"On those occasions when Marxists have engaged the nature of a future socialist society, they too often shied away from problematizing future difficulties in favor of assuring the unconvinced that the difficulties involved in the construction of a socialist society had been vastly exaggerated. Yet working people well understand from their experience of capitalism that building a new society will be far from simple. ... What is instead needed is an honest presentation of the risks, costs, and dilemmas the socialist project will face, alongside credible examples and promising indications of how the problems might be creatively addressed." Sam Gindin lays out a blueprint for the future, in "Socialism for Realists," in Catalyst.

A briefer overview can be found in his interview in Jacobin, "What a Socialist Society Could Actually Look Like."

"Now, it is surely true that in any period of human history, there will always be those who feel most comfortable in ranks and orders. As Étienne de La Boétie had already pointed out in the 16th century, the source of 'voluntary servitude' is arguably the most important political question of them all. But where do the statistics come from, to support such grand claims? Are they reliable? Venture down into the footnotes, and you discover that everyone is citing the same source..." David Wengrow (who you may remember from this brief pamphlet he coauthored) on where we get the idea that most people have lived within empires (Aeon).

The Supreme Court has found that: "Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts." CNN NYT WaPo

"The Supreme Court on Friday reduced the authority of executive agencies, sweeping aside a longstanding legal precedent that required courts to defer to the expertise of federal administrators in carrying out laws passed by Congress. The precedent, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, is one of the most cited in American law. There have been 70 Supreme Court decisions relying on Chevron, along with 17,000 in the lower courts. The decision threatens regulations in countless areas, including the environment, health care and consumer safety." Supreme Court Overrules Chevron Doctrine, Imperiling an Array of Federal Rules (NYT; archive)

SCOTUSBlog on the likely effects. Elie Mystal: "Conservatives have now completed their generational goals of overturning Abortion, Affirmative Action, and Chevron. If y'all don't think Obergefell and gay marriage is next on the chopping block, you must read the New York Times."

"Japanese scientists have found a way to attach living skin to robot faces, for more realistic smiles and other facial expressions. [...] The prototype may appear more Haribo than human-like. But the researchers say it paves the way to making convincingly realistic, moving humanoids with self-healing skin that will not easily rip or tear." (BBC, paper)

I can't believe I get to insert my favorite Alan Turing quote, which has been in my profile forever, but my moment has come: "No engineer or chemist claims to be able to produce a material which is indistinguishable from the human skin. It is possible that at some time this might be done, but even supposing this invention available we should feel there was little point in trying to make a 'thinking machine' more human by dressing it up in such artificial flesh."

"Contrary to long-held assumptions, Earth's interior is not barren. In fact, a majority of the planet's microbes, perhaps more than 90 percent, may live deep underground. These intraterrestrial microbes tend to be quite different from their counterparts on the surface. They are ancient and slow, reproducing infrequently and possibly living for millions of years. [...] Subsurface microbes carve vast caverns, concentrate minerals and precious metals and regulate the global cycling of carbon and nutrients. Microbes may even have helped construct the continents, literally laying the groundwork for all other terrestrial life." The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet, an excerpt from Becoming Earth, by Ferris Jabr.