How we became suckers for the hard labor of self-optimization.

Gavin McInnes used to be known as a Vice magazine co-founder with controversial political leanings and an affinity for darkly unfunny jokes. Now, he’s also known as the founder of the far-right group the Proud Boys.

The aftereffects of youthful escapes into movie houses.

Millions of Americans have taken antidepressants for many years. What happens when it’s time to stop?

The most dreadful men to live with are those who thus alternate between angel and devil.

Not long before she died, Anne Isabella Noel Byron gave a wide-ranging interview to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Most notoriously, she accused her husband, Lord Byron, of carrying on a “secret adulterous intrigue” with his half-sister.

The Atlantic lost 15,000 subscribers in the months following publication of this article.

On PredictIt, a site that allows you to bet on politics, and the people who are getting rich off it.

On Patti Smith.

It was easy for lazy journalists to caricature her as a stringbean who looked like Keith Richards, emitted Dylanish word salads, and dropped names—a high-concept tribute act of some sort, very wet behind the ears. But then her first album, Horses, came out in November 1975, and silenced most of the scoffers.

In rural North Dakota, a small county and an insular religious sect are caught in a stand-off over a decaying piece of America’s atomic history.

For 60 years, American drivers unknowingly poisoned themselves by pumping leaded gasoline into their tanks. Clair Patterson—a scientist who helped build the atomic bomb and discovered the true age of the Earth—took on a billion-dollar industry to save humanity from itself.

The misadventures of two hospital workers.

On the nature of coincidence.

“An Indian farmer has committed suicide every half hour since 2001.”

It’s quite possible to make six figures standing around on a movie set – if you have a union card.

On Amir Taaki and Cody Wilson, two anarchists with a history of creating controversial software, and their dream of an economy based on untraceable, uncontrollable money.

The role of money plays a two-sided role in Borges’ artistic life. On one side of the coin’s face, Borges was blessed with the most privileged, ideal life for a burgeoning literary genius. Educated in Europe, raised by his father to become a serious writer, Borges devoted his entire life to literature. He did not take a full-time job for nearly 40 years. But on the coin’s reverse side, we see that young Georgie Borges did not actually write his great fictions until after his family lost their money.

On the sins of the lazy translator.

The story of an 80-year-old hoax.

Where words fail, there is music.

Inside the C Street house in Washington and the little-known spiritual group behind it.

“Oh my God, the NFL is using every trick in the book to market to kids.”

The legendary anchor has written a wild, unflinching memoir. Does that make her a bad person?

On the platonic but volatile relationship between fashion designer Alexander McQueen, who committed suicide in 2010 and professional muse Isabella Blow, who committed suicide in 2007.

Participating in the Dakar Rally.

Admiring evangelicals are helping David Berkowitz, the imprisoned serial killer who murdered six people in NYC during the summer of 1977, with an unusual image makeover.

In Torreón, north of Mexico City, cartel gunmen are freed from a prison, commit a massacre at a wedding that includes the band, and then return to custody.