Ideas
Arguments. Essays. Inquiries.
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Joe Skipper / Reuters Should We Be Afraid of AI in the Criminal-Justice System?
Many states and cities are putting Americans’ fates in the hands of algorithms.
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Lucas Jackson / Reuters The Children America Throws Away
A young gun-rights activist is entitled to mercy and understanding. But so are the millions of other children who never get it.
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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters Bolton Keeps Trying to Goad Iran Into War
Throughout its history, America has attacked countries that did not threaten it.
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Piroschka Van De Wouw / Reuters Are Politics Regressing to Premodern Forms?
The sultan of Brunei has proposed stoning as a punishment for male sodomy.
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Image Source via Getty Give Us Fully Automated Luxury Communism
A new book proposes we let robots do all the work.
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Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP There Is No Middle Ground on Reparations
Americans who oppose reparations care more about responding to political expediency than about the emergency of inequality.
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Bitwise Goes Big
Four years ago, my wife, Deb, and I wrote about an ambitious and unusual tech startup called Bitwise Industries, in the gritty and long-struggling city of Fresno in California’s Central Valley.
For an introduction to Bitwise and its co-founders, Irma L. Olguin Jr. and Jake Soberal, please see “California’s Centers of Technology: Bay Area, L.A., San Diego, and … Fresno?” For what is at stake in their efforts to foster an inclusive, advanced-tech culture in an agriculture-dominated city, please see “Three Ways of Thinking About Fresno (and Why You Should Care).”
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Associated Press Balancing the Ledger on Juneteenth
The debate over reparations highlights the dual purpose of the holiday: celebrating emancipation but also demanding accountability for historical and present wrongs.
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Stephanie Keith / Getty Images Legal Abortion Isn’t the Problem to Be Solved
The real problem is that families are primed to see a fetal anomaly as a catastrophe in waiting.
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Mike Blake / Reuters Los Angeles Is in Crisis. So Why Isn’t It Building More Housing?
Rising rents are feeding a surge in homelessness.
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Associated Press The Astonishing Rise of Existential Threats
Have 2020 candidates been reading too much French philosophy?
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Amr Nabl / AP The Tragedy of Egypt's Mohamed Morsi
Mohamed Morsi was a deeply flawed but democratically elected president. His death shows how much his country has lost.
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Aly Song / Reuters Trump Never Stopped Campaigning Long Enough to Govern
The president is “officially” kicking off his reelection bid—for perhaps the fifth time.
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Lucas Jackson / Reuters How Harvard Should Handle the Kyle Kashuv Mess
The university and its critics can transform this polarizing culture war controversy into a constructive moment––if both take steps to placate the other side.
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Leah Millis / Reuters Trump’s Sinister Assault on Truth
The president appears committed to destroying the very idea of facts.
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Loren Elliott / Reuters Julián Castro Wants to Hold Police Accountable
In an interview, the presidential hopeful outlines ambitious plans for reforming immigration and policing.
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Brian Snyder / Reuters China Is Cutting Tariffs—For Everyone Else
As Trump focuses on disruption, Beijing is evidently operating on a higher level.
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Jim Dyson / Getty Birth Is Not the Finish Line
As the battle over abortion intensifies once again, lawmakers should listen to Americans’ moral intuitions about when personhood begins.
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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters What If the Chaos Is Strategic?
The storms that mark political life in Washington obscure the ruthlessly effective work happening across the federal government.
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Carlos Barria / Reuters Why Trump Offers Every Possible Answer
The president portrays himself as a straight talker, but he tends to try different responses to tough questions to see what sticks.
