Companies have found gamification an effective method of making workers work harder. Lyft manipulates drivers with the same techniques used to make slot machines addictive.

Gamification is effective partly because the workers enjoy playing the game. Also partly because it leads them to compete with other workers, and regard them as the problem, rather than to unite with them to demand that the company treat them all better,

If something is "personalized for you" by a company, that means it is harming you.

The bullshitter has imposed rules of "decorum" on his "press conferences" to make sure they will never serve the purpose of real press conferences.

It is impossible to force the president (or anyone) to engage with the press. But since he doesn't want to, the press should stop going uselessly through the motions, stop supporting the pretense that they are real press conferences. Cover something else, something that matters.

The cheater will have every incentive, in December, to start either a constitutional crisis or a war.

The world's pharma industry is failing to develop treatments for diseases listed as high priority.

Developing a treatment for a disease is not a routine job like digging a ditch: you can't just allocated a certain amount of money and expect a treatment in N years. But if you don't put in the necessary effort, you predictably won't advance.

I think the root of the problem is depending on those businesses too much for the research. We need to increase taxes on those that have money, so that we will have money to spend on all the things that society needs.

US "big box" stores have found a legal argument that works in some states to slash their property taxes. Where they succeed, they could force towns into bankruptcy, or into raising the taxes of everyone else, which would ruin them.

Who wins in court based on current tax laws does not in any sense determine what the right outcome is. The right outcome is to make large and successful companies pay high taxes.