By going with the grain of how we think and act, the state-employed ‘nudgers’ can covertly shape our behaviour in a direction deemed desirable by the regime of the day – an appealing prospect for any government. The ubiquitous deployment of these behavioural strategies – which frequently rely on inflating emotional distress to change behaviour – raises profound moral questions.
The Nudge: Ethically Dubious and Ineffective Continue Reading
The Supreme Court itself is a victim of the censorship it now downplays. The majority does not understand the media dynamics of the Internet. It doesn’t grasp the interwoven array of public, private, and non-profit players working to suppress information.
The Censorship Boomerang Continue Reading
We owe understanding, catharsis, and lessons learned to the thousands of people whom we allowed to die during Covid and to their loved ones. We owe it to our children whose education, social life, and mental health we significantly disrupted.
The Third Period: My Covid Speech in the Czech Parliament Continue Reading
Supporting Brownstone is a way of making a difference and effectively saying: we are not willing to give in and give up. We’ve come too far as societies and people to turn back now. We will not give the keys to the kingdom to Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, Sam Bankman-Fried, much less the New York Times and Mark Zuckerberg. They might seem to have all the money and power but we have something they lack: dedicated moral passion to tell the truth.
Brownstone, Moral Courage, and the Fight of Our Lives Continue Reading
In Britain, Orwell’s country of origin, seven decades after the publication of 1984, it turns out that Big Brother is Always Watching. Perhaps this is a good moment to remind everyone that Orwell’s classic dystopian novel was meant to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
The Biomedical Security State, British Edition Continue Reading
If I cannot attempt to physically force or coerce, or covertly manipulate people into accepting my ideas, or trying to create the society that I envision, then the mechanism for change needs to be through inspiration.
To Piece Together a Broken World Continue Reading
We are turning back the clock: away from high civilization to a much lower form without a solid guarantee of even the freedom to travel, while giving up the dream of universal human rights. Confidence in a better world with more human connection is being replaced by isolation, fear, and compliance as guiding principles. The price will be very high.
End These Travel Restrictions Now Continue Reading
If there is anything that the Covid phenomenon has shown us, it is that in the third decade of the 21st century, it is precisely our most putatively literate classes that are least capable of accepting the various states of contingency implicit in the work of engaging with the vast complexity of the world.
Stuck to Our Own Metaphors Continue Reading
Through the film, ‘those behind it’ warn us that there is going to be a cyberattack, so that we will think there won’t be one (because ‘no one would say so openly,’ would they?), but in fact, they are planning a cyberattack. The deception is therefore more sophisticated than it seems at first sight. The only problem is, unlike the Freudian story about the two Polish Jews, it is no joke.
Must We ‘Leave the World Behind’? Continue Reading
Academia was full of eccentric professors with various crazy ideas and habits (some brilliant), naïve students, and pompous administrators; but they all adhered to the same standard of knowledge. This led not just to scientific discovery and technological progress, but to every other kind of progress: economic, political, social, and ethical.
The Decline and Fall of the University Continue Reading
