A Philosopher’s Toast to Getting Drunk

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Drunk is filled to the brim with references to the workplace. According to author Edward Slingerland, appreciating alcohol’s ancient roots can help us think more clearly about what role drinking should play in our professional lives.  As…

Combatting Bullshit in the Workplace

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Listen to "#31 - Combatting Bullshit in the Workplace" on Spreaker. In this episode of the Breaking the Fever podcast, we speak with Ian McCarthy about the many faces of bullshit—how it’s different from lies, the harmless and harmful…

How the Fair Labor Association Promotes a Living Wage for Workers

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By using a consistent methodology to measure workers’ compensation, we now have a baseline to understand how far we need to go to reach a living wage. In today’s globalized economy, large companies increasingly outsource production to…

Corporate America Has a Caste Problem

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Unwittingly, businesses and civil society in the US may have facilitated the dominant caste practices through preferential hiring of Indians (in reality, they are hiring only higher castes). Silicon Valley's diversity problems are not hidden,…

Now Is the Time to Prepare for the Economic Shocks of Battling Climate Change

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Shedding reliance on fossil fuels is key to making the leap from a carbon-intensive present to a greener future. Experts say that smart planning and transparent policymaking can ease the transition—and balance the worst financial risks. The…

A More Prosocial World in Theory and Practice

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Listen to "#30 - A More Prosocial World in Theory and Practice" on Spreaker. In this episode of the Breaking the Fever podcast, we speak with David Sloan Wilson about cooperation—how it evolved in social beings, how culture and norms can…

How Networks of Complicity Can Enable Crimes to Go on for Decades

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Unethical, even criminal, conduct can persist in organizations for long periods of time, often as an open secret and often supported by others. The R&B singer R. Kelly was found guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking charges…

The Double-Edged Nature of Cooperation

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Cooperation is our species’ superpower. The pandemic has been a stark reminder of just how much we rely on one another. Like plagues of the past, the novel coronavirus has exploited our social nature. But our sociality is also our…

How to Address the Legal Status of Afghan Refugees

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More than 24,000 Afghans already have been brought to the U.S., where they are being held in military bases in Virginia, Texas, Wisconsin, and other states. These makeshift arrangements are far from ideal. In the last two weeks of August,…

Elizabeth Holmes Is a Scapegoat—Even If She’s Guilty

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Reprinted with permission from Luke Burgis' Substack, Anti-Mimetic. Our desire for quick justice can make us pounce on the most visible actors. The criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing startup Theranos,…