Microbes And Governance

Culture Shift

Rachel Dutton | Asimov Press | 20th March 2026

It is generally accepted that humans cultivate their food, not the other way around. But with fermentation, we might have that backwards. Fermenting food has been going on for at least 7,000 years, long before we understood what "microbes" were. Fermented foods shaped human biology — and only now, in the last century, that we've been eating a lot less of it, are we feeling the consequences (3,000 words)

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Suicidal Bootlicking As Governance

Hamilton Nolan | How Things Work | 19th March 2026

Polemic against the economic policies of states in the American South. Since the end of the Civil War, it is argued here, the approach has been to attract "out-of-state capitalists" with promises of low taxes, minimal regulation and a population of workers kept poor enough to serve as non-union cheap labour. Institutions are remade for these rich incomers, who then send their kids north, to Harvard (1,700 words)