Author: Michelle Korhonen

Voting age, atheism, abortion, language education, and moreIllustration by The Atlantic. Source: Coneyl Jay / GettyJanuary 17, 2024, 3:41 PM ETWelcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.Last week, I asked readers, “What is a belief or position you hold that you feel to be misunderstood or misrepresented by many people who disagree with you?”Replies have been edited for length and clarity.R. writes:I believe in fiscal responsibility and that the government has a responsibility to…

For most of history, communicating with a computer has not been like communicating with a person. In their earliest years, computers required carefully constructed instructions, delivered through punch cards; then came a command-line interface, followed by menus and options and text boxes. If you wanted results, you needed to learn the computer’s language.This is beginning to change. Large language models—the technology undergirding modern chatbots—allow users to interact with computers through natural conversation, an innovation that introduces some baggage from human-to-human exchanges. Early on in our respective explorations of ChatGPT, the two of us found ourselves typing a word that we’d…

Society of the Snow tells the real-life story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, a plane that crashed into the Andes in 1972 and left its passengers, a rugby team and their supporters, starving and stranded for 72 days. It’s a gruesome tale—the survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism—that’s been dramatized many times before, most notably in 1993’s Alive, but the director J. A. Bayona’s rendition may be the most immersive take yet. The crash scene is meticulously re-created—people being sucked out of the fuselage, bones shattering as the seats get ripped from the floor, bodies crumpling toward the cockpit. Most…

One of the only things we can say for certain about the future is that it will be hotter. Humanity is nowhere close to eliminating carbon emissions, meaning that even if every government on the planet went all in on tackling climate change tomorrow, temperatures would keep rising for many years.This is often taken to mean that the future will necessarily be worse for humanity than the present. Leading publications refer casually to the “climate apocalypse.” People earnestly debate the morality of bringing children into the world. A letter from a young reader to the New York Times ethics column…

The latest weight-loss drugs are rightly hailed as game changers for obesity, but in an important way, they are just like every other method of managing weight: They work only to a point for weight loss. The pounds melt off quickly at first and then gradually and then not at all. You can’t lose any more no matter what you do. You’ve hit the weight-loss plateau.It happens with dieting. It happens with bariatric surgery. And it happens now with both semaglutide (better known as Ozempic or Wegovy, depending on whether it’s prescribed for diabetes or weight loss) and tirzepatide (better…

In 1973, the writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated an adage meant to capture the relationships humans were building with their machines: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”The line became known as Clarke’s Third Law, and it is regularly invoked today as a reminder of technology’s giddy possibilities. Its true prescience, though, lay in its ambivalence. Technology, in Clarke’s time, encompassed cars and dishwashers and bombs that could take millions of lives in an instant. Technology could be awe-inspiring. It could also be cruel. And it tended to work, for the typical person, in mysterious ways—an opacity that, for…

This picture taken on Oct. 31, 2023, shows a man smoking a cigarette in Sundbyberg, near Stockholm, Sweden. The WHO has issued a new report on global tobacco use, finding rates are going down. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images This picture taken on Oct. 31, 2023, shows a man smoking a cigarette in Sundbyberg, near Stockholm, Sweden. The WHO has issued a new report on global tobacco use, finding rates are going down. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images Tobacco use rates around the world are falling, but not as much as…

Drug price hikes appear to be moderate this year, with some drug prices falling. Elise Amendola/AP hide caption toggle caption Elise Amendola/AP Drug price hikes appear to be moderate this year, with some drug prices falling. Elise Amendola/AP Drug companies often increase prices at the start of the new year, and 2024 seems to be no exception.There have been about 600 price hikes so far in January, according to the drug price nonprofit 46Brooklyn Research. But the increases haven’t been as steep as they were in some previous years. In the 2010s, drug price hikes were typically much bigger —…

Are you ready to take on the health and fitness goals you’ve always wanted to accomplish? Let’s just agree 2024 is the year you’re gonna make it happen and we’re here to help! The number one thing holding most women back is honestly really simple to change, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It comes down to learning to fuel your body with the right foods, but I know just how overwhelming it can be to understand what it really means to eat healthy. I also know there are a lot of terrible restrictive diets out there that DON’T WORK and leave…

Students from Launch Charter School march on Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 2 last year in Brooklyn, NY. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Students from Launch Charter School march on Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 2 last year in Brooklyn, NY. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images “If you see something, say something.” That’s not just a slogan for subway stations and airports. It’s also a concept embraced by the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System, started by the non-profit Sandy Hook Promise Foundation. Schools in 23 states have set up an anonymous tip…