A bias studied since 1983 explains why almost no one thinks they are vulnerable to the lies they see in others
In 1983, American sociologist W. Phillips Davison gave a name to a mechanism any…
ESSAYS
ESSAYS — ACIDREPORT
Essays
In-depth texts: cultural analysis, political reading and history as a tool for understanding the present.
The essay as a pause
Daily news explains what happened. The essay explains why it matters. There is no informational urgency here, there is time to think a subject through to the end, without the pressure to publish before anyone else or to summarise in two paragraphs what demands a full development. A well written essay does not compete with current events, it deliberately ignores them for as long as careful thought requires.
The texts gathered in this section address culture, politics and history from a critical distance that current events rarely allow. They do not aim to inform about a specific event, they aim to place that event within a wider structure of meaning, the one that explains why it happened that way and not another, and why it will probably happen again.
Not everything deserves an essay. Only what survives a second reading, what still says something once the outcome of the event that inspired it is already known. A good essay ages better than the news that gave rise to it, because it does not depend on novelty but on the quality of the reasoning, and that is exactly the criterion by which every text in this section is chosen.
Netanyahu Ignored the Emirati Warning Because Israel Had Already Chosen to Manage Hamas, Not Eliminate It
In late September 2023, the president of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed,…
A Handful of Fortunes Concentrates the Press in France and Colombia While Journalism Collapses
On the set of CNews, sociologist Michel Maffesoli recently declared that journalism stinks, that…
A generation that never had to organise itself grew into adulthood, and the figures are starting to show the cost
This generation was not handed the same software as their teachers. Those born in…
The confidence with which someone walks says less about their actual competence than about the role they agree to play
There is a way of walking that has become suspicious, that of the one…
The European Commission suspends its directive against greenwashing under pressure from the European People’s Party
There was a time when ignorance wore the simple face of silence. It lived…
A Law Written by the Owners of Capital Absolves Whoever Poisons a City and Condemns Whoever Has No Roof
Capitalism is not a law of nature, it is a body of law, written…
Gérard de Nerval knocked over a folding screen in Vienna and revealed that social decorum is just a shared stage set
Gérard de Nerval lived from 1808 to 1855, but it is worth setting aside…
A margin of less than one point does not cancel a resistance Colombia has sustained for forty years
On August 7th, in a sports arena in Cali rather than in Bogotá, Abelardo…
Psychological Bulletin documents weakened inhibitory control in nearly one hundred thousand young people
Before even getting out of bed, a large share of youth checks the phone…
There is a company that prices every wildfire on Earth, except the one burning in the Amazon
Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, closed the first half of 2026 with 44…
The impatience of power reveals the fragility of those who no longer know how to let time act
There is a persistent illusion that has accompanied power for as long as power…