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Podcast: Madness, Mysticism and Philosophy | Pop Apocalypse. Wide-ranging conversation on the philosophy of madness. “The philosopher is not meant to help either the psychotic or the psychiatrist. Indeed, it is the mad person who can help the philosopher by means of “thought experiments” or “world constructions”” (1h 18m)
Video: Hundreds Of Robots Move Shanghai City Block | YouTube | South China Morning Post | 1m 45s
Timelapse footage of 432 "crawler robots" moving an entire city block of historic houses at the rate of 33 feet a day. The buildings were temporarily shifted so that an underground mall could be built, and then moved back on top.
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Five Books features in-depth author interviews recommending five books on a theme. You can read more interviews on the site, or sign up for the newsletter.
Endangered Languages
Of the world's 7000 languages, around half are expected to be extinct by the end of this century. Samantha Ellis's mother tongue is one of them. We asked her to reflect on what we lose when we lose a way of speaking—culturally, linguistically, emotionally—and to recommend five books about endangered languages. Read more
The Best 20th-Century Chinese Fiction
While rooted in specific Chinese contexts, these books transcend cultural boundaries and speak to universal questions about dignity, freedom, identity, and the longing to be seen, says novelist and writer Lijia Zhang. She talks us through five of the best works of fiction to come out of mainland China in the twentieth century. Read more
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Why Are We All Cowards?
Linch | 10th July 2025
Wide-ranging discussion of risk. Interesting throughout. There is little doubt that humans are becoming more risk averse. The US's value for a statistical life (now $11.4 million) has more than tripled since 1980, far outstripping life expectancy. Why do we prize safety more? Likely a combination of growing personal wealth, secularisation, smaller families, falling mortality rates, and psychological evolution (4,000 words)
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A Pro-Human Manifesto
Marie Le Conte | Young Vulgarian | 11th July 2025
Slice of memoir that doubles as an argument for resisting the slide into social isolation. The writer was identified as a gifted child young, bullied for it and then later opted to learn how to trust humans again even though "liking people" is not something that came naturally. Whether introverted or extroverted, it is a deliberate choice to move through the world and "feel the warmth of human interaction" (3,300 words)
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The full Browser recommends five articles, a video and a podcast. Today, enjoy our audio and video picks.
Podcast: Guilty: The Jury Returns Its Verdict | Mushroom Case Daily. Courtroom explainer from the Australian poisoning case that has gripped the nation down under (24m 07s)
Video: Incredibly Beautiful Starling Murmurations | YouTube | DW Euromaxx | 4m 34s
A Danish photographer explains his process for photographing these incredible avian aerial displays. The most interesting shapes, he says, occur when the starlings are being attacked by birds of prey.
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Some Tastes Are Better Than Others
Jeremy Stangroom | Herstical | 21st January 2025
Unearthed interview from the early 2000s with Roger Scruton, about art, passion and elitism. "I think you can be an elitist without being a snob. You can think that some tastes are better than others, not just because they are more satisfying, but because they engage in a more creative and fulfilling way with the human soul, without condemning people who don't have those tastes" (2,600 words)
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Frame Of Preference
Marcin Wichary | Aresluna | 8th July 2025
Stylishly illustrated history of Mac's settings menu, known variously as "Control Panel" and "System Preferences". The entire history of Apple as a company is here in microcosm, from iconic design choices like rounded corners and window transparency to the years-long duel with Windows for domestic computing dominance. Devices became more complicated, but the fonts are much better now (10,000 words)
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Good Translations? Bad Translations?
Olga Litvak | Hedgehog Review | 1st July 2025
Until the 16C, it was not widely acknowledged that the Bible began life as a translation by Greek-speaking Jews in Alexandria from the 1st BC. Differences in translation have been consequential, to say the least. In Hebrew, the verse about the virgin birth refers simply to a “young woman with child”. “Young woman” was translated as “virgin” because in Greek, the two words are synonymous (5,200 words)
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The French Liar
Sandrine Parageau | Aeon | 8th July 2025
René Descartes, in his time, was repeatedly and publicly accused of being a fraud. The “radical or hyperbolical doubt” that Descartes advocated seemed, to his detractors, to be “implying a form of self-induced ignorance” which would result in “solitude and despair”, and leave his victims no choice but to “adhere to him tooth and nail”. This description is strikingly similar to what we now call “gaslighting” (2,400 words)
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Monks In Jersey
Simon Wu | Paris Review | 3rd July 2025
Account of a long weekend spent as a temporary Buddhist monk in New Jersey. "There was more of it than I thought — my hair, that was. It fell in soft clumps to the shower curtain. As he shaved me, the monk explained to me that this arrangement was intentional and symbolic. It was supposed to represent losing vanity. But I could think of nothing but my vanity. I couldn’t stop thinking about being bald" (4,400 words)
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Getting Started With Old English Poetry
Colin Gorrie | Dead Language Society | 2nd July 2025
Most Old English poetry is easier to read than Beowulf, so work your way up to it. The Wanderer, a work from the subgenre of elegiac poetry, is worth exploring — it inspired some of Tolkien's verse for The Lord of the Rings. Deor, a wisdom poem, contains lines that are the "kind of thing people get tattooed on their arm". Or try The Dream of the Rood, which recasts the crucifixion as a Germanic epic (2,300 words)
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Men In The Off Hours
Fernanda Eberstadt | European Review Of Books | 1st May 2025
Bearing the subtitle "on Impressionist butts", this review of a Gustave Caillebotte exhibition considers the development of the vulnerable male nude in art history. "It’s this stout indifference to male-female divisions that makes Caillebotte such a provocative artist — one who chooses to depict grumpy-looking young ladies reading the newspaper, and naked workmen toweling off after a bath" (2,600 words)
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Hydronuclear Testing
J. B. Crawford | Computers Are Bad | 19th June 2025
Between 1959 and 1961, hydronuclear testing took place in "Technical Area 49" of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This technique involved drilling deep wells, installing the test device (which had most of the nuclear material removed; just the explosive mechanism was under scrutiny), backfilling the hole and then detonating. "The plutonium and uranium is just down there, and it'll have to stay" (3,100 words)
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The full Browser recommends five articles, a video and a podcast. Today, enjoy our audio and video picks.
Podcast: Civility, Trash Talking And More Sociable Cities | Future Tense. Urban spaces can be designed in ways that shape and constrain how civil people are to each other (28m 38s)
Video: Baggage | Vimeo | Lucy Davidson | 5m 22s
Animated short that uses the baggage check in and security procedures at an airport to tell a story about self doubt. At the "insecurity check", a character with too-heavy luggage is forced to reveal what is inside.
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