The New Passport-Poor
Is a passport a tool of individual freedom or state restriction and regulation? This piece looks to answer that question and examines the history of identity documentation.
The Big Gamble
Betting shops are ubiquitous on Britain’s high streets. They can be very dangerous places to work.
The last Nazi hunters
A look at the work of Germany’s Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes.
Tinder’s In-House Sociologist
An interview with the woman tasked with understanding what people find attractive.
The Court That Rules the World
An investigative report into the world of arbitration at the ISDS, an increasingly influential supranational legal body for global corporations and nations.
Lizard Games
The author describes his “sordid double life” in Hackmud, a new online multiplayer game set in a dystopian future. The game itself is inaccessible in that you play the role of an AI, it is text based and you can only play by coding scripts, and yet the piece draws you in, painting a vivid picture of a lawless digital outpost, where no one is to be trusted, and everyone is on the make.
Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich
If civilisation falls then many of Silicon Valley’s elite will be well prepared – this article meets some of those getting ready with ammunition, motorcycles, food supplies and other wheezes to survive the ensuing chaos.
The Useful Village
A story set in a rural village in Germany over the course of a year as a camp for refugees is built on the outskirts of the village, local concern and optimism ebbs and flows, refugees arrive and then subsequently leave. Measured in pace and tone, observing all the complexities that arose from a complex situation.
Touching Death: The Turbulent Life of One of America’s Last Snake-Handling Preachers
A look at the work of snake-handling preachers in Kentucky.
Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet
Though it is currently the 7th most visited site in the world (and 4th in the US), it’s easy to underestimate the sheer scale of Reddit, the self-styled “front page of the internet”. That scale, and its anarchic traits, have made it the front line in figuring out what is acceptable online behaviour. This insightful and often darkly funny piece meets the people trying to draw the lines.