Essays Archive - Page 45 of 131

For Only $184 million You Can Have a Bespoke Labor Category For Your Business: A Conversation with Alex Press about Gig Work

Unproductive Labor, Episode Two

June 7, 2021 • by Luke Mergner and Pete Sinnott

In this episode, we have a conversation with Alex Press, a staff writer at Jacobin magazine who covers a range of topics around labor in the United States, including the gig economy. We talked about the gig economy, what’s at stake for companies in and workers in categorizing workers as employees, ...

Science & Technology

Back to Belief

To believe in science – or that the aim of science is to deceive us – is to confuse opinion with belief

June 7, 2021 • by Michaël Fœssel

_____ When COVID-19 invited itself into our lives, it did not arrive alone. In its wake came a global flood of knowledge on respiratory viruses and their prevention and treatment. It has been pointed out that, in recent history, far more serious epidemics have swept through society, particularly the Spanish flu ...

Science & Technology

What Computers Can Explain

About how humans learn

June 7, 2021 • by Jacob Browning

_____ The mystery of learning is as old as philosophy: how does the nearly insensate newborn become, within just a few years, a walking, talking, intelligent being? In his new book entitled How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now, Stanislas Dehaene illuminates the great ...

Economy

The Las Vegas Raiders and a Raid on Nevada’s Finances

Sports and debt in the desert

June 7, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ In 2016, the football team now called the Las Vegas Raiders received the largest stadium subsidy in American history — $750 million — to ditch their allegiance to Oakland, California and relocate to Sin City. The state legislature approved the $750 million, which contributed to the $2 billion tab to build the ...

The Las Vegas Raiders and a Raid on Nevada’s Finances

Columnists

Why Maya Wiley Could Be New York City’s First Woman Mayor

Now the top progressive in a Democratic mayoral primary that no one can poll, her error-free campaign and progressive chops could push this first-time candidate over the line

June 7, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ It’s a move that may provide an important last-minute jolt of energy for undecided progressives: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY-14) has endorsed activist and civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley for Mayor of New York City. And it isn’t just an Instagram moment: it is a recognition of what Wiley has already ...

Why Maya Wiley Could Be New York City’s First Woman Mayor

Columnists

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

We need a functioning government. National commissions rarely solve the problems they are formed to address–and often, they create new ones

June 2, 2021 • by Claire Potter

On Friday, May 9, the Senate failed to pass a bill establishing a bipartisan federal commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol, an insurrection intended to block Joe Biden from being inaugurated as president. The cloture vote was 54-35, six votes shy of the number needed to bring the ...

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

Columnists

No, It’s not Shocking that QAnon Believers Long for a Military coup. For Them, This Is the End Times

There are millions of Americans for whom hate is their faith

June 2, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ Donie O’Sullivan is a reporter for CNN. His beat appears to be American conspiracy theories. He was on Anderson Cooper’s show last night with reporting on a QAnon conference last weekend during which former Donald Trump adviser and pardoned traitor Michael Flynn said a Myanmar-style military coup “should happen” in ...

No, It’s not Shocking that QAnon Believers Long for a Military coup. For Them, This Is the End Times

Politics

The Perfect Dictatorship

The perfect dictatorship is not one in which there are no elections. The perfect dictatorship is one in which the government does not lose elections

June 2, 2021 • by Francisco Rodríguez

_____ It was during the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, whom many saw as one of the champions of economic reforms (even today, some people remember him that way), that Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa decided to break one of the unwritten rules of Mexican politics. In a televised discussion ...

Media

The Rise of the “Influencer-Intellectuals”

How a new generation of social media leftists is marketing a counter-culture online to young radicals

June 2, 2021 • by Annabelle Schwartz-Horney

_____ I am an avid consumer of too many podcasts, and, like many, have a gnawing Instagram habit. I willingly admit I consume more than enough media to entertain a small village. The majority of what I take in walks the line between my study of political theory and commentary on ...

Economy

Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up?

Voters think corporate subsidies help the local economy

June 2, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ One of the major problems with communities doling out tax breaks and other favors to large corporations is that doing so disadvantages their own, local, usually smaller, businesses. After all, those monetary favors lower costs and offer subsidies for the big guys, making it easier for them to “compete” against ...

Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up?

Gender

Murder, Marines, and the Mojave

On the 20th anniversary of its publication, author Deanne Stillman contemplates the repercussions of her much-discussed book, “Twentynine Palms”

June 2, 2021 • by Bliss Bowen and Deanne Stillman

_____ If you live in Southern California, odds are better than even that you’ve heard about Twentynine Palms. Deanne Stillman’s 2001 book examines the barbaric rape and murder of 15-year-old Mandi Scott and 20-year-old Rosalie Ortega in August 1991 by a Gulf War veteran. The murderer was stationed at the nearby ...

Columnists

Democrat-in-Chief

Why the ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation’ is a fight for democracy Itself

June 1, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ On Memorial Day, President Joe Biden spoke at Arlington National Cemetery to remember those who gave the “last full measure of devotion” to the United States, dying in our service. His speech was a full-throated defense of the cause for which those soldiers gave their lives: democracy. “Democracy is more than ...

Essays

For Only $184 million You Can Have a Bespoke Labor Category For Your Business: A Conversation with Alex Press about Gig Work

Unproductive Labor, Episode Two

Back to Belief

To believe in science – or that the aim of science is to deceive us – is to confuse opinion with belief

What Computers Can Explain

About how humans learn

The Las Vegas Raiders and a Raid on Nevada’s Finances

Sports and debt in the desert

Why Maya Wiley Could Be New York City’s First Woman Mayor

Now the top progressive in a Democratic mayoral primary that no one can poll, her error-free campaign and progressive chops could push this first-time candidate over the line

We Don’t Need a Commission to Study January 6

We need a functioning government. National commissions rarely solve the problems they are formed to address–and often, they create new ones

No, It’s not Shocking that QAnon Believers Long for a Military coup. For Them, This Is the End Times

There are millions of Americans for whom hate is their faith

The Perfect Dictatorship

The perfect dictatorship is not one in which there are no elections. The perfect dictatorship is one in which the government does not lose elections

Corporate Handouts Kill Small Businesses. So Why Do Politicians Continue to Offer Them Up?

Voters think corporate subsidies help the local economy

Murder, Marines, and the Mojave

On the 20th anniversary of its publication, author Deanne Stillman contemplates the repercussions of her much-discussed book, “Twentynine Palms”

Democrat-in-Chief

Why the ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation’ is a fight for democracy Itself

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