Page 41 - John Stuart Mill News Today

What makes something funny? This essay reviews some theories of what it is for something to be funny.

A Stanford neurobiologist has concluded humans lack free will, a thought that raises troubling possibilities for society. One solution: Believe we have free will, but know it isn't really free.

Getting serious about protecting global biodiversity requires not just policy but a revolution in how we talk about, and with, our planet’s forests.

Philippine Canadian Inquirer ‘Killing’ trees: How true environmental protection requires a revolution in how we talk about, and with, our forests Environment & Nature

From the blog of Daniel Kamin at The Times of Israel

For liberals in the West, Israel is one of their own.

UnHerd has quickly become one of the biggest sites for political commentary in the UK, and now the hedge fund founder behind it – who also funds GB News and donates to the Tories – is trying to add the Telegraph to a fast-growing empire. What does he really want?

Earlier this month the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced proposals to ban anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 from ever legally buying a cigarette in England. The proposal mirrors a similar law passed in New Zealand by then-Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s government. And you know a policy is special when two politicians as different as Jacinda Arden and Rishi Sunak agree on it.

The prevalence of elected despotism in many democracies raises doubts about the efficacy of this system of governance since the inception of the institution of the ‘state’. The concept of the state is a result...

With the planet facing the climate crisis, its time we re-evaluate our motivations towards development and shun anything detrimental to the environment Alan Shepherd, the American astronaut famously said, “If somebody had said before the flight “Are you going to get carried away looking at