The status of American democracy feels paradoxical: somehow both damaged and well-functioning at the same time. On the one hand, the United States has a president who is acting like a dictator: threatening to wipe out an entire civilization, menacing allies with threats to annex their territory, targeting domestic enemies with spurious criminal investigations, and […]

On Explain It Me, we try to give you useful information to help you navigate and understand the world around you. But lately there’s been an elephant in the room: Life feels kind of…bad.  Polling suggests that Americans are unsatisfied with their lives now, and with prospects for the future. It’s understandable why: We’re on […]

Your Mileage May Vary is an advice column offering you a unique framework for thinking through your moral dilemmas. It’s based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple values that are equally valid but that often conflict with each other. To submit a question, fill out this anonymous form. Here’s this week’s question from […]

The only people with worse poll numbers than President Donald Trump are the political media that cover him. We, the journalists, are in a crisis: of trust, relevance, and being swamped by an attention economy that will either replace us with Claude or an influencer. The skills of traditional reporting: storytelling, man-on-the-street interviews, even the […]

Archive of Our Own, or AO3, is one of the most popular websites in the world, with over 10 million registered users. Its users spend their time both reading and writing many, many words about their favorite fictional characters. It’s a place that allows normie readers to try out their characters in different scenarios and […]