Envy’s Hidden Hand

Namibian hunter-gatherers deride those who stand out. What does this tell us about why, and how, we care about fairness?

Echoes of a Black Hole

Ripples in space-time herald the demise of general relativity and its replacement by a quantum theory of gravity.

Not in Someone Else’s Footsteps

Studying literature from the Gulag.

The Nobel Prize for Literature Is a Scandal All by Itself.

They should just give it to me.

Dwight McCarter

The tracker.

After the Afterlife of Theory

The remains of a discourse, from the liberal academy to the authoritarian right.

More Than My Old Embryology Class

Scientists reveal the genetic roadmap to building an entire organism from a single cell.

Arena

The Earth.

Ya Think

New Zealand removes prostitution from skills list for visa hopefuls.

Self-regulation

Shielding bad doctors, worse regulators, and not protecting patients.

Isle of the Cross

Whatever Happened to the Book Herman Melville Wrote After ‘Moby-Dick’?

Writer Picks Up Poker For Book Stunt

Wins so much money that the book is on hold.

Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry

People who are short on relatives can hire a husband, a mother, a grandson. The resulting relationships can be more real than you’d expect.

Why Is the Human Brain So Efficient?

How massive parallelism lifts the brain’s performance above that of AI.

Every Sufi Master

 Is, in a sense, a Freudian psychotherapist.

Letter to an Aspiring Intellectual

Outlines of the life of the mind.

Style Is an Algorithm

No one is original anymore, not even you.

How Poetry and Math Intersect

Both require economy and precision—and each perspective can enhance the other.

Human Nature Matters

The only way to construct a robust philosophy for life is to have a clear and realistic picture of what makes humans tick.

Books to Read Instead

Or anything by Yours truly.

Meyer Lemons

We have a tree at The Bolthole.

Bushido

Not quite as interpreted in Samurai Road.

Tranquility Base Here