Review: Avowed Is a Fantasy Game About the Benefits of Local Control
The player encounters various governmental figures and debates about the rights of various human and not-so-human creatures
Reviews
Review: What the Hell Is a 'Libertarian Authoritarian'?
Offended Freedom categorizes perfectly understandable anger at government overreach as inherently "authoritarian."
Review: A Doctor Changes His Mind About Opioid Prescriptions
In Greed to Do Good, a former CDC physician calls the agency's war on opioids a disaster.
Review: YouTuber Max Miller Is Recreating Historical Recipes
From parmesan ice cream to pumpkin spice lasagna
Review: Schedule I Is a Multiplayer Co-op Black Market Econ Simulator
A spiritual successor to the Drug Wars game that proliferated on high school graphing calculators
Review: There Are No Top-Down Solutions to the Problems Depicted in Adolescence
The limited-run Netflix series is fueling a real-life push for the British government to protect kids from online dangers.
Review: A Comic Book Villain Runs for Mayor of New York in the New Daredevil Series
Daredevil's nemesis Kingpin runs up against local government bureaucracy.
Review: The Wild Adventures of Women in Anthropology
Anthropology was once built around freewheeling interactions with alien peoples in far-flung lands.
Review: The Free Market Comes to The Sims 4
Even simulated entrepreneurs aren't free from the burdens of business registration fees.
Review: Was Charles Manson Carrying Out a CIA Experiment?
Errol Morris' new Netflix documentary explores alternative theories of the Manson cult's infamous 1969 murders.
Review: The Rise of the 'Divorce Memoir'
"There is no typical divorce," writes No Fault author Haley Mlotek.
Review: A Doomsday Murder Mystery Set in an Underground Bunker
Even in a fictitious postapocalyptic world, the government can't be trusted to tell the truth.
Review: A Superhero Struggle About the Ethics of Violence
The animated Invincible series wrestles with the ethics of killing for the greater good.
Review: Blurring the Line Between Fine Art and Advertising
Commercial genius Alphonse Mucha's ads helped sell everything from soap to Champagne.
Review: How Video Games Can Connect Us to the World
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, a documentary on Netflix, explains how a terminally ill boy found freedom in World of Warcraft.
Review: The Christian Case for Free Markets
Mere Economics makes a religious argument for private property and free exchange.
Review: The Whole Story Tells the Story of Whole Foods Market
Company co-founder John Mackey weaves together lessons from his business, spiritual, and personal journeys.
Review: Authoritarianism Backfires in the Latest Dune Installment
In Max's Dune: Prophecy, even the power to predict others' actions can't tame the chaos of free will.
Review: Netflix's Mo Captures the Absurdity of the U.S. Immigration System
A stateless protagonist dodges the federal government in comedic fashion.
Review: Is the New Captain America Movie an Allegory for Donald Trump?
Brave New World was shot long before the new Trump term, but the parallels are hard to overlook.
Review: Flow Is a Beautiful Low-Budget Animated Feature
The Latvian Oscar winner was rendered on a free and open-source 3D graphic engine.
Review: Aging Millennials Confront Adult Problems on Screen
Apple TV+'s Shrinking is both cringeworthy and relatable.
Review: A Novel About Pronatalist Government Programs
Set in South Korea, Apartment Women reflects real concerns about the country's lagging birth rate.
Review: A TV Spy Thriller About Psychological Consequences of Going Undercover
The Agency depicts the cruelty and dehumanization involved in espionage work.
Review: Charting the Rise of Anti-Lockdown Activism
Chaos Comes Calling unsympathetically characterizes activism springing from COVID lockdowns as a far-right takeover.
Review: D.C. Museum Exhibit Illuminates the Brutalities of Slavery
The "In Slavery's Wake" exhibit celebrates black Americans' resistance to slavery and Jim Crow.
Review: Another Tasty but Imperfect Meat Alternative
Prime Roots deli-style meat alternatives are made of koji, the fungi that make soy sauce delicious.
Review: A Florida Museum Brings Pirate History to Life
The St. Augustine Pirate & Treasure Museum claims to house more than 800 authentic pirate artifacts.
Review: Rethinking the Stanford Prison Experiment
Did participants exhibit a natural inclination for cruelty, or were they just doing what they thought researchers wanted?
Review: A Sci-Fi Exploration of a Shadowy Government
The deeply weird Southern Reach Series reminds us that human institutions can turn people into something unrecognizable.
Review: A Novel About Walls, Both Literal and Figurative
Author Haruki Murakami offers a potent reminder of the value of free movement.
Review: Netflix's Biggest Heist Ever Documentary Takes Bitcoin Seriously
The film exemplifies the new age of mainstream respectability the token has entered.
Review: Armored MMA Is Like UFC but With Medieval Weapons
A bizarre new sport is reaching audiences online, a testament to the value of social media.
Review: Gladiator II Is a Historical Epic About the Dangers of Political Power
Director Ridley Scott explores what happens when people from the fringes of society rise to power.
Review: Wicked Is a Letdown for Fans of the Books
The movie musical fails to deliver on the more interesting antiauthoritarian themes of its source material.
Review: A Podcast Exploring the History of Immigrant Sanctuaries
The sanctuary movement challenges state power, argue the hosts of Sanctuary: On the Border Between Church and State.
Review: HBO's Chimpanzee Murder Mystery
What happened to Tonka the chimp? The Chimp Crazy series investigates.
Review: Laura Marling Mixes Songs With Snippets of Life as a Mom
The album Patterns in Repeat portrays motherhood in an almost exclusively positive light.
Review: Cabaret's Broadway Revival
It's a story about vulnerable people, powerless against the rise of a sweeping authoritarian regime, each seeking a way to cope with the unprecedented times in which they live.
Review: The Radicals Who Tried To Kill Gerald Ford
The Rip Current podcast is a good reminder that political division and even violence are not new in America.
Review: Drug Prohibition Leads to Violence in The Penguin
An HBO series set in the Batman universe reminds us that when a substance is outlawed, the market will provide one way or another.
Review: UFO 50 Pays Homage to '80s Video Games
Playing this digital collection of new retro-style games is like rediscovering a box of old cartridges.
Review: Liberty and Resilience in Haitian Art
A Haitian art exhibit in Washington, D.C., reminds us there is much more to the country than false allegations about eating cats.
Review: Illustrating Britain's Victorian Booze Restrictions
Temperance activists argued that "the people" should have a say in how many alcohol sellers could serve a given neighborhood.
Review: Why Are Federal Buildings So Ugly?
Our capital's brutalist architecture is on display at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
Review: Why Did MTV Stop Playing Music?
Former VJ Dave Holmes explores the channel's history on his podcast, Who Killed the Video Star.
Review: Watching Megalopolis Through a Randian Lens
Francis Ford Coppola's new film has traces of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Review: Arena Magazine Is Embracing Capitalism and the Future
"Our mainstream media is hell-bent on tearing down the future before we can get too good a glimpse," the publisher wrote in the debut issue.
