How to Pretend You Enjoy Someone’s Company (Without Losing Your Sanity)

Ever found yourself trapped in a conversation with Gerald the Clock Guy, nodding along to his Swiss lever escapement lecture while secretly plotting your escape? Or perhaps you’ve been cornered by Karen the Fitness Enthusiast, who somehow makes you feel guilty about that extra slice of cake you had last week? Fear not, dear reader, for Sophie, the unsung hero of the office, is here to guide you through the treacherous...

Investors like Blackrock are rapidly buying up the earth. How does it affect our freedom if we can no longer own our homes, farmland, or workshops?

Most of our lives are determined by earth ownership. In a material sense, some people have to pay rent or mortgage their entire lives, while others become super rich thanks to land ownership. We rightly fear the consequences if we don’t — or can’t — pay our rent or mortgage. We do not dare to live how we prefer. We refrain from starting ou...

It is time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, autonomy, and voice.

In our networked and image-saturate...

Without ASML, the world would be a different place. Based in the quiet Dutch town of Veldhoven, this offshoot of Philips Electronics designs the gigantic and extremely complex machines that produce increasingly advanced computer chips. It’s Europe’s most valuable tech company: ninety percent of the world’s chips are manufactured using ASML machines, powering our phones, cars, and the ai revolution.

For years, ASML operated in the background, but a geopolitical earthquake has put it in t...

The ecological perspective one has depends on fundamental forms of thought. The old form, with a separation of subject and object, in a static ontology of the fixed identities of things, led to destruction of nature, and we need a new form that is more nature-friendly, robust and flexible, that adapts to changing conditions. That digs deep.

I plead for an ontology of relational dynamics, oriented to change of humanity and nature, resulting from unpredictable interactions between humans among...

One of four titles in Thames & Hudson’s innovative new ‘Big Idea’ series, this intelligent, stimulating book assesses the connections between gender, psychology, culture and sexuality, and reveals how individual and social attitudes have evolved over the centuries.

A timely re-examination of the pros and cons of legalizing drug use.