Gulags Are for Artists Like Me
Two weeks ago, I posted a snap from a friend and photographer at the Age newspaper. The controversial pic was of an elderly woman of Greek heritage in her 80s looking on to the militarised police response unfolding at Northcote Plaza in Melbourne’s inner north. I stated the facts
Podcast #169: Harvard Professor Steven Pinker on Rational Thinking, the Monty Hall Problem, and the Case for Objective Truth
Enlightenment Now author Steven Pinker speaks with Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay about his newly published book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
My Late Father Was a Great Teacher. He Wouldn’t Last a Week in the Modern Classroom.
My father passed away a few weeks ago. He had spent his entire working life teaching junior high and high school students. Most communities in our country possess a few teachers of my father’s ilk, educators who are considered local celebrities—the type who can rarely enter a restaurant
The Exhibitionist Economy
When former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen leaked thousands of internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal in September, it led to another cycle of acrimonious allegations of corporate irresponsibility. “I’ve seen a bunch of social networks,” Haugen told 60 Minutes in an interview, “and it was substantially
Technology and the Golden Age of Taxonomy
Alone in the forest, the modern person might find it difficult to identify a beech tree. Compared to indigenous shamans who forage thousands of medicinal plants, we are deeply disconnected from nature. But even if our personal understanding of nature is in decline, as a species, we’ve never known
The Implosion of Boston’s Pride Parade Is a Sign of Things to Come
Boston Pride is one of the oldest gay-rights organizations in the United States, with its first parade having taken place in 1971. Last year would have marked the 50th parade, but the event was cancelled due to the pandemic. This year’s events also didn’t materialize, but not entirely
Confronting the Supply Chain Crisis
For a generation, the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors in California handled more than 40 percent of all container cargo headed into the US and epitomized the power of a globalizing economy. Today, the ships—mostly from Asia—still dock, but they must wait in a seemingly endless conga
Simping and the Sexual Marketplace
Whether you’re an impartial onlooker or active combatant in the culture wars, you may have come across the term “simp.” A lexical fixture in Twitch chatrooms and TikTok videos, simps are romantically-challenged men whose servile nature prevents them from earning the affection of their love interest. To be clear,
