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Tag: Society

All longform pieces tagged with #society on The Slow Scroll

Rape under wraps: how Tinder, Hinge and their corporate owner chose profits over safety
The Guardian13 Feb 2025 • ~5700 words

The Guardian investigates the safety practices of Match Group, the parent company of popular dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. Despite being aware of numerous reports of sexual assault by users, this piece argues that the company has often prioritized profits over the safety of ...

Permanent Decline
The Point Magazine11 Feb 2025 • ~10850 words

Leif Weatherby offers an analysis of Aaron Rodgers’ career as it declined, framing it within the context of societal shifts and struggles.

Age of Invention: How Coal Really Won
Age of Invention12 Feb 2025 • ~11800 words

Anton Howes continues tracing the history of the rise of coal, and how it transformed not just heating practices but also the economy and daily life in growing urban centers. The essay provides rich historical detail, as it highlights the interplay between technology, culture, an...

Life and Death at the Ambassador Hotel
Places Journal11 Feb 2025 • ~7850 words

When the AIDS epidemic was in full swing, the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco became a sanctuary for those affected by the crisis, transforming from a residential hotel into a vibrant community center. Stathis G. Yeros explores how activists and residents created a unique model...

The Coventry experiment: why were Indian women in Britain given radioactive food without consent?
The Guardian11 Feb 2025 • ~5600 words

A 1969 experiment in Coventry saw 21 Indian women fed chapatis baked with radioactive isotopes, without their consent. Revisiting the history behind this unsettling study explores broader issues of trust, consent, and medical ethics within vulnerable communities.

The Nuns Trying to Save the Women on Texas’s Death Row
The New Yorker10 Feb 2025 • ~22000 words

Sisters from a convent outside Waco are visiting women on death row in Texas to offer spiritual support. This piece from Lawrence Wright explores the profound connections that develop between the sisters and the inmates, and how visits filled with compassion and understanding con...

The Hallucinatory Thoughts of the Dying Mind
The MIT Press Reader10 Feb 2025 • ~2450 words

Michael Erard writes about the phenomenon of delirium that often accompanies the dying process. He contrasts our cultural expectations of last words with the chaotic reality of a disoriented mind, revealing how this disconnect can affect both patients and their families.

‘Woman, life, freedom’: the Syrian feminists who forged a new world in a land of war
The Guardian08 Feb 2025 • ~3650 words

Rojava, an autonomous region in northeastern Syria, has a government with perhaps the most complete gender equality in the world, in a society fractured by conflict and misogyny. Natasha Walter explores how women in this region have forged a movement for rights and empowerment am...

How Big Meat Silences Its Critics
Vox07 Feb 2025 • ~3150 words

Factory farming is destructive to the environments that many people call their homes. When people take a stand and fight, though, they face harassment, intimidation, death threats, and social ostracism. Kenny Torrella reports on the stories of some who opposed factory farming, an...

Fake Teeth Will Solve All My Problems
Electric Literature06 Feb 2025 • ~5200 words

In this excerpt from his memoir “Alligator Tears,” Edgar Gomez reflects on his childhood insecurities about his teeth and his family's financial struggles. The narrative explores the impact of his new teeth on his self-esteem and social interactions, as well as coming to terms wi...