Society

The quirky packs of fashionistas that gathered in Harajuku were documented by legendary magazine FRUiTS. But, asks Lindsay Baker, has the Tokyo district’s wild spirit now been tamed?

It's the busiest travel holiday of the year. Have you checked out your airport Starbucks?

With geographic diversity and English proficiency, LATAM is entrepreneurial, leading to technology expansion in the region.

The successful ballot measure hasn’t gotten much notice in the wake of Trump’s victory, but it has dangerous implications.

I'd originally planned to take today off from the newsletter – a little post-Thanksgiving respite from my writing (and your having to read it). But the steady drumbeat of AI hype hasn't stopped, so how can I? (You're free, as always, to not-click.) I really can't say if I'll be emailing

With the youngest workers on board, broader adoption feels more inevitable

The Prince Claus Fund platforms culture as a force for change with Maya K’iche’-Kaqchikel poet, educator and artivist Rosa Chávez, and trans multidisciplinary artist, teacher and researcher Gabriela Luz

Why are people all over the world angry at “the system”?

Banknotes are useful. Not only do they provide their owner with a standard set of payments services, they also offer financial anonymity. ...

I began exploring the topic of financial privacy and payment anonymity in the early days of this blog. Over the past decade, my views have s...

Commentary on the 2024 US elections included the Democratic Party’s failure to connect with issues of community, place, family, religion, and identity. This column presents evidence from research papers published in the top economics journals since 1900 showing that half a century ago, economists took a little noticed turn towards precisely these topics. The authors document this shift and show that it was associated with novel empirical methods including experiments, large data sets, and an increasing focus on social norms and strategic interactions – including the exercise of power.

Trump, Musk & Co. are gunning for unions. Herewith some strategies for survival.

The new centrist push to regain control of the Democratic Party, with corporate money

There are two maps on this page. The one at the top should be familiar. It's one of those red-state/blue-state maps that have been tormenting Democrats, liberals, and progressives since November of 2000. Over the 36 days that George W. Bush and Al Gore fought for the White House in Florida, "red" and "blue" became metaphors for America's divided electorate. Red vs. Blue—Democrat vs. Republican; liberal vs. conservative; pro-life vs. pro-choice; gun-huggers vs. gun-haters; gay-huggers...

Dan Savage joins me on Volts to discuss how NIMBY-captured city leadership is failing Democrats — and why making cities better is the key to building the party’s future.

At Reason, C.J. Ciaramella (“Tim Scott Says UAW Workers Should Be Fired, Invoking Ronald Reagan”) gives GOP Presidential hopeful Tim Scott two stars for his proposal to fire striking auto workers like Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers and broke PATCO: “He said, you strike, you’re fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that...

Learn about Tactical Civics, a national small-government group introduced to Spokane County by conservative activist Chris McIntosh.

Agustín Barrios Gómez is business leader and politican who found there was no better place in the world to succeed than in Mexico.

An Everyone Culture argues that organizations do best when they build an environment that encourages constant personal development among their employees.

The condition we are observing in the body politic is Constitutional Derangement Syndrome. There have been various documented executive derangement syndrome episodes in recent history. This conditi…

She had died for something

No.334 — Amulets against the spirits of the age ⊗ On distortion ⊗ Build your own commissioner ⊗ Liquid AI

My advice to any writer looking to start a new site based on the newsletter model would be to consider Substack *last*, not first.

Forget the ridiculous "Twitter Files." This is what it actually looks like when a social media company works in concert with the government.

From Robert Caro’s The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1974): By building his highways, Moses flooded the city with ca...

When Satya Nadella took over as CEO, the company was lumbering and uncool. He cleaned up a toxic culture, crafted the deal of the decade, and put Microsoft back on top.

WIRED takes a look at one of Silicon Valley’s most influential ideologies.

This is the first time Russia has used its so-called Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in combat. The launch also serves as a warning to the West.

New dataset identifies the causes of today’s wealth gap