Zoned (On the European Union)

European integration is boring, even when it is exciting. Over the past eighteen months, crisis has piled upon crisis in the European Union’s single-currency area, the so-called eurozone. The European project of creating an ever closer union among its member states may be about to crash, crippling America’s economy as well as Europe’s. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein has argued that Europe’s decisions over the coming weeks will probably determine President Obama’s re-election chances. Even so, it is hard to read about EU politics without wanting to fall asleep.

Access the full article here.

Other Writing:

Essay

AI’s Big Rift is Like a Religious Schism

TWO CENTURIES ago Henri de Saint-Simon, a French utopian, proposed a new religion, worshipping the godlike force of progress, with Isaac Newton as its chief saint. He believed that humanity’s sole uniting interest, “the progress of the sciences”, should be directed by the “elect of humanity”, a 21-member “Council of Newton”. Friedrich Hayek, a 20th-century ...
Read Article
Essay

Rechanneling Beliefs: How Information Flows Help or Hinder Democracy with Bruce Schneier

This year, we need to start fixing American democracy. On the technical level, 2020 saw exceptionally successful elections under exceptionally difficult circumstances. People voted in unprecedented numbers despite the coronavirus pandemic. Their votes were counted with no major difficulties. In states such as Georgia, paper records and auditing procedures made it possible to verify the ...
Read Article