Shruti Rajagopalan (SUNY Purchase): Blockchain and Buchanan: Code as Constitution. Uwe Peters (KU Leuven): The Complementarity of Mindshaping and Mindreading. Hurricane Florence is a Category 5 Disaster. A “natural disaster” is at least half non-natural — it is the product of a natural event and the infrastructure that it floods, shakes, or ignites. McKenzie Wark on how philosopher Paul Virilio (1932–2018) spoke to an age of acceleration and total war. As midterms near, Trump gambles on his hardline trade policy. Trump’s China strategy is the most radical in decades — and it’s failing. The Trump tax cuts did one thing: Give rich people more money. Dan Ariely on why we try so hard to escape our humanity.
Shmuel Nili (ANU): The Idea of Public Property. Axel Franzen and Sebastian Mader (Bern) and Fabian Winter (Max Planck): Contagious Yawning, Empathy, and Their Relation to Pro-Social Behavior. White nationalism and lies: It’s the Trump playbook — and Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, just got caught using it. Alison Gately reviews Violence: Humans in Dark Times by Brad Evans and Natasha Lennard. Trump’s corruption is staining everything — now it’s about to stain the Supreme Court. Republicans, be forewarned: Kavanaugh’s accuser has options. If Kavanaugh goes down, will Republican voters be discouraged or enraged? Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation is now the ultimate test of political power in 2018.
