Therapy. I get stuck thinking about what seems obvious but never seems to change. Never seems to get fixed. I don’t mean big problems. I mean the small stuff of everyday life. Products, businesses, the way things are. Once I see it and see it as wrong, it triggers me…

In my first book, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999), I told the story of why I had become a lawyer. My uncle, Richard Cates, had been the lawyer working for the House Committee on Impeachment (along with a much younger lawyer, Hillary Rodham (soon to be) Clinton). In…

(first published at Slate) Late last month, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill that signals that a critical break may be coming in the fever of campaign finance jurisprudence. The Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act of 2023 purports to limit political spending by publicly traded corporations in America…

Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s article mainly about Dan Ariely includes an accurate quote of something I said. The fact checkers had asked me to confirm the quote, which I did. But I should have insisted on more to assure the context of the quote was clear. Rookie mistake, but I’m not a…

Earlier this week, I published an essay on Slate (the title’s a bit dramatic but writers don’t write their titles) about the argument being advanced by many lawyers that Donald Trump is not “qualified” to be elected President because he committed acts of “insurrection or rebellion” under Section 3 of…

Three days ago, I wrote an essay about the accusations raised against Francesca Gino. Based on my judgment about who Francesca is, and evidence about the nature of the evidence against her, I suggested people reserve judgment about whether the charge made against her — that she fabricated or manipulated…

The click machine of modern media can’t resist the story of an HBS professor who studies dishonesty now being charged with falsifying the data behind her research. That claim was first raised against Francesca Gino by Data Colada. As a consequence, Harvard has placed Gino on administrative leave (without pay). …

I floated this image on Twitter to test the reaction it would trigger. That reaction was as I suspected. The challenge to express the point latent in the image — a point I think we all must focus — is as clear now as it was before. And just as…

It’s puzzled me why the new Twitter competitors (and please, more and better!) haven’t done something obvious. And because it seems so obvious, there must be a good reason why they haven’t. Enlighten me? Here’s the obvious idea: When you sign up for BlueSky or Threads or Mastodon or…