CATEGORIES

FAILING TO REFORM SOCIAL SECURITY MEANS MANDATORY CUTS

WHEN PRESIDENT JOE Biden sparred with Republicans during his State of the Union address in February, he vowed to veto any attempt at cutting Social Security benefits. Yet the budget proposal he unveiled in March lacked a plan to avert the mandatory Social Security benefit cuts that are quickly approaching.

THE BIOMEDICAL TESTING REVOLUTION

“CANCER SIGNAL NOT detected.” That was the happy finding of my Galleri multicancer early detection (MCED) blood test from the Silicon Valley biotech company GRAIL. The Galleri test presages an emerging wave of new precision biomedical tests produced by a panoply of biotech startups.

Diana Alvarez Knows She's 'Doing the Right Thing' Running a D.C. Smoke Shop

Diana Alvarez’s son always wanted to go to college, so she started working in a smoke shop to earn some extra cash.

Fighting the Feds in the American South

JEFFERSON COWIE IS a prodigious researcher who often shows sensitivity to historical complexities, and his narrative skills shine. The Vanderbilt historian’s latest book, Freedom’s Dominion, is readable and often provocative. But it superimposes a dubious thesis about Southern his tory over the facts, arguing that “land dispossession, slavery, power, and oppression do not stand in contrast to freedom— they are expressions of it.”

Who Owns Your Brain Data?

WE ARE RAPIDLY heading toward a world of brain transparency, in which scientists, doctors, governments, and companies may peer into our brains and minds at will,” Duke University bioethicist Nita A. Farahany declares in The Battle for Your Brain. As a defense against this neuro surveillance, her timely book argues for a right to cognitive liberty that includes “mental privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination”—a right that allows us to track and hack our own brains but bars us from trespassing on other minds.

MARC ANDREESSEN ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE

Is the A.I. breakthrough for real this time?

ZEROT AMERICA

SECRECY IS THE DEGRADED CURRENCY OF THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT.

The Most Hated Person on Campus

HOW A SHAKY ALLEGATION IGNITED A FRENZY AND DESTROYED A YOUNG WOMAN'S LIFE

WILL 2024 BRING THE RETURN OF THE NEOCONS?

THE GOP NOMINEE CAN FORGE A HUMBLER PATHOR TURN BACK TO FAILED NEOCONSERVATISM.

THE LEFT-RIGHT SPECTRUM IS MOSTLY MEANINGLESS

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE DOESN'T FIT ON A SIMPLE MAP.

Storks Don't Take Orders From the State

FALLING BIRTHRATES, PRO-NATALIST POLICIES, AND THE LIMITS OF POPULATION CONTROL

Where's Your Adderall?

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, prescriptions for Adderall, the stimulant medication used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), skyrocketed.

A.I. Is Here

ChatGPT can create everything from novel dad jokes to fairly well-written computer code. At my prompting, it wrote a serviceable sonnet descri# Gilgamesh’s failed quest for immortality.

THE EXPENSIVE SEDUCTIVE NOSTALGIA OF FIELD OF DREAMS

WHY ARE SO MANY FILMGOERS AND POLITICIANS EAGER TO PROP UP BASEBALL'S BOONDOGGLES?

PUBLIC UNIONS VS.THE PUBLIC GOOD

ELECTED LEADERS COME AND GO, BUT PUBLIC UNIONS JUST SAY NO.

PROPOSITION: BE OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE WORLD

AFFIRMATIVE: Optimism Is the Rational Approach

PROPOSITION: BITCOIN IS THE FUTURE! OF FREE EXCHANGE

AFFIRMATIVE: Bitcoin Is an Effective Tool for Liberty

PROPOSITION: MENTALLY ILL HOMELESS PEOPLE MUST BE LOCKED UP FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

AFFIRMATIVE: Choosing the Streets Over Shelters Is Dangerous for Everyone

PROPOSITION: THE U.S. SHOULD INCREASE FUNDING FOR THE DEFENSE OF UKRAINE

AFFIRMATIVE: Ukraine's Liberal Democracy Deserves Our Aid

PROPOSITION: THE E.U. WAS A MISTAKE

AFFIRMATIVE: Small States Are Best, and the E.U. Is Huge

PROPOSITION: TO PRESERVE INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY, GOVERNMENT MUST AFFIRMATIVELY INTERVENE IN THE CULTURE WAR

AFFIRMATIVE: You May Not Be Interested in the Culture War, But the Culture War Is Interested in You

PROPOSITION: DEMOCRACY IS THE WORST FORM OF GOVERNMENT EXCEPT FOR ALL THE OTHERS

AFFIRMATIVE:  When We Are Governed, Ballots Are Best

PROPOSITION: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SHOULD BE REGULATED

AFFIRMATIVE: Don't Trust Governments With A.I. Facial Recognition Technology

PROPOSITION: IT'S TIME FOR A NATIONAL DIVORCE

AFFIRMATIVE: A National Divorce Is an Opportunity for Peaceful Coexistence

DEBATE IS FOR THE COOL KIDS

\"STUDIES SHOW THAT debate is good for you\" is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect someone in an ill-fitting blazer and awkward shoes to say at a high school debate competition.

'All the Parents Want Is a Chance To Make That Choice'

Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears wants state education dollars "to follow the child instead of the brick building."

Sen. Pat Toomey on Cryptocurrency and FTX's Collapse

Former Sen. Pat Toomey’s time in Congress, which began in 1999 after he won a House seat in eastern Pennsylvania, officially ended on January 3 when the new Senate session began.

Is Online Illness Culture Keeping People Sick?

WHILE THE FDA KEEPS EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS OUT OF REACH, THE SPOONIE WORLD MAKES A DIAGNOSIS INTO AN IDENTITY.

SHODDY RESEARCH REINFORCES ANTI-VAPING NARRATIVE

Three years later, the World Journal of Oncology published a study that claimed vapers face about the same cancer risk as smokers. The authors said “prospective studies should be planned to mitigate the risk.”

THE BUDGET BATTLE BOOK

That job includes authoring, debating, and passing a budget for the astounding amount of discretionary federal spending that Congress is charged with managing each year—in this case, about $1.7 trillion.