Category: Hypocrisy

Activism, Eco, Hypocrisy, ManipulationLeave a comment

Your ‘Recycled’ Grocery Bag Might Not Have Been Recycled

Fernando Kaskais

Top: In 2015, recycling is sorted at the Sims Municipal Recycling Facility in New York City. Visual: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Recent laws encourage recycling old plastic into new products. But verifying recycled content relies on tricky math. BY IAN MORSE TO JUMPSTART A paltry market for recycled plastic, governments across the globe are pushing companies to include recycled materials in their products. Last year, the United Kingdom introduced a tax on manufacturers that produce or import plastic packaging containing less than 30 percent recycled plastic. In 2024, New Jersey will begin enforcing similar rules, albeit with lower targets. California now requires that beverage containers be made of 15 … Continue reading Your ‘Recycled’ Grocery Bag Might Not Have Been Recycled

Curiositys, Hypocrisy, Living, Money, PsychologyLeave a comment

If we live in a capitalist world, why is it taboo to talk about money?

Fernando Kaskais

The “money taboo” is not a single taboo, but rather an amalgamation of several smaller taboos tied to gender and socioeconomic class. KEY TAKEAWAYS by Tim Brinkhof From weekly episodes of Keeping up with the Kardashians to the outrageously expensive costumes and jewelry displayed at the MET Gala, mainstream media is full of reminders that our culture mostly revolves around money and consumerism. But while we are taught from a young age that one of our primary goals in life is to amass as much wealth as possible, talking about our own income with other people is considered inappropriate.  Before we discuss … Continue reading If we live in a capitalist world, why is it taboo to talk about money?

Activism, Hypocrisy, Rights, SexLeave a comment

What happened to Stephen Fry’s belief in scientific reason?

Fernando Kaskais

by Brendan O’Neill Here’s my question for Stephen Fry after he said his trans friends had felt ‘deeply upset’ by some of the comments made by J.K. Rowling: why didn’t you just say to them, ‘So what?’ Fry used to be all about saying ‘So what?’ to people who went on about feeling offended by words. His irritation with offence-takers has even become a meme. ‘It’s now very common to hear people say, “I’m rather offended by that”. As if that gives them certain rights’, he once said. ‘It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. “I find that offensive.” It has … Continue reading What happened to Stephen Fry’s belief in scientific reason?

Fascism, Freak Religion, Hypocrisy, Manipulation, PoliticsLeave a comment

An unholy alliance

Fernando Kaskais

Authoritarian leaders who play the religious card are not mere hypocrites. There’s something far more troubling going on Suzanne Schneider is deputy director and core faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. She is the author of Mandatory Separation: Religion, Education, and Mass Politics in Palestine (2018) and The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism (2021). Viktor Orbán reportedly does not attend church. Benjamin Netanyahu eats at non-kosher restaurants. New York libertine Donald Trump lacks all manner of evident religious virtue. Yet it is a fact that today’s crop of aspiring authoritarians invoke religious themes and … Continue reading An unholy alliance

Hypocrisy, Living, Philosophy, PsychologyLeave a comment

The utopian machine

Fernando Kaskais

For children like me, growing up in an utopian community, life was a bewildering chaos of freedom and indoctrination by Susanna Crossman is an Anglo-French fiction writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, 3:AM Magazine, Neue Rundschau and the MAI Journal, among others. She also works internationally with hospitals and organisations as a clinical arts therapist, consultant and lecturer. She is the author of the novel L’Île sombre, or ‘Dark Island’, (2021), and her work is included in Garden Among Fires: A Lockdown Anthology (2020), edited by Marina Benjamin. Aman’s black beard tickles my face. We’re lying on a dirty carpet, in a … Continue reading The utopian machine

History, Hypocrisy, Politics, Racism, Rights1 Comment

Collective wrongs

Fernando Kaskais

Even when individual perpetrators and victims are dead, states and institutions have a responsibility to make restitutions by Joshua Stein is an American philosopher working in applied ethics, including medical ethics and ethics of public policy. He is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Calgary in Canada, and two MAs from New York University (one in bioethics; the other in science and technology studies). As a country, the United States enforced slavery and segregation, engaged in bombings that killed civilians all over the world, imprisoned alleged ‘conspirators’ under false pretences … Continue reading Collective wrongs

Hypocrisy, Media&Culture, Psychology, Rights, TechnologyLeave a comment

Researchers Ask: Does Enforcing Civility Stifle Online Debate?

Fernando Kaskais

Some social scientists argue that civility is a poor metric by which to judge the quality of an online debate. BY TERESA CARR IN POLL AFTER poll, Americans say they are deeply concerned about rising incivility online. And extensive social media research has focused on how to counteract online incivility. But with Civic Signals, a project of the National Conference on Citizenship and the Center for Media Engagement, researchers took a different approach: If you started from scratch, they asked, what would a flourishing, healthy digital space look like? They quickly realized that it wouldn’t always be civil. The Civic Signals project, which began about four years … Continue reading Researchers Ask: Does Enforcing Civility Stifle Online Debate?

Hypocrisy, Living, Manipulation, PsychologyLeave a comment

The right person

Fernando Kaskais

Contemporary wisdom says that happiness is the measure of a marriage. But is that a harmful way of judging relationships? by Joshua Coleman is a psychologist in private practice and senior fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families. His books include The Marriage Makeover (2004), The Lazy Husband (2005), When Parents Hurt (2007) and Rules of Estrangement (2021). He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is not uncommon in my practice to hear people wonder if they married the wrong person. It’s a painful reality to consider, and something I thought about in my current marriage in the early years after the birth of our twin … Continue reading The right person

Corruption, Europe, Hypocrisy, Politics, UKLeave a comment

Boris Johnson leaves behind him a terrifying legacy

Fernando Kaskais

The prime minister may have resigned, but the impact of a raft of authoritarian legislation passed under his tenure is yet to be felt. Text by Ben Smoke Idon’t know if you’ve ever tried to fuck on pills but, for those of you unversed, let me break it down for you. You meet a guy in the club, you vibe, you get a cab, you go home, you furnish the floor with your clothes and you jump into bed with the promise of climax. As you climb on, you realise you’re in it for the long haul (thank you MDMA), and … Continue reading Boris Johnson leaves behind him a terrifying legacy

Freak U.S.A, Hypocrisy, Politics, PsychologyLeave a comment

THE MOST PATHETIC MEN IN AMERICA

Fernando Kaskais

Why Lindsey Graham, Kevin McCarthy, and so many other cowards in Congress are still doing Trump’s bidding By Mark Leibovich About the author: Mark Leibovich is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of Thank You for Your Servitude and This Town. When he wasn’t melting down over how “very badly” he was treated or acting like a seditious lunatic, Donald Trump could be downright serene in certain Washington settings—and never more so than when he would swan in for dinner at the Trump International Hotel, a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House and the only other place where he would ever agree … Continue reading THE MOST PATHETIC MEN IN AMERICA