Utilitarianism has a terrible publicist. Say “maximize aggregate welfare” at a dinner party and people reach for the cheese knife as if you’d proposed replacing birthdays with quarterly KPI reviews. The brand evokes spreadsheets, grim trade-offs, and philosophers who haven’t seen the sun since dial-up. And yet, the quiet, unfashionable habit of asking “What helps the most people, by how much, at what cost?” is the closest thing civilization has … Read the rest
Content 6+ If you've ever heard someone exclaim, with righteous indignation, "What global warming? It’s snowing in May!" you’ve witnessed a unique human talent: our ability to misunderstand science spectacularly, confidently, and with a self-assured grin.
Imagine, for a moment, the person who peers through their window at a late-May snowfall in Moscow. The ground is sprinkled with a white, chilly blanket, and our hero smugly sips their coffee, convinced … Read the rest
The Curious Arithmetic of Modern Risk
Content 18+ If you were to believe what people say on the internet (which you shouldn’t), you'd think your odds of dying in a plane crash are somewhere between “basically guaranteed” and “this is it, Karen, we’re going down.” Yet, strangely, commercial aviation fatalities hover around 1 in 11 million per flight, which, statistically, means that you're more likely to die slipping in your … Read the rest
A Coffee Drinker’s Guide to the End of an Era
Content 16+ Once upon a time, a weary traveler could walk into a coffee shop and, with the confident nonchalance of a person who still believed in good things, order a cup of pure, untainted Arabica coffee. This was the golden age of caffeine—when coffee had body, aroma, and a distinct lack of burnt rubber undertones. But like all golden … Read the rest
Content 16+ A hundred years ago, a diagnosis of diabetes was a death sentence. No insulin, no modern medicine, no way out. A slow, painful demise. By that definition, I am a dead man walking. And yet, here I am—stronger, healthier, more alive than I have ever been. It’s a strange paradox: the very thing that should have stolen my life gave it back to me instead.
Before diabetes, I … Read the rest
