How Democracy Was Born
In the summer of 508 BC, an Athenian aristocrat named Cleisthenes made a decision that should not have worked. Losing a political struggle against a rival backed by…
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Why Do We Need the State?
In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. There was no single dramatic revolution moment that ended it, no new regime that rose to replace it—just a slow disintegration…
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What Is a Society, and Why Is It So Hard to Define?
A single person stranded on an island is not a society. Two strangers waiting at a bus stop, standing a few feet apart, are not a society either,…
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Why Societies Search for Scapegoats in Times of Crisis
In the summer of 1348, as the Black Death swept across Europe, killing perhaps a third of the population within a few years, rumors began to spread through…
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Why Anonymity Turns Ordinary People Cruel
A woman posts a photo of her new haircut. Within an hour, dozens of strangers have told her it’s hideous, that she looks old, that she should never…
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Why Is the Number of Digital Nomads Growing?
A decade ago, working from a beach in Bali or a café in Lisbon while holding down a job in London or Chicago sounded like a fantasy reserved…
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Why Freelance Work Is Becoming the New Default
For most of the twentieth century, a career meant a single employer, a steady paycheck, and a slow climb up one company’s ladder. That model is no longer…
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Why Platform Labor Is Growing So Fast
A delivery rider checks four different apps before breakfast, comparing which one is paying a bonus for the morning rush. A graphic designer in Manila logs into a…
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Can Universal Basic Income Ever Become Reality?
For three years, a research team backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman quietly ran one of the largest cash-transfer experiments in American history. Three thousand low-income adults in Texas…
