Quillette's Best on Human Nature
Humans have evolved to empathize with the suffering of others, and to provide assistance so as to eliminate or compensate for that suffering.
Quillette
· 4 min read
Weekly Roundup and the Harassment of Professor Kathleen Stock
Before you read this week's articles, I'd like to draw your attention to the distressing harassment that one of our contributors, Kathleen Stock, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, has been subjected to on her campus. Kathleen Stock authored the book Material Girls:
Claire Lehmann
· 6 min read
Cancelling the Beat Generation
Almost from its inception, the Beat Generation seemed to be doomed to failure. In and around Columbia University, a ragtag group of bohemians coalesced based upon an odd array of mutual interests. Two of them were homosexuals, one bisexual, and all were interested in drugs and subversive literature. William S.
David S. Wills
· 9 min read
What Is Diversity? And Why Is It Valuable?
People differ from one another in many different ways.
Justin P. McBrayer
· 11 min read
Vaccinology, Immunology, and COVID-19
Vaccine technology has sped ahead, serving the critical function to break the link between infection and poor outcomes.
Jesse Pelletier
· 6 min read
Biology Won’t Solve Your Problems with Abortion
Claiming that biological terms are authoritative and unambiguous is either a misunderstanding of biology or a failure to appreciate the difficulties inherent in applying linguistic categories to natural phenomena.
Frederick R. Prete
· 12 min read
Instagram's Mental Health Emergency
The main ethical problem posed by Instagram is that young people are not mature enough to give informed consent to having their preferences harvested and fed back to them by a corporation that specialises in attention manipulation.
Claire Lehmann
· 11 min read
Rocker Crocked. Pistol Shot.
To say that Lydon has mellowed would be a huge over-simplification, not only of who he is now but of who he was then, both of which were media distortions if not inventions.
Simon Evans
· 9 min read
Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache: Quebec’s Too-Perfect Police Officer
Detective stories are so popular in our culture that those of us lacking experience of the real life variety sometimes have difficulty telling fact and fiction apart
John Allore
· 9 min read
Podcast #168: Jonathan Haidt on Instagram’s Mental Health Emergency
Jonathan Kay speaks with Jonathan Haidt about the emotionally destructive effect of social media on many young users.
Quillette
· 1 min read
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a Powerful Anti-Racist Book. So Why Doesn’t the Left Love It?
In the aftermath of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed by European empires, the Western world awoke to the horrors that humans are capable of committing against those they perceived to be inferior.
Jerry Barnett
· 14 min read
Weekly Roundup
If there were a modern day Voltaire, or a 21st century Bertrand Russell, Steven Pinker would be it. So it is a tremendous honour for me to bring you an excerpt of Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, by the man himself, in this week&
Claire Lehmann
· 6 min read
In Defense of Good Power
Power has to be allocated. If this is done in a truly meritocratic fashion, it is not only accepted by those who become subordinated, but also met with their approval.
Magnus Henrekson
· 15 min read
Why Australia Opted for AUKUS
While Reuters reports that the French had ample warning the project was in trouble, the AUKUS announcement and the cancellation of the submarine contract nevertheless took them by surprise.
Sean Welsh
· 11 min read
The Culture War is Coming for Your Genes
The truth is we can never hope for a perfect alignment between moral desert and material reward because we each have competing definitions of what constitutes merit.
Damien Morris
· 12 min read