Zompist Bboard Again

This isn't meant to gotcha! you, but ... do the authors of that book claim that British industrialization wouldn't have been feasible without slavery? I haven't read the book and don't think I'm qualified to talk about the subject, but this made me curious, so I did some googling and found a quote f...

I do think there's a gap between Actual Gender Theory and how it plays out in everyday life. Not always, but often enough to notice and comment on. I expect it would be very hard to find mainstream academics saying something as reductive as "if you're on the quieter side and liked reading more ...

This might, at first sight, not sound like a political case of silliness, but I'd say it has deeply, deeply political implications: A Bluesky post featuring a screenshot of an excerpt from an article by an outlet called "Fast Company": [snipped: stuff about micro-retirements] ... huh. Wel...

The future portrayed in 1984 or even Warhammer 40K (it's more fantastical elements aside) is far more likely than the world getting better. The system described in 1984 has almost nothing in common with MAGA/Trumpism, or with contemporary right-wing populism in general. There are so many difference...

The Washington Post swings far to the right with a new editorial policy . Yet another example of mainstream media propagandizing for the new regime. Oh, goodie, it's time for me to make my biannual overlong post about the legacy media. (Which I suspect nobody wants, but neener neener, I'm going to ...

What is really striking to me is how completely out of sync MSM coverage is with the mood on the street. They can't ignore the reaction, but they've been doing their best to paint it as extreme and marginal when actually it appears to be quite widespread. Examples of the MSM portraying it as a marg...

This is such a frustrating conversation, every time. Even just to read. Like—actually, I agree in principle that if you're left of the Democratic Party's general center of gravity, withholding your vote may sometimes be a legitimate act. I would never do it myself, but the threat of it is one of the...

I have to chip in on the idea that NYT readers are "Republicans that don't want to admit that they're Republicans." That's a pretty odd take. Not a surprising one—I've certainly seen it before—but it's odd, insofar as it just isn't ... true. The most widely cited actual data on this is fro...

It's not a "conspiracy"; just look at the history of sports, particularly Olympic sports. In general, the organisers are quite open about what they're doing. I only recently tuned into this issue in the context of skeet shooting and plan on looking into it more (there are certainly plenty...

There was a flurry of "dump Biden" posts after the debate— e.g. Vox, Slate, CNN; and apparently the NYT keeps beating this drum. I'm sympathetic to the "oh noes" feeling about Biden's debate performance, but I'm getting more and more skeptical on this topic. Trump has been getti...

So ... I hire writers, both precious freelancers and staff writers. I'm one of the editors for a modest-sized network of sites—we publish attempts at Actual Serious Journalism, as well as SEO bullshit to keep the lights on. I thought I'd create an account and chip in with my perspective (I had an ac...