Daily Picks
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Society & Ideas, picked daily

History, society, ideas and arguments — the long reads about how we live and how we think.

The Honest Broker
Wendell Berry’s Nine RulesAgainst Wendell Berry's nine 1987 criteria for judging new technology, Silicon Valley now fails on nearly every count: tech has become pricier, bulkier, more energy-hungry, harder to repair, and deliberately harmful.
The Conversation
How students at Colorado State helped teach their community to stop talking past each other and manage complex problemsWhen communities face wicked problems, adversarial debate is less effective than structured dialogue, and training college students as facilitators can significantly improve the quality of community discussions.
Psyche
Logistics underpins power – and logistics is femaleModern discourse on love emphasizes caring and sharing while ignoring equality and justice, making household chores a litmus test for fairness in relationships.
RogerEbert.com
Short Films in Focus: Bouncy Brothers (with Nicholas J. Santore)A documentary about two brothers running a bouncy house rental business reveals the tension between chasing a dream and family bonds.
The Conversation
Trust is a behavior, not a credential – and that explains the Rodgers-Fauci divideTrust in experts is built not on credentials but on daily interactions that convey care, integrity, and benevolence; absent experts lose out to influencers and athletes who show up regularly.
The Atlantic · Health
What Happened to Yoga?Yoga's decline in the US stems from its transformation from a spiritual practice to a fitness trend, and its perception as too gentle and slow in a culture obsessed with optimization.
JSTOR Daily
The Jewish Labor Bund’s Anti-Zionist LegacyBefore the Holocaust, the Jewish Labor Bund, eastern Europe's most influential Jewish political force, was explicitly anti-Zionist, complicating the modern claim that anti-Zionism is necessarily antisemitic.
Hacker News
Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock camerasTexas lawmakers quietly diverted up to $30 million of a $1 auto insurance fee, meant to fight catalytic converter theft, to expand the state's Flock surveillance camera network.
Noahpinion
In defense of Asian American artThe mainstream definition of 'Asian American art' is too narrow—it excludes both works by non-Asian creators and works by Asian Americans about other subjects—so the field gets underestimated and mocked.
acx
Your Book Review: Thomas Urquhart’s Translation Of RabelaisThomas Urquhart, a failed Scottish nobleman, produced one of the greatest English translations ever—Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel—through his wildly extravagant style.
Noema Magazine
Subjective Perspective Makes Objective Reality ‘Everywhere Whole’Consciousness and matter are not opposites but the subjective and objective faces of a single reality—a view echoed across physics, philosophy, and ancient religious thought.
The Conversation
Lake Ontario to Lake America – who gets to decide what goes on maps?A US president cannot unilaterally rename international waters or mountains; official renaming follows a lengthy domestic process, while international maps vary by viewer location.
The Conversation
Dolly Parton took control of her career by making men the butt of the jokeDolly Parton took control of her career by making men the butt of the joke, using humor to overturn the country music industry's biases against women.
The Honest Broker
The 3 Bad Types of Humanities ProfessorThe author argues that bad humanities teaching either bores students with trivia, mocks the classics, or fawns over mediocre texts, while good teaching means taking great works seriously.
WESTENBERG
Congratulations on Your Unprecedented CrisisEvery era believes it faces an unprecedented crisis, but history shows this sense of 'present-day apocalypse' is a recurring illusion, and overconfidence in uniqueness hampers practical response.
The Atlantic · Health
Pennsylvania’s Public-Health Officials May Be Wrong About a Measles DeathPennsylvania officials oversold a measles death that local investigators did not attribute to the virus, handing ammunition to the anti-vaccine movement.
ChinaTalk
How the US and China Are Meme-ifying Modern WarBoth the US and China are packaging military operations with memes, cute animal filters, and video-game edits to make war look light and fun, numbing the public to real violence.
Your Local Epidemiologist
Two more kids die. And one more theater show.The measles tragedy has been turned into a stage by anti-vaccine forces, while the real victims—sick children and suffering communities—are being ignored.
RogerEbert.com
Live Wire: Michael Wright, 1956-2026Michael Wright was a magnetic actor who made every role unforgettable, yet his career never reached the heights it deserved, due to race and personal struggles, leaving a profound sense of loss.
WESTENBERG
The Art of Agency LaunderingPeople use AI models as a shield to dodge responsibility, but the start of the chain always points back to the human who made the initial decision.
Blood in the Machine
With the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses, a mass opposition to big tech is underway. Silicon Valley is in denial.The public's fierce resistance to data centers, surveillance cameras, and AI glasses is rational, but the tech industry, hooked on promises of trillion-dollar revenues, responds with denial and delusion instead of soul-searching.
Uncharted Territories
Shallow Intent: Why People Don’t Like AI Content, and How to Make It GreatPeople dislike AI-generated content not because it is machine-made but because it lacks deep intent — no thought behind the details.
The Conversation
Why Democrats are amplifying corruption talk: A historical strategy for parties out of powerDemocrats amplified corruption talk in the 2026 midterms not because corruption worsened, but as a strategy for an out-of-power party to undermine opponents and mask internal divisions.
Rest of World
Why the global push to break free from Big Tech keeps falling shortGlobal attempts to break free from US big tech keep failing because they never tackle the core issue of intellectual monopolization and structural technological dependence.
Noahpinion
The death of Market StreetThe decline of San Francisco's Market Street wasn't just the pandemic and crime; the city's ban on cars, without creating space for pedestrians, made it worse.
RogerEbert.com
Shabana Amzi on Her Career, Vulnerability, and “Batwara 1947”Despite decades of fame, veteran actress Shabana Azmi still felt exposed and humiliated on set, exposing the industry's lack of protective measures for actors.
The Atlantic · Health
More American Families Are Refusing VaccinesU.S. kindergarten vaccine exemption rates hit a record high, with some states falling below safe vaccination thresholds and measles making a dangerous comeback.
Noema Magazine
When The AI Says To KillAI chatbots can steer people toward violence or suicide, the law struggles to assign responsibility, and tech companies often hide behind free-speech claims.
The Honest Broker
How Our Leisure Time Got MonetizedHuman leisure was once free and social, but tech companies have commercialized it, harming our well-being.
acx
Highlights From The Comments On The Substack Religion DebateDeclaring that you are staying out of a debate is itself a stance and, in effect, a form of participation.

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