What’s with America’s Adderall Problem?
America has a strange relationship with the small handful of drugs it’s collectively chosen to tolerate.
Category: Economics
The Journalists Have Been Hacked
Journalism’s current standards for determining what is publishable are brittle and subject to manipulation by malicious actors.
A Higher American Minimum Wage Is Something We Shouldn’t Even Be Debating
If you’re “too successful” or “too important” to pay your workers a living wage, you don’t deserve to be a business owner, and your business doesn’t deserve to survive.
Shutdown, What is it good for? Absolutely Nothing.
It is beyond absurd to have a federal government shutdown and simultaneously guarantee back pay.
Wait, I need to back up here.
UBI in 2018
Universal Basic Income did not have the banner year it’s proponents had hoped for. Who knew it would be so hard to get people to take free money?
Senator Warren’s Office of Drug Manufacturing
What I am proposing is a way to increase the supply of pharmaceuticals that are widely used, off-patent, and are not available in the quantities needed.
Why Do Needle Exchanges Keep Getting Shut Down Despite Evidence of Their Effectiveness?
Even though a mounting body of evidence indicates needle exchanges can save lives, conservative-minded governments are stifling conversation on the topic before it even has a chance to begin.
The History of Crisco, or What I Learned at Berkeley
How Berkeley – and Crisco – informed me that I was done with the technology industry.
The Sad Reality of Retirement in America
Social Security was, in fact, explicitly imagined and implemented to provide a dignified retirement for all Americans.
Despite Promises, Another Black Monday for the Mahoning Valley
41 years after Youngstown’s “Black Monday” meant 5,000 lost jobs immediately and tens of thousands more to follow, the Mahoning Valley endures another day of 4-digit job loss with closure of General Motor’s Lordstown complex.
Should Employers Be Allowed to Drug-Test for Cannabis in Legalized States?
A murky legal footing isn’t good for businesses, and it isn’t good for folks who only want to hold down a decent job without letting their health get the better of them.
The Unforgivable Sin of Student Loans
Student loan debt has surpassed auto loans and credit cards to become the second largest type of consumer debt in the country, behind home mortgages. Some predict that the effects of the student loan bubble popping will have similar effects as the housing market collapse of 2008.
Faux Diversity in Recruiting
Vikram offers free advice to a corporation that knowingly laundered money for terrorists on how they can better diversify their workforce
Should the U.S. Copyright Office Have a Political Agenda?
Not being tied to political and election cycles has helped keep the U.S. Register of Copyrights an apolitical institution. Will H.R. 1695 change that?
Social Science and Fiction Part 6: It’s Time For Some Game Theory
Something interesting happens in most high fantasy and science fiction settings. Capital-F Faith in an absentee God who may or may not exist is absent. In Dungeons and Dragons, the gods exist. If you want proof, watch a paladin lay on hands. Science fiction settings can be a little looser with divine intervention tropes, but a sufficiently advanced AI is a reasonable substitute for a supernatural entity, and for ordinary NPC plebes, even modest mutant, cybernetic, or technological abilities are sufficiently advanced to provide a reasonable stand-in.
Out With The Carriers, In With The Handset Makers?
Are phone makers about to force their phones onto carriers?
Social Science and Fiction Part 4: Of Constitutions
Having trouble finding the soul of your fictional society? Have you considered their fundamental rule-making process? Why not take a little time to suss the foundations of your make-believe culture by drafting their constitution? You might find that specific laws, mores, and cultural habits are easier to develop when you have a framework for decision-making and conflict resolution.
Please Exploit My Father (In Defense of Price Gouging)
Laws against price gouging don’t help the public during major disasters. In fact, they make the situation worse.
Social Science and Fiction Part 3: Politics at the Gaming Table
Many Americans consider it boorish to bring up politics or religion outside of sanctioned times and places. One simply does not talk politics at the dinner table. It won’t do.
But the gaming table is not the dinner table. Ideally, you play games with friends. Or if your close friends don’t share your hobbies, then at least your regular group is acquainted well enough that political differences of opinion are unimportant enough to keep you from playing together. Or if that isn’t the case, then at the very least you all retain enough courtesy to stow your partisan inclinations while the game is underway.
