1. The towns transformed by budget airlines
A tale of how beneficial it is for a town to be next to an airport. Take Keflavik, Iceland, for example.
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2. Effective giving
Most charities don't make the world a better place, Wall Street bankers are more useful than volunteers in Africa, and cold calculation is more important than compassion — philosopher William MacAskill explains how effective altruism works.
An excerpt from the book uses examples to explain that emotional giving or helping is a good thing, but very often it's just a way to feel better about yourself, while bringing little real benefit. For giving and altruism to be effective, they need to be calculated and guided by reason, just like in any other field of activity.
An interesting aspect, by the way, is many people's dislike for rational reasoning, and their outcries: "But what about feelings, we will lose everything human." When I was a teenager, I could buy into that stuff, but it's been a long time since things like that could get to me. First of all, what's more important to you — looking the part or getting the job done? If 'human' means selfishness and complacency, then to hell with it. No one is taking away your right to be creative, to use intuition and insights, quite the opposite in fact — you just need to channel those older, animalistic instincts living in the subconscious into the right direction.
Secondly, it's reason that is truly human, because animals mostly rely on primitive emotions.
3. Unhealthy Fixation
The war against genetically modified organisms is full of fearmongering, errors, and fraud. Labeling them will not make you safer.
Yet another article about the benefits and harms of GMOs.
It's very long and interesting, I highly recommend it. It talks a lot about how there's no evidence of GMOs being harmful, but the anti-GMO hysteria leads to sad consequences: for instance, Greenpeace's terrorism resulted in the famous vitamin A-enriched rice never making it to the market, which caused hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of children to suffer.
The anti-GMO crowd doesn't shy away from the dirtiest methods: falsifications, outright lies, withholding information, and they refuse to admit their mistakes. It sounds, of course, as if I'm inside a pro-GMO filter bubble, but in a post-truth society, try figuring out what's what. So far, everything I've read generally says that GMOs are more likely to bring humanity benefit than harm.
Then again, the obnoxious practice of slapping labels on things is in full glory here. "GMO-free" — and the person is happy, thinking they're a winner. They don't really think about how many pesticides and herbicides it contains, or how much the taste suffers. That's why I try not to buy products with such a label.
Take tomatoes, for instance — everyone complains that modern store-bought tomatoes are tasteless. But a brief look into the issue reveals the reason: they have a long shelf life, and a GMO tomato would be exactly the thing to help here, and such a tomato was created a long time ago, but it couldn't enter the market because of the label-lovers.
4. Excess Fat And Sugar Can Lead To Cognitive Decline
Mice overfed with fats and sugar grew dumber, and sucked at crawling through mazes. Judging by other articles I've read, sugar is more likely the culprit than fat.
5. Avoid the Dreaded G Rating
A story about how Hollywood studios intentionally slip a swear word or two, or a quick glimpse of boobs into their movies, just so they don't get a kids' rating (when kids can go without parents). The thing is, R-rated movies are a huge hit with adults. Despite this, G-rated (for kids) or PG-rated movies bring in good box office numbers simply because there are fewer of them. All in all, it's a hard-knock life for producers, you just can't please the censors. It's exactly like the USSR, except the reasons for censorship are different.