Society

The most plausible explanation for teenage unhappiness.

Why we are seeing so many attempts to link magic to science.

Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” a provocative statement to which Robert Anton Wilson brilliantly responded: “Any …

Recently I discussed the connection between high neuroticism and left-wing politics.  In passing I mentioned that the right-wing had its own problems, leading a few of you to ask what those were. The classic response would be to accuse (credit?) conservatives as being low in empathy.  Whether or not you agree historically, that answer does […]

There's a neglected dimension beyond gender in America's troubled youth

The connection between Left thinking and high neuroticism (as a formal personality trait) is one of the most underdiscussed yet important themes in American politics (to be clear, the Right has its own pathologies as well).  Here is one excerpt from Matt’s latest Substack (gated): But I want to talk about something Goldberg mentions but […]

SXSW 2023 Schedule | Ransomware, election interference, spyware, IP theft, attacks on critical infrastructure…the drumbeat of digital attacks paints a dark portrait of the future of cyberspace. Can we prevent the World Wide Web from being the Wild West, or is chaos inherent to free and open systems? Featuring the nation’s top technology diplomat and a former CIA officer-turned-Congressman, this session will explore what U.S. leadership looks like in the digital domain, the roles of the private sector and civil ...

The U.S. House of Representatives has one member for every 747,000 or so Americans – by far the highest population-to-representatives ratio of any developed democracy.

CS Lewis, JP Sartre, and Nelson Algren all had a similar idea about the nature of evil. How boring and banal it is, and how normal it all seems at the

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Working and producing less to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint is part of a growing movement towards a ‘degrowth’ economy.

Using standard tools of economic analysis, I show that the key to reducing inflation is to raise wages as fast as possible.

Washington ecologists and farmers are scrambling to slow the avian flu — and get cartons back on grocery shelves.

How the United States, China, and the former Soviet Union stack up.

Several global cities steadily reached at least 75% office occupancy throughout the pandemic, including Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Paris and Stockholm.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai counters critics who say the United States is fostering unfair competition over semiconductors and clean energy.

The Noam Chomsky Website.

This CIA film from 1985 details what the agency argued was a vast system of indoctrination in the Soviet Union which discouraged individualism and encouraged passive acceptance of Kremlin rule from cradle to grave. In 2011, the CIA's Information Management Services declassified over 200 documents regarding intelligence on the Soviet Union that the CIA provided the Reagan administration. Included in the release were video briefings created by the Directorate of Intelligence for policymakers.

What is propaganda? What does propaganda look like in a liberal electoral democracy? How is the controversy over curriculum, African American AP classes, book-banning, the targeting of gender non-c…

Marcos Colón has used documentary film to engage significant questions about surviving the consequences of capitalist development, the impact on the earth, and indigenous peoples.  Colón recently r…

A movement grows to upsize the Gem State.

by Aimee LaBrie She was my 57th client. I remember that because the house number was 75 Leipzig Street, and I thought that it was significant that the numbers were reversed. Back then, I was always searching for signs, making meaning out of birth dates and billboard signs, license plates and fort

Let's build a Citizens’ Assembly to reduce corruption and solve problems.

click for larger note: This is an update to an old post , which has a lot of cool links to articles concerning the historical link between M...

California has more storage space in aquifers than in reservoirs, but getting storm water there is proving difficult.

"It's going to be like an interstate highway in a rush hour in a snowstorm with everyone driving much too fast."