It’s long past time to regulate social media like any other utility.
As disappointing revelations about beloved companies go, the disastrous mess at Time’s Up being one of the more surprising and the dark underbelly of the Lincoln Project being one of the least, Facebook barely registers.
Of course Facebook has a toxic work environment. Now that we have a more convenient label for that sorry state of vocational life, plenty of disgruntled employees are laying claim to it, some with better reasons than others. …
Why do we worship celebrities again?
Of the revelations of the past two years- and there have been some- one of the most eye-popping for many people has been the true nature of humanity.
Some people are really quite terrible.
This wasn’t a surprise to everyone; any social worker or ER nurse could have told you so. Forget wearing masks or vaccinating themselves: That’s a lot to expect from people who still drive drunk, abuse their children, commit armed robbery. People lie, cheat, steal, defraud the elderly, die of drug overdoses.
They kill people. And no matter what you’ve seen…
Granted, what they are trying to do is impossible.
Years ago, potential jury members were being interviewed in the case of a man charged with drunk driving.
One prospective juror, when asked by the judge to give any reasons she might not be able to be impartial in this case, gave an obviously heartfelt reply.
“My brother was convicted of drunk driving three times and was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison,” she said. “He was barely 20, our father had just died. He needed drug treatment, counseling. Instead, they sent him to prison. He lost his wife, his…
For every misguided action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The news coming out of Afghanistan in recent weeks has troubled the world. It is 2021, and the revolution (for good or ill) will be live-streamed.
As bad as the violence has been on the ground in Afghanistan, the worst is far from over for the Afghan people. The Taliban, well-known for its brutality, isn’t even in full control of the country. ISIS-K and other fringe radical groups even more committed to bloodshed are also vying for control via their preferred method.
Which is terrorism.
While Afghanistan bleeds, and…
But it could reconcile humanity to its differences.
“Good manners,” according to the very best definition of good manners, “is making people feel more comfortable.”
No matter how fraught the situation, using this particular, near-universal definition of good manners can improve it. It means everything from politely offering someone a chair, to refraining from using profanity in certain company, to not offending others with our table manners, and a hundred other things besides.
Good manners, like most other “soft skills” is a competency which can be taught, learned and practiced. Honing good manners is important because most of would like…
Religious fundamentalists the world over have a great deal in common. Some are better at hiding it than others.
“Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned,” wrote Grahame Wood for the Atlantic way back in 2015 in a piece called “What ISIS Really Wants”.
At the time, the world’s worst terrorists seemed to be concentrated within the newly christened “ISIS”.
Around then ISIS was also, unfortunately for them as it turned out, attempting to run a terrorist operation and their own country out of the…
Why invest billions in education and abandon the returns?
Many heroic, savior-types the world over and throughout history have had the exact same problem- at least at first.
Those uninitiated to peace work- though they are usually people who genuinely want to help make the world a better place- sometimes try to help in ways that are not helpful. Missionaries, human aid workers, volunteers, governments; many have fallen victim to a kind of self-centered, myopic thinking which usually makes a mess of things.
It goes like this:
Imagine a guest is invited to a party. When they arrive, things are…
After decades of evading justice, the subject of HBO’s award-winning documentary, “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,” has been convicted of murder at last.
In the annals of true crime history, no story is quite like that of Robert Durst.
As any fans of the genre likely know, the Information Age has brought with it a plethora of clues about famous unsolved murders and disappearances, the Durst case being no exception.
It isn’t as if humans haven’t always been fascinated by such things. The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby is only one famous crime which captured the…
Facebook changed its business plan from successfully running a social media platform to unsuccessfully saving the world. Can it last?
Back when Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t an expert on politics, social policy, censorship or electioneering, he was just a college kid with a big idea.
Or perhaps, depending on who you believe, he was a college kid looking for a big idea. Whatever the case, when Mark Zuckerberg met the Winklevoss twins, Facebook was born. …
Amid all the chaos, sports organizations, non-profits, and world governments have been working together to evacuate Afghanistan’s female athletes.
Once upon a happier time, former Afghan national soccer team captain Khalida Popal told her teammates to, “to stand strong, to be bold, to be visible” as ambassadors of equal rights for women in Afghanistan.
After Kabul fell to the Taliban, Popal- who currently resides in Copenhagen- had a much different message for her teammates.
“Today I’m calling them and telling them, take down their names, remove their identities, take down their photos for their safety,” she told Reuters in an…
