Feb 2, 2022Why are we even more polarised now than before the pandemic? — a short noteAt the beginning of the pandemic a thought crossed our minds: would Covid-19 bring us closer together? Would the spiral of polarisation fade? The past two years have taught us the opposite: it is tearing us further apart, and we are more polarised than before. What are the mechanisms that…Pandemic3 min readPandemic3 min read
Nov 22, 2021NGOs will fail if they succumb to extreme ideologyIn recent years, many of the world’s leading NGOs have undergone a rapid transformation towards more diverse and inclusive organisations and workplaces. Many organisations such as Action Aid, Amnesty International, WWF or Greenpeace were founded in the 1960s and 70s by predominantly British and North American men. …Woke13 min readWoke13 min read
Aug 24, 2021Can the pandemic serve as a model for tackling climate change?Why we should value dissent and not just ‘follow the science’ — Perhaps it is a very positive phenomenon that emerged at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic: All over the world, many people were willing to sacrifice much of their individual freedom to protect the elderly and vulnerable. In countries like the UK and Germany, it was initially a grassroots project…Climate Change12 min readClimate Change12 min read
Jul 6, 2021The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the WorldA new book by Nichola Raihani — A growing number of activists and civil society spaces focus their attention on the idea that we humans have to get rid of our mechanistic worldview that sees us as separate from one another as well as separate from nature.These voices argue that modern scientific knowledge shows that this worldview…3 min read3 min read
Jul 5, 2021Doughnut Economics is the answer, isn’t it?Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics has been hugely successful in progressive civil society spaces. It pops up everywhere as the solution for a new economic system that is just and sustainable. No doubt, Raworth’s book provides some powerful arguments that are important to consider. The model of the doughnut is very…Doughnut Economics4 min readDoughnut Economics4 min read
May 19, 2021Why do we need to switch off the autopilot?Tapping into the human evolutionary potential Ever since Darwin, evolutionary biology has been used to justify all kinds of different political philosophies and economic orders, from communism to classical liberalism. There is a recent ‘school’ of progressive interpretation of evolutionary biology that presents itself as based on the latest science. Broadly speaking the core message of…Evolution10 min readEvolution10 min read
Jan 22, 2021A core lesson from 2020: we need to learn how to deal with complex problems and moral dilemmasShutting down most of public and social life as well as important parts of the economy is not something that epidemiologists in Western liberal democracies thought they would recommend in case of a severe pandemic before 2020. …Covid 1915 min readCovid 1915 min read
Nov 4, 2020How woke ideology is seizing the climate movement — a short noteI’ve just come across the promotion of a new book on how to transform the climate movement. It says: “The inadequate and ineffective framing of climate change as a narrow, isolated, discrete problem to be “solved” by technical solutions is failing.” I was using similar phrases for many years. …Intersectionality3 min readIntersectionality3 min read
Oct 2, 2020Why we need to reduce our moral certainty (and stop moralising about face masks)I’m guessing that most of you, readers, wouldn’t even question that it is morally imperative to wear a face mask during the pandemic. The logic of this moral certainty is clear and obvious: We are in the midst of a pandemic that disproportionately affects and kills elderly people. …Coronavirus9 min readCoronavirus9 min read
Jul 24, 2020The missing conversation: How are we going to live with this virus in the long run?In early March, when broad consensus emerged that Covid-19 was turning into a global pandemic, social media suddenly felt like a math class on exponential growth graphs. #flattenthecurve became a social media campaign and soon, the political goal of most governments. After the footage of collapsing ICUs in Bergamo shocked…Covid 1917 min readCovid 1917 min read
