Technology

Society articles offer in-depth analysis and opinion on social policy, ethics, entertainment, philosophy, and broader cultural dynamics — exploring their impacts on individual liberty, community, family, faith, human dignity, open dialogue, and everyday social life.

We critically examine pressing issues like the erosion of intellectual courage and dissidence, betrayal by institutions (including churches), declining quality in entertainment and movies, harms from lockdown policies exceeding pandemic effects, rising totalitarianism as an assault on the soul, dangers of universal basic income as modern control, autism societal understanding, fear-based societal nightmares, and pathways to reclaim human nature through community support, personal freedoms, and nobler alternatives to past ideologies. Brownstone provides alternative perspectives on restoring truth, dignity, and healthy society amid institutional failures and technocratic threats.

All society articles from Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages to reach a global audience, encourage international discussion, and inspire readers worldwide to defend cultural values, ethical principles, and human connections.

Australian censorship

The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs

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The Australian stereotype of mocking self-important authorities was tepid at best during the crisis, and what questioning of authority did take place appears to have been quickly memory-holed by the spell-checkers-turned-fact-checkers at the Department of Home Affairs “Extremsim” team. With each passing day, Idiocracy is looking more and more like prophecy.

The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs Read Journal Article

disinformation

What about the Permanent Task-Force on Disinformation? A Question for Elon Musk

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Who is to say something is misinformation, who is the arbiter of that? Well, there you have it. In the case of Twitter and all the platforms cooperating with the EU, the European Commission is the arbiter of that, since it is the Commission that will decide if Twitter and the other platforms are doing enough to combat it.

What about the Permanent Task-Force on Disinformation? A Question for Elon Musk Read Journal Article

Surveillance

The Road to Oceania

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For many, living in a state of constant surveillance seems only natural – especially for younger generations that have lived their lives online and have had their every movement since childhood tracked by their parents through their phones to ensure their safety. News of government doing the same, although sometimes with fancier tools like automatic license plate readers and facial recognition, no longer even causes a stir. 

The Road to Oceania Read Journal Article

technology tyranny

Technology and a Tyranny Worse than Prison 

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There is a lesson in this as far as the ineluctable need for action is concerned when rational argument with would-be oppressors gets one nowhere. This is especially the case when it becomes obvious that these oppressors are not remotely interested in a reasonable exchange of ideas, but summarily resort to the current unreasonable incarnation of technical rationality, namely AI-controlled mass surveillance, with the purpose of subjugating entire populations. 

Technology and a Tyranny Worse than Prison  Read Journal Article

fear narrative

How Did All of this Happen?

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All the key stakeholders “bought in.” Even if some people eventually realized some of the narratives may have been dubious or false, they’d already risked their reputations and careers by zealously pushing or endorsing these narratives … so they weren’t going to suddenly admit they might have been wrong. In retrospect, how “they” made all the madness happen was surprisingly easy.

How Did All of this Happen? Read Journal Article

15-minute cities

The Real Threat of 15-Minute Cities

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The word “smart” is really just a synonym for surveillance. These ultra-modern, tech-saturated monstrosities use hundreds of thousands of sensors to vacuum up copious amounts of personal data. FMC policies are currently being rolled out in cities such as Barcelona, Bogotá, Melbourne, Paris, and the dystopian wasteland known as Portland. What do these cities have in common? Surveillance technology.

The Real Threat of 15-Minute Cities Read Journal Article

podcast censorship

Censors Use AI to Target Podcasts

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The collapse of support for free speech among Western pseudo-elites is the foundation of so many other problems, from medicine to war. Misinformation is the natural state of the world. Open science and vigorous debate are the tools we deploy to become less wrong over time. Individual and collective decision-making depend on them.

Censors Use AI to Target Podcasts Read Journal Article

WHO pandemic treaty

U.S. Government Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over U.S. Pandemic Policies

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Signatories also agree to support the official narrative in a pandemic. Specifically, they will “conduct regular social listening and analysis to identify the prevalence and profiles of misinformation” and “design communications and messaging strategies for the public to counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news, thereby strengthening public trust.”

U.S. Government Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over U.S. Pandemic Policies Read Journal Article

EU Twitter

The EU Files: What Elon Musk Is Not Telling You About Twitter Censorship

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So long as it wants to remain on the EU market, Twitter cannot say no to the demands of the European Commission. The enforcement mechanism that renders the Code of Practice obligatory is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA gives the European Commission power to impose fines of up to 6% percent of global turnover on platforms that it finds to be in violation of the Code: n.b. global turnover, not just turnover on the EU market!

The EU Files: What Elon Musk Is Not Telling You About Twitter Censorship Read Journal Article

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