Audio
essay
Human rights and justice
Abolish life sentences
It is unjust, cruel and profoundly wasteful to consign a person to prison for life. A decent society must not do it
Judith Lichtenberg
essay
Cities
Living closer together
Urban density was once seen as a sign of unhealthiness and poverty. But today it is necessary to make cities sustainable
Max Holleran
essay
Subcultures
The great regression
To understand why so many adults are acting just like children, don’t blame Millennials – look to Japan in the 1990s
Matt Alt
essay
Computing and artificial intelligence
The people of the cloud
Hot, strenuous and unsung. There is nothing soft and fluffy about the caretaking work that enables our digital lives
Steven Gonzalez Monserrate
essay
Environmental history
Dancing with water
As storms, droughts and floods become more intense, what can the world learn from Japan’s profoundly wet history?
Giulio Boccaletti
essay
History of ideas
Reasons to be cheerful
A cheery mood, you might think, is a terribly self-absorbed response to serious times. But history tells us otherwise
Timothy Hampton
essay
Meaning and the good life
You’re astonishing!
Life can be better appreciated when you remember how wonderfully and frighteningly unlikely it is that you exist at all
Timm Triplett
essay
Demography and migration
The ungreat replacement
Workers in the West have indeed been repressed – but not by immigrants. The policies of their own governments are to blame
John Rapley
essay
Thinkers and theories
Why read Fichte today?
Inspired by Kant, Fichte launched a radical philosophical system based on subjectivity and aspiring to freedom for all
Gabriel Gottlieb
essay
Mathematics
Imaginary numbers are real
These odd values were long dismissed as bookkeeping. Now physicists are proving that they describe the hidden shape of nature
Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
essay
Ethics
Through the eyes of another
It’s impossible to shed our individual biases. So the best way to establish objectivity is by taking on new perspectives
Heidi Maibom
essay
War and peace
The will to fight
Throughout history, the most effective combatants have powered to victory on commitment to core values and collective resolve
Scott Atran