Issue 2
Issue 2 Digital MagazineIssue 2 features ten student articles and ten interviews with academics and public figures, covering topics such as Ukraine’s resistance to Russia, Canada’s carbon tax, the effects of AI on jobs, and global poverty. Many of the pieces look at how political and economic decisions affect people’s lives and who ends up paying the costs.
‘I need ammunition, not a ride.'
Covers the four factors behind Ukraine's resistance, arguing that leadership and the ability to adapt in the field mattered more than firepower alone.
Unenforced, not Unsolvable
Thirty years of climate treaties have produced agreement without compliance, because international law has no way to force a country to follow through.
From Oil Rigs to Climate Tech
An engineer who once built offshore drilling rigs now runs a platform that connects Korean and Southeast Asian green-tech firms, and explains why the partnership works.
Conditional Fragility
Looks at what happens when AI trading programs for oil, wheat, and other goods act alike during a crisis, and whether the usual safety rules target the problem.
Who Pays for Intelligence?
The electricity use hidden behind every seemingly weightless AI query traces back to the data centres that carry the cost.
Universal Capital, Not Income
A Greek MP argues basic income won't be enough once AI displaces labour, proposing housing, dividend-paying capital, and a personal AI agent for everyone instead.
A Country-less Currency, and a Country Drowning in Its Currency
Why the dollar prices trade between other countries, and how demand for the Swiss franc left Switzerland's central bank holding one of the world's largest balance sheets.
The End of the Sticker Price
Big data and algorithmic pricing have worn away the privacy that once kept consumers from paying exactly what they were willing to.
What States and Deeds Can’t Do
An Egyptian political economist explains how Middle Eastern states can be both authoritarian and weak, and why formal property titles won't fix it.
Built to Fail
Lebanon's power-sharing system, designed to stop any one sect from dominating, has made the country nearly impossible to govern or reform.
“Axe the Tax”
Explains why Canadian voters rejected a carbon tax that returned most households more money than it cost them.
When Votes Don't Matter
An Icelandic economist ties the stalled rollout of a constitution backed by two-thirds of voters fourteen years ago to the resource curse playing out inside a wealthy democracy.
Your Attention, Priced
Human attention has quietly become a raw material bought and sold at scale, with costs landing even on services marketed as free.
Your Attention, Spent
A philosopher who builds mathematical models of human behaviour maps the attention economy through three character types.
What AI Doesn't Destroy
AI is wiping out some job tasks and leaving others alone, and the ones left standing are becoming more valuable.
Economic Models Can’t Vote
What an economic model tells a government to do and what that government can get away with before an election are often two different things.
The Kindest Lies
Compares deontology and utilitarianism with care ethics and argues the latter does a better job explaining why white lies aren't always wrong.
The Lottery You Cannot Leave
Argues that rich countries owe the world's poor justice, because the trade and finance rules that decide a child's chances from birth were written without them.
What We “Shouldn't” Love
A philosopher on why patriotism feels good but falls apart once you try to defend it logically.
Bent by Hand
History bends toward justice only when people push it there, and the article asks who has been doing the pushing.