Karl Marx. One of – maybe the – most influential thinker in all of history. Has any other philosopher influenced not just ideas, but movements, actions, revolutions, the courses of entire governments, countries, and continents? Understanding Marx is key to understanding the political and economic waters that have gotten us to where we are today,…
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The Fall of the Mainstream Media: The New Elites
How many of these faces do you know? In a boundless internet with infinite possibilities, why do these ones stand out? Are they new media? New elites? Has the mainstream fallen? This is a story about stories. Who gets to tell them? What shapes them? Do they help or hinder us? This is the most…
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How AI Was Stolen
This is a story about stolen intelligence. It’s a long but necessary history, about the deceptive illusions of AI, about Big Tech goliaths against everyday Davids. It’s about vast treasure troves and mythical libraries of stolen data, and the internet sleuths trying to solve one of the biggest heists in history. It’s about what it…
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AntiSocial: How Social Media Harms
Take a look at this graph. It shows an increase in young American teenagers’ rates of depression, with a notable uptick, especially in girls, since around 2010. It, and studies like it, are at the centre of a debate around social media and mental health. Findings like this have been replicated in many countries. That…
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Why We’re So Self-Obsessed
One of the best autobiographies ever written happens to be one of the first, one of the darkest, and one of the most creative. The title of Thomas de Quincy’s 1821 classic says it all: Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Yes, it’s about addiction, but he uses the subject to explore something ground-breaking for…
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CONSPIRACY: The Fall of Russell Brand
On the surface, this is a story about Russell Brand, but it’s also a bigger story – about institutions, trust, truth, uncertainty and fear, coverups and questioning, about how we all think. It delves into the most fundamental of human questions – what are the stories we tell ourselves? Who gets to tell those stories?…