My body is slowly disappearing, as if by some magic trick. Ever since I was in my twenties, a small fraction of my muscle has been vanishing year after year. The annual figure is small—perhaps less than …
In reviewing my favorite readings of 2025, I have chosen to overlook chronology in favor of the affinities that bind these ten books together: the persistence of the self against time, the fragility of our structures in …
Those of us who believe in markets cannot look the other way when confronted with the inequality they produce. Because they do: markets do generate inequality—and they do so in a deeper, and perhaps more unavoidable, way …
The following two questions might look identical, if not for a small variation in wording: Mr. Smith has two children. At least one of them is a girl. What is the probability that both are girls? Mr. …
John Roemer, professor of economics at Yale, writes: “The idea that socialism depends on cooperation, just as capitalism depends on competition, has always been present in the conception of socialism.” At first sight, that statement seems obvious. …
Every encounter with another person presents a fork in the road. You can approach them with a fraternal, conciliatory spirit—your hand extended, ready to help; your heart and mind charged with empathy and solidarity. Or you can …
If you’re not English by birth and you spend enough years in London, you might start to notice the rhythmic waves of migration—slow-moving tides that bring people from all corners of the world to this city’s shores, …
“America First! America First!” roared Donald Trump, standing atop the august marble terrace of the Capitol building, just minutes after being sworn in as the forty-fifth president of the United States. It was the climax of his …
Markets carry something profane—or at least, that’s how many people feel. And it’s not just because the Christian Gospels recount how Jesus, enraged, drove out merchants and money changers with a whip after finding them doing business …
This weekend, astronomers from NASA and ESA further reduced the probability that the asteroid “2024 YR4” will impact Earth. For weeks, we had been following reports of a possible collision in December 2032. On Wednesday, the impact …
A simple math error in a LinkedIn post, a photo of Justin Bieber eating a burrito, and a banana duct-taped to a wall—three seemingly unrelated moments with one thing in common. Each one sparked a massive wave …
For over a decade, I’ve kept a habit that, at first, I never imagined would become one of the most revealing practices of my life. I call it one-bit journaling, and the idea is incredibly simple: every …
These are the ten books I enjoyed the most this year, listed by their year of publication: 1. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez (1967) One of the greatest books ever written, in any …