Creating Our Own Simulations

FOR RENÉ DESCARTES, minds were essentially thinking (or feeling) things. For the founding fathers of behaviorism, minds were identical with behaviors-talking, habits, dispositions to act in one way or another. More recently, minds have been imagined as a kind of computer: the software running on the hardware of the brain.

The Revolting Mr. Taxpayer

THOUGH ANIMUS TOWARD tax increases was a key reason for the American Revolution, historians have not shown much interest in the topic in other contexts. One reason may be that the history of tax revolts, much like the history of mutual aid or of nonunion workers during strikes, cannot easily be subsumed under the most popular analytical categories, such as economic class. So Linda Upham-Bornstein's \"Mr. Taxpayer versus Mr. Tax Spender\": Taxpayers' Associations, Pocketbook Politics, and the Law During the Great Depression is a welcome sign.

REEXAMINING THE REALIGNMENT

CAN FREE MARKETS WIN VOTES IN THE NEW GOP?

Indonesia's Free Market 'Superblocks'

YOU DON’T NEED CENTRAL PLANNERS TO GET PEDESTRIAN-FRIENDLY URBAN DESIGN.

THE LAST LIBERAL

Bill Maher on weed, wokeness, and 30 years of free speech

THE REAL STUDENT LOAN CRISIS

MISLED BY A BAD LAW, GRADUATE STUDENTS ARE DROWNING IN DEBT.

The Bankruptcy of Bidenomics

BIDEN'S ECONOMIC POLICIES GAVE US THREE YEARS OF EXCESSIVE, WASTEFUL, AND POORLY TARGETED FEDERAL SPENDING.

'I Knew They Were Scumbags'

How federal prison guards confessed to rape-and got away with it

The 'Monstrous Beastliness' of Urban Policing

OAKL AND, CALIFORNIA, IS “the edge case in American policing,” journalists Ali Winston and Darwin BondGraham declare in The Riders Come Out at Night. “More has been done to try to reform the Oakland Police Department than any other police force in the United States.”

Did Evolution Give Us Free Will?

A neuroscientist takes on determinism.

THE MINESWEEPER MORAL PANIC

WHEN COMPUTERS CAME TO OFFICES, BOSSES FOUND A NEW WAY TO WORRY THAT WORKERS WERE WASTING TIME.

MIKE ROWE WANTS MORE PHILOSOPHER-WELDERS

The Dirty Jobs host on \"essential\" work, college, and the skills gap

The Joy of Capitalism

MARKETS DON'T JUST MAKE US RICHER; THEY MAKE US HAPPIER.

TAKE NUTRITION STUDIES WITH A GRAIN OF SALT

THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF FOOD AND DRINK IS A MESS.

The Tech Giants Were Always Doomed

COMPETITION, NOT ANTITRUST ACTION, IS HUMBLING FACEBOOK, AMAZON, AND TWITTER.

Was Racketeering Trump's Real Crime in Georgia?

IN 1969, LAWRENCE Speiser, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington, D.C., office, appeared before Congress to testify against a proposed law that would greatly expand the powers of federal law enforcement. “Our constitutional system of government wisely limits the range of methods available to us, reflecting our historical commitment to liberty and justice rather than to efficiency and expediency,” Speiser said. “To the extent that this puts us at a disadvantage in dealing with the criminal organization, it is a price we must pay, for ultimately it is this which distinguishes the lawful from the lawless society.”

The Right To Give

IN JULY, PHILLIP Picone, a Houston activist, stood before a jury of his peers, charged with the heinous crime of feeding the needy.

Congestion Pricing Hits a New Roadblock

SINCE 2019, NEW York has sought to establish the nation’s first congestion pricing zone, which would charge drivers fees for rush hour trips to improve traffic flows and raise funds for the city’s dilapidated subway system. That plan to toll drivers entering lower Manhattan’s gridlocked streets recently hit another roadblock: New Jersey.

Trump, Who Freed Drug Offenders, Also Wants To Kill Them

DONALD TRUMP CAN’T seem to decide whether he wants to execute drug dealers or free them from prison. The former president’s debate with himself reflects a broader clash between Republicans who think harsher criminal penalties are always better and Republicans who understand that justice requires proportionality.

The Bad Law That Made Good Bars

WHEN YOU STEP into the Raines Law Room at The William hotel on East 39th Street in Manhattan, you’ll find a series of tastefully decorated lounges. Softly upholstered chairs, tufted leather couches, and low-light sconces create an atmosphere that’s more swanky club or private living room than hotel bar. But although there’s a boutique hotel with a few dozen rooms above (rates run anywhere from $275 to well over $1,000 per night), the Raines Law Room is a bar.

Q&A Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi is the author of four New York Times bestsellers. As Rolling Stone’s campaign reporter in 2016—and an early critic of how the mainstream media covered allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election— he concluded that political journalism was hyper-focused on the “pursuit of getting rid of Donald Trump.”

Control Your Card-board, Control Your Life

SINCE ALBERT JONES filed his U.S. patent for corrugated paper packing material in 1871, cardboard products have played the cart to globalization’s horse. Cheaper and lighter than a crate and more protective than paper or straw, cardboard has made myriad goods affordable and deliverable to just about anywhere. From carrying glass vials of medicine at the turn of the 20th century to entire couches at the beginning of the 21st, cardboard is a linchpin of modern life.

California Is Taxing Itself to Death

FOR DECADES, CALIFORNIA has been a desirable destination for Americans lured by the promise of riches, stardom, or at least a good place to surf.

Markets, Misunderstood

A sweeping new book on the history of free market thought misses the mark

TRUE CRIME DISTORTS THE TRUTH ABOUT CRIME

In their telling, it was Kercher’s roommate, an American exchange student named Amanda Knox, who had killed the young woman during some sort of satanic sex game gone awry

THE PIRATE PRESERVATIONISTS

WHEN KEEPING CULTURAL ARCHIVES SAFE MEANS STEPPING OUTSIDE THE LAW

Africa's Planned Cities Need Unplanning

NIGERIA'S SLUMS AND STARTUP CITIES CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

Private Tyranny' Is Less Private Than You Think

KIMBERLY NARANJO MAKES for a sympathetic protagonist. In childhood, she suffered abuse at home. In early adulthood, she struggled with addiction

HOW Hippies Saved the Fourth Amendment

THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION DID EVERYTHING IT COULD TO CURB ANTIWAR ACTIVISM. THEN THE COURTS SAID IT HAD GONE TOO FAR

Affirmative Action Loses in Court

THE END OF affirmative action in university admissions has been prophesied since 2003, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in Grutter v. Bollinger. In the majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote that “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today