Ideas, opinions, politics, humanities
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The social media utopia: What if people started collaborating?
Social media promised to connect humanity. Instead, it often became extraordinarily efficient at sorting humanity into hostile camps. Israel or Palestine. Capitalism or socialism. Left or right. Conservative or progressive. Religious or atheist. Pro-immigration or anti-immigration. Feminist or traditionalist. Western or anti-Western. Pick a subject, choose your tribe, follow the appropriate accounts, block the heretics,…
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We are not racist, but the dead professor was black
The death of Professor Jason Arday has left British academia in a state of shock and soul-searching. As politicians and colleagues call for a “moment of reflection,” a deeply uncomfortable question lingers beneath the surface: was the relentless pursuit of the 41-year-old academic driven by legitimate concerns about plagiarism, or was it a racially charged…
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The situation in Afghanistan now: Five years under the Taliban
Five years ago, on August 15, 2021, Taliban fighters entered Kabul. Afghanistan’s Western-backed government collapsed with astonishing speed, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and two decades of American and NATO involvement ended in scenes of desperation at Kabul airport. Five years later, the Taliban are still there. They have not been overthrown by a…
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Is “misogynistic” America ready for president AOC?
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spent much of her political career being treated as simultaneously too young, too radical, too inexperienced and too influential. Now another question is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss: could she become president of the United States? The speculation is no longer confined to progressive activists or political obsessives. The Guardian has examined…
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Every celebrity is autistic now. This must stop
“Well, Mr. Bryxí, I can smell your autism from a long distance,” my psychiatrist once told me. I decided to ask him a question. “How many autistic people have you diagnosed during your career?” “Maybe six. And I have been doing this for 40 years.” “Do you currently have any other autistic patient besides me,…
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Are Trump and Musk the best friends again?
A year ago, Donald Trump and Elon Musk appeared to have transformed one of the strangest alliances in American politics into one of its most spectacular feuds. Musk attacked Trump’s spending plans, floated the creation of a new political party and even dragged the Epstein files into their increasingly personal dispute. Trump responded in characteristic…
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The spectrum of religious repression: From social pressure to death
Religious repression does not always arrive with police officers, prison cells or executioners. Sometimes it arrives at the dinner table. A teenager tells his parents that he no longer believes in God. Nobody threatens him. Nobody calls the authorities. His mother becomes upset, his father tells him that he is going through a phase, and…
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Would brutal human rights abuses in Iran stop with regime change?
There are many ways to discuss Iran. We can talk about nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment, Israel, the Persian Gulf, oil, sanctions, Russia, China, the United States and the balance of power in the Middle East. These subjects dominate international coverage because governments naturally view Iran primarily through the lens of geopolitics. For once, put all…
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God loves you and has a list of conditions
God loves you. This is probably one of the most comforting sentences Christianity has ever produced. The creator of hundreds of billions of galaxies knows that you exist. He knows your fears, your hopes, your failures and presumably where you left your keys. More importantly, he loves you with a depth that no human being…
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Can religion turn gay people straight?
Imagine discovering that you are gay and being informed that the solution is remarkably straightforward. You simply need enough prayer, enough faith, enough counseling and perhaps enough determination. Eventually, according to some religious movements, heterosexuality should emerge from the other end. It sounds wonderfully convenient. There is only one irritating obstacle: science. For decades, religious…