Politics & Current Affairs — May 12, 2010

European Mortality

“Instead of creating a joint military, Europe must now be worried about keeping its common currency. Europe could end where it began: in Greece,” writes writes Christoph Schwennicke.

bigthinkeditor

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

“The European Union was to have become a kind of eternal utopia,” writes Christoph Schwennicke. But over the past ten years, the idea of Europe has been going decidedly downhill. “Instead of creating a joint military, Europe must now be worried about keeping its common currency. Europe could end where it began: in Greece.”

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

A globe is encircled by golden barbed wire against a gray background, evocative of autocracy and symbolizing restriction or confinement with a sense of luxury.

The Present

Today’s dictators are united — but not by ideology

Modern autocracies operate “not like a bloc but rather like an agglomeration of companies,” says journalist and historian Anne Applebaum.

Person holding an open, empty brown wallet with both hands, outdoors.

The Past

The deep and enduring history of universal basic income

While the concept stretches back centuries, it has garnered significant attention in recent decades.

Ancient stone structure with stairs under a blue sky with scattered clouds, surrounded by vegetation.

The Past

A beginner’s guide to sociopolitical collapse

How (not) to end up in the ash heap of history.

A man holding a transparent rectangular object up to his eyes, reminiscent of the analytical gaze of Robert and Frank Oppenheimer.

The Past

The atomic bomb, exile and a test of brotherly bonds: Robert and Frank Oppenheimer

A rift in thinking about who should control powerful new technologies sent the brothers on diverging paths. For one, the story ended with a mission to bring science to the public.

Charles bridge in prague, czech republic.

Neuropsych

An untold story of LSD psychotherapy in communist Czechoslovakia

Uncovering the story of Milan Hausner, the Sadská clinic, and LSD psychotherapy behind the Iron Curtain.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Ramps Defy Gravity

A Japanese mathematician has come up with a cardboard model that seems to defy physics—creating what vision scientists are calling the best illusion of the year.