Tag: human life
The Despots of Silicon Valley
If you had to capture Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students:
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
Friend:
The Law of Worst-Case Scenarios
The present Gaza war, initiated by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, poses important questions about both the morality and laws of war and the language of conflict. People everywhere are having heated conversations involving concepts such as targeting civilians, terrorism, proportionality, and genocide. They deploy these concepts when arguing about broad questions, like whether Hamas’s attacks on civilians are justified resistance, and about narrower ones, like whether a specific Israeli bombing of a refugee camp is justified to … Read more
The Aftermath of a Mass Slaughter at the Zoo
Rock Creek Park was still dark when the killer emerged from his den, a flame-colored phantom on black-stocking legs. With exquisite night vision, the fox surveyed the contours of the park’s forests and the curves in its stream. At the woodland’s edge, he could see the glow of Washington, D.C. He pressed his paws into exposed soil, indenting it with diamond-shaped prints that grew farther apart as he accelerated into a trot.
That it was early May indicates that
What the Longest Study on Human Happiness Found Is the Key to a Good Life
Turn your mind for a moment to a friend or family member you cherish but don’t spend as much time with as you would like. This needn’t be your most significant relationship, just someone who makes you feel energized when you’re with them, and whom you’d like to see more regularly.
How often do you see that person? Every day? Once a month? Once a year? Do the math and project how many hours annually you spend with them.
The Domino Effects of New Anti-Abortion Laws
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
Should Americans have a right to privacy and/or bodily autonomy? If so, what should those rights encompass and exclude? Abortion? Carrying a pistol? Selling a kidney? Taking heroin? Keeping a Swiss bank account? Assembling explosive devices
There Are More Than Two Sides to the Abortion Debate
Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.
Earlier this week I curated some nuanced commentary on abortion and solicited your thoughts on the same subject. What follows includes perspectives from several different sides of the debate. I hope each one informs your thinking, even if only about how some other people think.
We begin with a personal reflection.
Cheryl was 16 when New York State passed a statute legalizing abortion and 19 when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. At … Read more
Finding Nuance in the Abortion Debate
Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.
Conversations of Note
Abortion has been discussed intensely this past week due to oral arguments in a Supreme Court case that could significantly alter the constitutional right to the procedure in the United States. At issue is a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, contra current precedent. If upheld, the law will likely inspire new abortion restrictions in many red states.
The Legal Fight
We begin with the law’s sponsor,
How to Find Happiness When You’re Suffering
As we wind down this series, a paradox remains in our pursuit of happiness—joy comes to those who have known pain. In order to overcome struggle—breakups, illness, even death—we must first accept and acknowledge its inevitability. Exploring the darkness of our suffering may seem counterintuitive, but often it’s the only way to see the light.
In this week’s episode, Arthur C. Brooks sits down with BJ Miller, a palliative-care physician, to uncover how we can face our deepest fears, why
Worried About the Supply Chain? Stop Buying So Much Stuff
Lately, news stories about the supply chain tend to start in similar ways. The reader is dropped into an American container port, maybe in Long Beach, California, or Savannah, Georgia, full to bursting with trailer-size steel boxes loaded with toilet paper and exercise bikes and future Christmas presents. Some of the containers have gone untouched for weeks or months, waiting for their contents to be trucked to distribution centers. On the horizon, dozens of additional vessels are anchored and idle,
Eric Schmidt: AI Could Worsen Our Misinformation Problem
For years now, artificial intelligence has been hailed as both a savior and a destroyer. The technology really can make our lives easier, letting us summon our phones with a “Hey, Siri” and (more importantly) assisting doctors on the operating table. But as any science-fiction reader knows, AI is not an unmitigated good: It can be prone to the same racial biases as humans are, and, as is the case with self-driving cars, it can be forced to make murky