Sociopolitical
To Govern, Govern Well.
Peter Banks
November 10, 2024
If Democrats want a popular mandate to rule, including permission to implement their preferred social policy, they should govern competently at home.
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What is going on with the polls?
Peter Banks
November 1, 2024
Something strange is going on with polling around the 2024 US presidential election. When you look at the Real Clear Polling “no toss-ups” for the presidential election a Trump “blowout” seems to be brewing.
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Media Persistence
Peter Banks
July 31, 2024
How old should the average content we consume be? I’m not sure this question has a clear answer, but it is something I have been grappling with a lot recently. As both a consumer and a producer of online content this is a topic that touches close to my heart. For example, every article I have written for Voyagers has followed the same pattern of interactions...
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The Strange Case of Lactose Intolerance
Peter Banks
July 17, 2024
Last week, a friend of mine reached out with a meme that has been circulating on Twitter. This sparked a series of text messages between us that mirror three conversations I have had in the last two years, and I wanted to take a moment to sit down and collect my thoughts. Self-perceived lactose intolerance and medical lactose intolerance seem to have taken a strange journey, which to me is symbolic of how important cultural context is when discussing anything...
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Culture War
Peter Banks
July 10, 2024
When someone says they don’t care about social issues it is only because either the values of society are their values, or they simply do not trust you enough to really share their opinion...
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Socialization
Peter Banks
June 26, 2024
Should I steal? I was in the market for a new Nespresso machine a couple of months ago. While shopping I found myself standing in the appliance aisle of Target in East Palo Alto staring at the coffee machine I wanted. The device in question cost ~$120 and was surrounded by boxes and boxes of similar bougie devices. Now my partner and I earn fine money; but, I’m a PhD student and $120 is a non-trivial amount of money, so part of me was debating if I needed a Nespresso machine or if we could make do with something much simpler and save the cash when I realized I could just pick the box up and walk out of the store. I live in California where all theft below $950 is a misdemeanor but more importantly, I just knew no one would even look if I simply walked away with the device.
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Book Recommendation: Reveries of the Solitary Walker
Nicholas Migli
June 19, 2024
In a change of pace from my normal subjects, I wanted to write a short recommendation for Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries of the Solitary Walker. I read this within the last year and had come across it by accident. Not intending to read it through, I found it forgotten about on one of my shelves and decided to take a look and see what it was about. I soon realized a few minutes into reading that I was quickly being pulled in.
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Politics, Art, and the Aesthetic
Peter Banks
June 5, 2024
The aesthetics of an era do not merely reflect the political landscape but actively participate in shaping and defining it. The motifs and forms of an aesthetic draw individuals who are temperamentally inclined toward them along with giving them tools to present their vision of society to the public at large creating a powerful synergy between art and politics.
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We Need to Plan
Marco Migueis
May 9, 2024
We think we are rational and wise. Human knowledge and societies have evolved a great deal since cave times. Collectively, we now know so much about nature, from the atom to the stars, and have developed intricate organizations and social structures, like modern governments or multinational corporations. Still, we get by as a species with remarkably little collective planning. And I fear this will eventually lead to our demise.
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