Reading Time: 6 minutes If we can’t manage our mis- and disinformation crisis better, how can we ever hope to tackle our environmental, political, and economic issues well?
crime
Posted inCrime and Punishment
The blind defenses of Russell Brand
Reading Time: 4 minutes Comedian, actor, raconteur, and of-late YouTuber Russell Brand has recently been accused of a number of sexual offenses. This has set social and mainstream media alight with opinions ranging from “I told you so” to “say it ain’t so” to “stand with Brand.” Although there are mounting seemingly credible allegations surfacing concerning Brand, it might […]
Posted inCulture
We are becoming more moral, not less. So why all the moaning to the contrary?
Reading Time: 7 minutes There is no doubt that society is becoming less religious. Statistics from the US, the UK, and many other developed nations show that religiosity is in decline. As a result of this demographic shift, there are those in society (particularly among the religious) who claim that, as a result, we are becoming less moral. Science.org […]
Posted inTechnology
AI-driven internet opens floodgates for child sex abuse images
Reading Time: 5 minutes In the past week, recent reports and investigations have revealed a damning state of affairs for the role of so-called artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in the child sex abuse material (CSAM) market. While machine learning software, including large language models like ChatGPT, has been the subject of great scrutiny as corporations test the limits on […]
Posted inPolitics
After the indictment: The deeper political schism behind the spectacle of Trump
Reading Time: 8 minutes After Trump received a 37-count federal criminal indictment, reactions ran the full spectrum, including incitements to armed conflict. But calls to extremist action have been part of Trumpism from the start.
Posted inCrime and Punishment
Is the sun setting on solitary confinement?
Reading Time: 6 minutes In American prisons, solitary confinement refers to the practice of keeping people in concrete boxes the size of wheelchair-accessible bathroom stalls, 22 or more hours a day, 7 days a week, for months and years on end. But this practice may be coming to an end.
Posted inSociology
Reducing crime is easy—and we actually know how to do it
Reading Time: 5 minutes Back in the Middle Ages, in the villages and hamlets of Northern Europe, when a spate of violent crime would erupt, local chieftains and magistrates would call for “roaming prayer groups” to combat the societal scourge. Nah, just kidding. That’s Republican leaders spitballing in the here and now. Take for example former Kentucky Governor Matt […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
To forgive or not to forgive
Reading Time: 9 minutes Raised Roman Catholic, I was indoctrinated in childhood with the idea that forgiveness is a cardinal duty of faith, which then saddled me with knee-jerk guilt whenever I failed to bestow it. But as I think objectively about this moral ethos many decades later, I’m unconvinced it’s essential for human harmony and contentment. In fact, […]
Posted inLaw
A summary of Trump’s crimes. Well, his recent ones
Reading Time: 7 minutes The past has finally caught up with Donald Trump. This has been a long and torturous story to show that eventually, and even when we thought it wouldn’t, bad people doing bad things will end up in trouble. But what exactly has the former president done wrong? The Jan. 6 insurrection While Andrew Clyde, the […]
Posted inRacial justice
Mental illness doesn’t cause mass shootings. Hate armed for war does
Reading Time: 6 minutes First Amendment-loving conservatives have long blamed isolated mental-health issues in very angry individuals but never the availability of guns as the proximate cause of America’s decades-long epidemic of horrific mass shootings in America. Or they claim mass shootings are hardly a problem at all and that, by the way, overall gun violence is supposedly down […]