Science
Reason magazine
Taylor Swift, Junk Fees, and the 'Happy Meal Fallacy'
WHEN AMERICA’S LARGEST ticket retailer announced plans to adjust its pricing structure, President Joe Biden was quick to claim credit
3 min |
October 2023
Reason magazine
Subsidies Won't Stop Stagnation
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN is making a “big bet on place-based industrial policy,” writes Brookings Institution senior fellow Mark Muro
2 min |
October 2023
Reason magazine
Civics in Public Schools Won't Fix American Democracy
ON THE CAMPAIGN trail in May, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy provocatively proposed raising the voting age to 25 for Americans who have not had any kind of civic experience, such as serving in the military or working as a first responder
4 min |
October 2023
Reason magazine
America's Immigrant Brain Drain
THE UNITED STATES boasts more international students, immigrant inventors, and foreign-born Nobel laureates than any other country
2 min |
October 2023
Reason magazine
Montreal: It's All French to Me
THE MONTREAL BIODÔME’S scarlet macaw named Bouton “will be deported to the Toronto Zoo next Friday after she only spoke English during a government inspection,” The Beaverton reported in July 2013
3 min |
October 2023
Reason magazine
Ben Smith's One Neat Trick for Going Viral
The Semafor editor and former BuzzFeed News editor in chief on the online media explosion of the 2000s
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
Be Like Pixar, Not NASA
Artificial intelligence poses the most risk when it is embedded in a centralized, tightly coupled organization. But it can facilitate decentralization too
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
Adam Smith Wasn't a Progressive
Stop quoting him out of context on taxation, education, and monopoly.
10+ min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
An Interview With Adam Smith No, not that Adam Smith.
On the occasion of his 300th birthday, Adam Smith—the Scottish Enlightenment luminary and so-called father of capitalism— was not available for comment, despite attempts to contact him via Ouija board and seance.
7 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
Don't Tread on Pride Flags
What do Gadsden flags and Pride flags have in common?
10+ min |
June 2023
Reason magazine
SMALL-TOWN LIFE IS THE ANTI-TWITTER
WHEN I MOVED from New York City to rural northern Arizona, I faced two obstacles: my vocabulary and my manners. Spicy language and brusqueness were normal in the East Village, where I was unlikely to see many faces again. But they were impediments in a sparsely settled place where you run into the same people day after day. Life in a relatively rural area encourages nicer manners, so I learned to rein myself in
3 min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
FOSTER-PARENT RED TAPE HURTS FAMILIES AND TAXPAYERS
RULES FOR BECOMING a foster parent are meant to keep kids safe. But many of these rules make it needlessly difficult to find appropriate homes for children whose biological parents are unable to care for them
3 min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
THEY ARE COMING FOR YOUR GAS STOVE
IN MAY, THE Democrat-controlled New York State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul inked a $229 billion state budget agreement that included a ban on residential gas stoves. By 2029, only electric ranges will be allowed in new residences
1 min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
COVID'S MISSING STUDENTS
DURING THE FIRST few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a staggering number of students went “missing.” Kindergarten enrollment rates dropped, and students already enrolled in classes failed to log in for online learning
2 min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
THE TOWN WITHOUT ZONING
CAN CAROLINE, NEW YORK, RESIST THE IMPOSITION OF ITS FIRST-EVER ZONING CODE?
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
THE DEA AT 50
FOR FIVE DECADES, DRUGS HAVE BEEN WINNING THE WAR ON DRUGS
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
Liberalism Isn't Rule by Elites
BUT PATRICK DENEEN’S “COMMON-GOOD CONSERVATISM” ALMOST CERTAINLY WOULD BE
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
WHEN TRADE WAR THREATENS REAL WAR
BIDEN IS BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN ECONOMIC POLICY AND MILITARY ACTION
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
Inside an Abusive Anti-Porn Camp for Teens
WHY ARE WE SENDING KIDS INTO THE WILDERNESS TO STOP THEM FROM LOOKING AT PORNOGRAPHY?
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
GET YOUR POLITICS OUT OF MY PICKLEBALL
FAULT LINES EMERGE AS GOVERNMENT GETS INVOLVED IN AMERICA’S WEIRDEST, FASTEST-GROWING SPORT
10+ min |
August/September 2023
Reason magazine
'Excited Delirium' is No Excuse for Police Abuse
A small change in wording by medical examiners could have a big impact on how deaths in police custody are reported. In March, the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) said “excited delirium” should not be cited as a cause of death.
2 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
TikTok Goes From Silly to Serious
“Most sectors of the economy are a conspiracy between the big incumbents and their punitive regulators,” venture capitalist and software engineer Marc Andreessen tells Reason this month (page 48). Asked to identify pockets of relative freedom and competition, he offers what he calls “the cynical answer”: There’s still innovation “in the spaces that don’t matter. Anybody can bring a new toy to market. Anybody can open a restaurant.”
5 min |
June 2023
Reason magazine
A Successful Challenge to a Ban on 'aiding and Abetting' Abortion
When the city of Lebanon banned abortion in 2021, it initially seemed like a pointless stunt.
3 min |
May 2023
Reason magazine
IS ENCOURAGING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION?
FEDERAL LAW PROHIBITS encouraging or inducing unlawful immigration for private financial gain. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case, United States v. Hansen, that asks whether that law unconstitutionally abridges freedom of speech.
1 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
DON'T 'PAUSE' A.I. RESEARCH
HUMAN BEINGS ARE terrible at foresight— especially apocalyptic foresight. The track record of previous doomsayers is worth recalling as we contemplate warnings from critics of artificial intelligence (A.I.) research.
3 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
POPPY SEEDS TRIGGER CHILD NEGLECT INVESTIGATIONS
BEFORE KATE L. gave birth to a baby girl last September, a nurse at New Jersey’s Hackensack University Medical Center collected a urine sample from the soon-to-be mother.
2 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
TRUMP'S NEW YORK INDICTMENT IS JUST THE BEGINNING
WHEN FORMER PRESIDENT Donald Trump arrived at a Manhattan courthouse on April 4, crowds of people and rows of TV cameras were there to witness an unprecedented moment: the first-ever arraignment of a former U.S. president. How quickly can something this important be relegated to the footnotes of American presidential history? We may be about to find out.
4 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
BOMBING MEXICAN CARTELS WON'T STOP FENTANYL
AMERICANS CONTINUE TO overdose on illicit fentanyl despite increased seizures of the drug coming north from Mexico.
3 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
THE GREAT EGG SHOCK
AS INFLATION RAISED prices on all manner of goods throughout 2022, eggs earned special attention. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the average price of a dozen eggs in urban areas rose from $1.92 in January 2022 to $4.82 in January 2023.
1 min |
July 2023
Reason magazine
THE NEW RIGHT ISN'T SO NEW
IN THE CLOSING weeks of 1969, a debate broke out in the pages of National Review about how American conservatives should respond to the threat posed by the New Left—the expanded universe of socialists, civil rights activists, anti-war protesters, feminists, environmentalists, and other lefty radicals then making political waves. Fifteen months earlier, police and demonstrators had met in a bloody clash outside the Democratic National Convention.
5 min |