections between surveillance companies, their funding sources and affiliations.