Society

Vice is laying off hundreds of staff and will no longer publish at Vice.com. The outcome of the company's spectacular rise (it was valued at more than $5bn in 2017)…

Fireside this week! We’ll pick up looking at some of the successes of Hellenistic armies next week. Percy, having found a use for some of my books. And of course, less I miss a chance to note…

If you haven’t heard of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for staffing the next Trump administration, I suggest you read up on it right away. Project 2025 is an action plan for how to use the most extreme versions of the unitary executive theory to weaponize the federal government into an instrument of authoritarian […]

The unholy alliance of Jesus and Ayn Rand

Reddit user: "It's not just you, ChatGPT is having a stroke."

Read to the end for a black cat eating a whole rotisserie chicken while Mamma Mia by ABBA plays in the background

Excerpts from a Q&A with bestselling degrowth author Kohei Saito.

The federal government’s dysfunction leaves immigrant-friendly cities feeling overwhelmed.

In recent months, many politicians and media outlets have focused on the "migrant crisis" in various cities, supposedly…

Bailing out a critical Massachusetts hospital chain should come with some consequences for the financial operators who put them in that position.

AI doesn’t change basic ethical principles. But the scale at which it operates introduces new problems.

And why you shouldn’t trust product reviews from big media publishers ranking at the top of Google.

The psychology of craving societal collapse and embracing the insanity of radical change.

We tend to talk about rights without ever mentioning their corresponding duties. Every right needs an obligation to support it. At the very least we have a duty to grant the same rights to others, but more consequentially, rights have … Continue reading →

On April 4, 1968, when I learned with the rest of the world that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, I immediately thought that the civil rights movement, which King had led, had just bee…

The Cluetrain Manifesto will turn 25 in two months. I am one of its four authors, and speak here only for myself. The others are David Weinberger, Rick Levine, and Chris Locke. David and Rick may h…

If you have a problem with maintainers getting paid then you have a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate.

Unpacking the positives and negatives of tech, innovation and our future

Jon Stewart’s fascinating late-career return to The Daily Show is further evidence that linear television is no longer what it once was.

Mayor Harrell is seeking to quickly roll out gun-shot detectors and closed circuit cameras to feed into real-time crime center software, raising privacy concerns. Claims that this major expansion of the surveillance state will curb serious crime are largely unsubstantiated.

Earlier this month, a mystery vessel began leaking oil and ran aground on a reef off the coast of Tobago. Open source evidence points to a potential answer.

AI doesn’t have to be a tool of prejudice. But unless disabled people become key stakeholders in its development, it’s almost certain to be.