What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. — This story first appeared in the Future Crunch newsletter, a regular roundup of good news, mind-blowing science and the best bits of the internet. You can subscribe for free over here. It’s been more than a month since you last heard from us. A full moon has waxed and waned…

Why the mainstream news, and not social media or Donald Trump, is the greatest threat to American democracy today. — “Ever his whispering was in your ears, poisoning your thought, chilling your heart, weakening your limbs, while others watched and could do nothing, for your will was in his keeping.” Well that escalated steadily for four years. The fallout from the #MAGA riot is pretty much the only story on…

Even during the darkest of times, there’s been hope. If we want more people to devote their energy to making progress against large global problems, we should make sure that more people know that it is possible to make progress against such problems. @MaxCRoser There’s been so much loss, grief and heartbreak in 2020 that it feels almost wrong…

How Donald Trump pioneered the never-ending fireside rant, and made sure none of us could ever look away. — In Internet slang, a troll is a person who intentionally upsets people by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and normalizing unrelated discussions, either for the troll’s amusement or a specific gain.

The coronavirus pandemic has set off the most devastating downturn in the industry’s 150-year history, one from which, ultimately, it may never recover. —

Why the coronavirus pandemic offers us an escape from a much bigger mess. — “It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with…

How COVID-19 exposes the limits of our economic and political imaginations — “Nobody saw it coming. While that statement is technically true (most experts thought it would be a flu virus, not a coronavirus), you can’t say we weren’t warned. Back in 2007 for example, the US Department of Health and Services conducted an audit of the federal government’s strategic stockpile, and…

Losing the plot, and charting a new course in the time of coronavirus — Last week, a large consignment of crates arrived in Italy, addressed to the country’s Civil Protection Department, from the consumer electronics giant, Xiaomi. Inside were tens of thousands of FFP3 face masks for Italy’s healthcare workers, a “token of gratitude to the Italian people” from the Chinese company for making…

The debate over Automageddon is a distraction from the main event — This story was first published in Issue 4 of Maximus Magazine (November 2019) The reports arrive thick and fast these days. From the big end of town, glossy 100-page monsters with stylish graphics and ‘seven key takeaways for the future of work,’ that land in your inbox with an almost…