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Humanity has always stared into the void and asked, “Why are we here?”, usually followed by, “And who’s responsible for all this?” Whether whispered to trees, inscribed in sacred texts, or processed through quantum servers, the search for meaning has been relentless, imaginative, and often contradictory. What follows is a sweeping tour through the shifting landscapes of belief, from stone age spirits to silicon soulcraft. Along the way, we explore not only what people believed, but how those beliefs evolved, adapted, and occasionally exploded in dramatic fashion. ...

The idea that creatures, humans included, are governed by hardwired instincts is a comforting one. It suggests order, predictability, and perhaps even an excuse for that inexplicable urge to hoard snacks. But biology, as usual, refuses to play along neatly. Instead, we find that so-called “instincts” are often more like rough drafts, heavily edited by experience, environment, and even the ghostly hand of epigenetics. The myth of the unshakable instinct ...

Welcome to Fungolia, a fictional European nation best known for producing bureaucrats with severe stationery addictions, national holidays dedicated to committee meetings, and the invention of the “Mutually Suspicious Cooperation Accord” ( which mostly involved not poisoning each other’s water supply). In Fungolia, difference isn’t just tolerated, it’s enshrined in law, embossed in gold, and swiftly ignored in practice. This article is about unity. Not the fluffy kind that fits neatly on a banner at a protest you forget to attend, but the kind you earn by wading through the muck of genuine difference. In a Europe increasingly divided by wealth, history, ideology, and the collective trauma of having to agree on cheese standards, the idea of unity can feel more like a punchline than a plan. ...

Meet the key players Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, now in his sixth term, is a master of political survival. His current tenure is propped up by far-right allies, a necessity given his ongoing corruption trials (fraud, bribery, and breach of trust). His primary objectives are maintaining power, weakening the judiciary to shield himself from legal accountability, and balancing the demands of his extremist coalition partners while attempting to project an image of statesmanship to the outside world. ...

Note: All personal names have been anonymised unless the individual has a verifiable public presence and wishes to be visible. I choose to run risks; I will not make that choice for others. He was 21 and already battling high blood pressure. His doctors confirmed it. His exemption papers were in order. But that didn’t stop them from coming for him. One morning in spring 2025, he opened his door to find officers holding a digital summons. No discussion. No delay. He was on a bus to a training facility by nightfall. Within a week, he was at the Ukrainian border, terrified, untrained, and furious. ...

In September 2023, the Israeli Ministry of Defence released a promotional video for its Iron Sting precision mortar system. The footage, taken from a drone, shows a building in Gaza being obliterated. It isn’t merely a military demonstration; it’s a sales pitch. The message? Our weapons work. And they work because we’ve used them, on real people, in real places, with very real consequences. At arms fairs like DSEI in London, the phrase “combat-proven” is more than sales patter; it’s a mark of credibility. The battlefield doubles as showroom. And the uncomfortable question is this: Is it morally, legally, or politically justifiable to turn war zones into testing grounds for profit? ...

We humans adore a simple dichotomy. It’s frightfully efficient. White or non-white. Male or female. Disabled or abled. These binaries promise neatness in a messy world, a cognitive filing system for complex humanity. Yet as philosopher Val Plumwood observed, these “master/slave” frameworks operate through five dangerously slick mechanisms: backgrounding, radical exclusion, incorporation, instrumentalism, and homogenisation. The result? A society perpetually queueing at the wrong post office counter. The five quiet engines of oppression Plumwood’s mechanisms work like bureaucratic stealth. Backgrounding treats one identity as society’s default setting, the unmarked “normal” against which others are measured. Consider how medical textbooks historically used white male bodies as universal templates. Radical exclusion rigidly polices borders: trans folk facing scrutiny over toilet access, or mixed-race individuals pressured to “pick a side”. Incorporation defines the “slave” category purely by its relationship to the master (“disabled” meaning “needs help”). Instrumentalism reduces people to tools, like expecting minority staff to fix diversity problems unpaid. Homogenisation flattens groups: assuming all disabled people need identical ramps. ...

Premise: Functional by design By 2040, BRICS+ emerges as the world’s most effective climate alliance, not through luck, but through shrewd strategy, sovereign solidarity, and an uncanny ability to turn adversity into opportunity. What begins as a pushback against western hypocrisy evolves into a multipolar green order, driven by energy pragmatism, diplomatic agility, and some rather bold infrastructure experiments. How it happens The west’s green hypocrisy backfires (2025 to 2030) The European Union launches its much-touted carbon border tax with great fanfare, and little diplomacy. In the Global South, it is promptly dubbed “eco-colonialism in spreadsheets”. Meanwhile, the United States fails to pass its second Green New Deal, after a series of fiscal deadlocks and an unexpected banking crisis send climate funding into retreat. ...

Premise: Dysfunctional by design By 2035, BRICS+ doesn’t collapse under its own contradictions, nor does it morph into a cohesive challenger to the G7. Instead, it stumbles into superpower status by a series of messy accidents, economic disasters, and geopolitical farces. Less deliberate empire, more Frankenstein with a membership card. As the West self-harms through sanctions, debt cliffs, and diplomatic hubris, BRICS+ rises, not through coordination, but sheer entropy. They didn’t build an empire. They inherited the scrapyard and accidentally started selling tickets., Anonymous EU diplomat, 2034 ...

The BRICS alliance began life as something between a Goldman Sachs marketing gimmick and a drunken bet among emerging market traders. “I’ll wager you a case of champagne these four economies will dominate by 2050!” Fast-forward two decades, and what started as an investment banker’s acronym has somehow morphed into a geopolitical bloc with expansionist ambitions. The recent addition of new members under the “BRICS+” banner suggests this is no longer just about economics. This is about building an alternative world order where the rules are made by autocrats and petrostates. ...