The Cost Of Convenience
There’s a self-checkout machine at my local grocery store that nobody uses. It sits there, gleaming and efficient, while people queue for the human cashier. …
Why Nobody Believes Anything Anymore
We’re living through an epistemological crisis, which is a fancy way of saying nobody knows what’s true anymore. It’s not that people don’t believe things. …
Why Everyone Thinks They’re Openminded (But Almost Nobody Is)
Ask anyone if they’re open-minded and they’ll say yes. We all think we’re reasonable, willing to change our minds, guided by evidence. Then we encounter …
The Politeness Of Strangers
The woman ahead of me in the queue dropped her wallet. I picked it up, handed it back. She thanked me three times. We both …
Consumerism Is A Religion
Nobody thinks of themselves as religious anymore. We’re too smart, too modern, too rational for that. We’ve moved beyond superstition. Except we haven’t. We’ve just …
Digital Detox Is Missing The Point
Everyone’s talking about digital detox these days. Unplugging. Taking breaks from social media. Screen-free weekends. The assumption is that the problem is the technology. Remove …
Things We’ve Agreed To Pretend Are Normal
The first time I used a self-checkout machine, I apologised to it for scanning an item incorrectly. The machine didn’t care. Machines never do. But …
What We Lose When Everything Is Easy
We can get almost anything delivered to our door in hours. We can swipe to date, click to buy, stream any movie ever made. Convenience …