essay
Public health
It’s dirty work
In caring for and bearing with human suffering, hospital staff perform extreme emotional labour. Is there a better way?
Susanna Crossman
video
Art
‘If you’re creative, why can’t you create a solution?’ One artist’s imaginative activism
17 minutes
essay
The future
Prehistory in the atomic age
To understand the terrifying futures unleashed by nuclear weapons, we urgently need to return to the deep past
Maria Stavrinaki
video
The ancient world
An ancient Roman’s hilarious (and perhaps relatable) response to a social snub
2 minutes
essay
Economics
Who bears the risk?
Under the guise of empowerment and freedom, politicians and business are offloading lifethreatening risk to individuals
Suzanne Schneider
essay
Political philosophy
The battles over beginnings
Niccolò Machiavelli’s profound insights about the violent origins of political societies help us understand the world today
David Polansky
video
Death
A hunter’s lyrical reflection on the humbling business of being mortal
6 minutes
essay
Anthropology
Societies of perpetual movement
Why do hunter-gatherers refuse to be sedentary? New answers are emerging from the depths of the Congolese rainforest
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
essay
Gender and identity
Silencing of the girls
Girls are still in a bad bargain with patriarchy: the price of relationship is keeping their true thoughts to themselves
Carol Gilligan
essay
Religion
Inventing Hindu supremacy
Vinayak Savarkar ridiculed Gandhi, preaching that anti-Muslim violence was the only means to unite India into a nation
Mihir Dalal
essay
History of technology
Indexing the information age
Over a weekend in 1995, a small group gathered in Ohio to unleash the power of the internet by making it navigable
Monica Westin
essay
Political philosophy
Liberal socialism now
As the crisis of democracy deepens, we must return to liberalism’s revolutionary and egalitarian roots
Matthew McManus
essay
Sports and games
The moral risks of fandom
Players, coaches and team owners sometimes do terrible things. What, if anything, should their fans do about that?
Jake Wojtowicz & Alfred Archer
essay
Animals and humans
Ant geopolitics
Over the past four centuries quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own
John Whitfield
video
Rituals and celebrations
Meet the entrepreneur whose business is crafting perfect peak experiences
12 minutes
essay
Religion
There was no Jesus
How could a cult leader draw crowds, inspire devotion and die by crucifixion, yet leave no mark in contemporary records?
Gavin Evans
video
Human rights and justice
A reporter orphaned by night raids in Afghanistan investigates their cruel legacy
17 minutes
essay
Computing and artificial intelligence
Frontier AI ethics
Generative agents will change our society in weird, wonderful and worrying ways. Can philosophy help us get a grip on them?
Seth Lazar
video
Work
Does capitalism make ‘non-playable characters’ of us all? An uncanny exploration
21 minutes
essay
Thinkers and theories
Against power
As a republican, Sophie de Grouchy argued that sympathy, not domination, must be the glue that holds society together
Sandrine Bergès & Eric Schliesser
essay
Philosophy of language
Metaphors make the world
Woven into the fabric of language, metaphors shape how we understand reality. What happens when we try using new ones?
Benjamin Santos Genta
video
Architecture
‘I listen to the land’ – poetry and greenery intertwine in Emilio Ambasz’s architecture
9 minutes
essay
Economics
The cruelty of crypto
Selling itself as the new American dream, crypto exposes the vulnerable to fraud and scams, and loads risk onto the poor
Rachel O’Dwyer
video
Design and fashion
The ornate, the aromatic, the cruel – Valentine’s cards before the age of Hallmark
16 minutes