‘Maps are the ideal metaphor for our models of what the world might be’

‘What will New York’s new map show us?’

Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker

New York City’s Proposal 5 map initiative was “actually a bit of skilled electoral craft,” says Adam Gopnik. It was a “way of using the electoral pressure of more than a million New Yorkers to get the borough presidents to release their maps.” If “there is a consoling reflection in this season, it is that all good maps, like the digitized city map, turn out to be shared work, made by many hands over a long period of time.”

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‘Gen Z is a less-drunken generation. How is that bad?’

Sara Pequeño at USA Today

With the start of Dry January “inevitably comes articles lamenting Gen Z’s decision to forgo alcohol on a regular basis,” says Sara Pequeño. It “seems like our (very personal) decision to stay away from alcohol is hitting a nerve with people who want to profit off us.” What’s “surprising is how many media outlets and general busybodies consider Gen Z’s decision not to drink just another quirk of the younger folks in their lives.”

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‘Monetizing regime change’

Emma Janssen at The American Prospect

Hours “before the United States military arrested and abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro,” a “user on the prediction market Polymarket was betting thousands of dollars that an invasion was imminent,” says Emma Janssen. These markets “take bets on discrete questions about domestic and international policy, which can be easily manipulated by users with insider knowledge.” With “policy bets, the consequences of prediction market insider trading are more wide-ranging, especially for a Trump administration already demonstrably open to corruption.”

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‘How to raise an unbiased child’

K. Ward Cummings and Anne Tapp Jaksa at Newsweek

Is it “possible to raise an unbiased child? If experts are to be believed, the answer may be no,” say K. Ward Cummings and Anne Tapp Jaksa. But “you can do the next best thing: you can teach the child to recognize their biases, understand why they have them and what to do about them.” The “process doesn’t have to be complex or theatrical,” but it “must be intentional — and involve a degree of self-examination.”

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