Flo Crivello Says A.I. Will Be Bigger Than the Internet

Flo Crivello is the founder and CEO of Lindy, a software company that has created an executive assistant powered by artificial intelligence (A.I.). Lindy can take care of your calendar, perform basic email correspondence, book travel, and take notes during meetings. The long-run goal is to automate as much work as possible and free up time for tasks that only humans can do.

Adam Smith's Sly American Proposal

SOMETIMES A PROPOSAL IS A LESSON IN DISGUISE.

Marketplaces Find a Way

THOUGH HISTORY HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN KIND, BUTCHERS, BREWERS, AND BAKERS STILL THRIVE AT URBAN MARKETS.

Adam Smith's Quiet Christianity

THE SCOTTISH THINKER’S FAMOUS FRIENDSHIP WITH DAVID HUME DEMONSTRATES HIS LIBERALISM, NOT HIS ATHEISM.

Adam Smith Understood That We Need Each Other

THE THINKER’S VIEWS OF HUMAN SYMPATHY, BENEFICENCE, JUSTICE, AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR STILL RESONATE.

GADGETS AND GIZMOS THAT INSPIRED ADAM SMITH

MEDITATIONS ON THE DANGEROUS, ALLURING BEAUTY OF INTRICATE SYSTEMS

Why America Needs To Be 'Open to Debate

Clea Conner on the need for healthy conflict

Proposition: Cats Are More Libertarian Than Dogs

Cats, like libertarians, think for themselves.

FAILING TO REFORM SOCIAL SECURITY MEANS MANDATORY CUTS

WHEN PRESIDENT JOE Biden sparred with Republicans during his State of the Union address in February, he vowed to veto any attempt at cutting Social Security benefits. Yet the budget proposal he unveiled in March lacked a plan to avert the mandatory Social Security benefit cuts that are quickly approaching.

THE BIOMEDICAL TESTING REVOLUTION

“CANCER SIGNAL NOT detected.” That was the happy finding of my Galleri multicancer early detection (MCED) blood test from the Silicon Valley biotech company GRAIL. The Galleri test presages an emerging wave of new precision biomedical tests produced by a panoply of biotech startups.

Diana Alvarez Knows She's 'Doing the Right Thing' Running a D.C. Smoke Shop

Diana Alvarez’s son always wanted to go to college, so she started working in a smoke shop to earn some extra cash.

Fighting the Feds in the American South

JEFFERSON COWIE IS a prodigious researcher who often shows sensitivity to historical complexities, and his narrative skills shine. The Vanderbilt historian’s latest book, Freedom’s Dominion, is readable and often provocative. But it superimposes a dubious thesis about Southern his tory over the facts, arguing that “land dispossession, slavery, power, and oppression do not stand in contrast to freedom— they are expressions of it.”

Who Owns Your Brain Data?

WE ARE RAPIDLY heading toward a world of brain transparency, in which scientists, doctors, governments, and companies may peer into our brains and minds at will,” Duke University bioethicist Nita A. Farahany declares in The Battle for Your Brain. As a defense against this neuro surveillance, her timely book argues for a right to cognitive liberty that includes “mental privacy, freedom of thought, and self-determination”—a right that allows us to track and hack our own brains but bars us from trespassing on other minds.

MARC ANDREESSEN ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE

Is the A.I. breakthrough for real this time?

ZEROT AMERICA

SECRECY IS THE DEGRADED CURRENCY OF THE SHADOW GOVERNMENT.

The Most Hated Person on Campus

HOW A SHAKY ALLEGATION IGNITED A FRENZY AND DESTROYED A YOUNG WOMAN'S LIFE

WILL 2024 BRING THE RETURN OF THE NEOCONS?

THE GOP NOMINEE CAN FORGE A HUMBLER PATHOR TURN BACK TO FAILED NEOCONSERVATISM.

THE LEFT-RIGHT SPECTRUM IS MOSTLY MEANINGLESS

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE DOESN'T FIT ON A SIMPLE MAP.

Storks Don't Take Orders From the State

FALLING BIRTHRATES, PRO-NATALIST POLICIES, AND THE LIMITS OF POPULATION CONTROL

Where's Your Adderall?

Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, prescriptions for Adderall, the stimulant medication used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), skyrocketed.

A.I. Is Here

ChatGPT can create everything from novel dad jokes to fairly well-written computer code. At my prompting, it wrote a serviceable sonnet describing Gilgamesh’s failed quest for immortality.

THE EXPENSIVE SEDUCTIVE NOSTALGIA OF FIELD OF DREAMS

WHY ARE SO MANY FILMGOERS AND POLITICIANS EAGER TO PROP UP BASEBALL'S BOONDOGGLES?

PUBLIC UNIONS VS.THE PUBLIC GOOD

ELECTED LEADERS COME AND GO, BUT PUBLIC UNIONS JUST SAY NO.

PROPOSITION: BE OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE WORLD

AFFIRMATIVE: Optimism Is the Rational Approach

PROPOSITION: BITCOIN IS THE FUTURE! OF FREE EXCHANGE

AFFIRMATIVE: Bitcoin Is an Effective Tool for Liberty

PROPOSITION: MENTALLY ILL HOMELESS PEOPLE MUST BE LOCKED UP FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

AFFIRMATIVE: Choosing the Streets Over Shelters Is Dangerous for Everyone

PROPOSITION: THE U.S. SHOULD INCREASE FUNDING FOR THE DEFENSE OF UKRAINE

AFFIRMATIVE: Ukraine's Liberal Democracy Deserves Our Aid

PROPOSITION: THE E.U. WAS A MISTAKE

AFFIRMATIVE: Small States Are Best, and the E.U. Is Huge

PROPOSITION: TO PRESERVE INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY, GOVERNMENT MUST AFFIRMATIVELY INTERVENE IN THE CULTURE WAR

AFFIRMATIVE: You May Not Be Interested in the Culture War, But the Culture War Is Interested in You

PROPOSITION: DEMOCRACY IS THE WORST FORM OF GOVERNMENT EXCEPT FOR ALL THE OTHERS

AFFIRMATIVE:  When We Are Governed, Ballots Are Best