As a lawyer, I’ve been trained to spot problems and point out all the ways that things can possibly go wrong. I ask a lot of questions, which tends to make people think (and also make them uncomfortable). I’m not always fun at parties.

I guess I’m what you’d call a squeaky wheel.

Squeaky wheels get a bad rap, but they actually serve a valuable purpose in society: they let us know when the cart we’re riding in is in trouble. Ignore the squeaky wheel for too long, and our cart might break down. When that happens, everyone will wonder…

Not long after the world locked down last year, a story surfaced on The Epoch Times and other “fake news” sites claiming that COVID-19 had originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and not at a grungy wet market as widely believed. Even more shocking, the story alleged that the U.S. government had funded research at the lab.

When Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese virologist-turned-whistleblower, confirmed the claims, the story went viral — and it’s not hard to see why. Imagine if the virus that had killed hundreds of thousands of people and brought civilization to a grinding halt had been…

A few weeks ago, my partner and I made an offer on a house.

It was an 1,800-square-foot home, built in 1954, on a quiet street in a middle-class neighborhood. It sold for $318,000 in 2018 but was now listed for $665,000 — a staggering increase in three years. Our realtor said there were multiple offers, so we threw our hat in the ring with $700,000. Insane, right?

But not insane enough. We later learned there were ten other bidders, and offering $35,000 over asking put us “in the middle of the pack.” …

Human beings are funny creatures.

We’re often reluctant to change the way we think or move through the world, but when we’re forced to do it, we don’t ask questions. We go all-in and don’t look for middle ground.

When terrorists highjacked planes on 9/11 and airports turned into mini Gestapo states, we never asked ourselves if it was possible to fly safely without shredding the Constitution. …

According to the newly released Edelman Trust Barometer, the U.S. is currently in the grips of an epic “trust”crisis.

The sobering report suggests that while Americans crave facts now more than ever, they simply don’t know what to believe anymore. As a result, they have a deep and accelerating distrust of almost everything, including leaders across every area of their lives. But nowhere is this absence of trust more apparent than in traditional media:

• 56% agree with the statement that “Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”
• 58%…

In the past week, you may have heard some fuss about a company called GameStop and the crisis it’s causing on Wall Street. And you may have tuned it all out because you’re not interested in financial markets. But I encourage you to try to understand what’s happening — not just because this drama highlights who our broken financial System really serves, but because it’s yet another sign of how technology may be used in the future to silence anyone who threatens that System.

Here’s a quick rundown of what happened:

Wall Street routinely places bets against struggling companies by…

“My lips are moving and the sound’s coming out

The words are audible but I have my doubts

That you realize what has been said

You look at me as if you’re in a daze

It’s like the feeling at the end of the page

When you realize you don’t know what you just read.”

— Missing Persons, “Words”

For the past year or so, my partner has been begging me to limit my Facebook posts to family photos and recipes. Long before The Social Dilemma blew the whistle on twisted algorithms that addict us to screens and draw us…

“It is much easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”

— Unknown

In the wake of the January 6 Capitol riot, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms have launched a purge of Orwellian scope— taking down websites, removing channels, and closing user accounts en masse. It’s a warp-level acceleration of a crackdown that’s become part of our “new normal.”

Until now, many of us have tried to ignore the suppression that has slowly ratcheted up each year. …