Culture & Religion — May 12, 2010

The New Squatters

In the wake of the housing bust, some squatters are doing so not for financial expediency, but because they reject the idea that homes be treated as commodities.

bigthinkeditor

In the wake of the housing bubble’s burst, squatters are making their move on abandoned properties. Some are not just squatting for financial expediency—they are anarchists who believe everyone has a right to housing and reject the idea that homes be treated as commodities to be speculated over for profit. “It’s an old squatters’ adage,” one is quoted as saying. “Don’t just squat to live, but live to squat.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Earth’s Crystalline Center

While in in the past we thought of the earth’s core as fairly homogeneous, it’s now clear that the solid center of the earth is an aggregation of crystals.