Champagne and carbon credits, crypto, and the radical act of care

Weekend reads for May 24, 2025

Welcome to the long weekend! As we do for our supporting subscribers every Saturday, we’ve gathered below some of the most interesting, challenging, entertaining, and thought-provoking writing we’ve come across this week. Among the links you’ll find in today’s edition of Weekend Reads:

• Finding belonging in the Eurovision Song Contest

• Who gets to escape, and what does that mean for the rest of us?

• Marcel the Shell as a lesson in building community

• Does language connect or divide?

• Is robot companionship good enough for us if our animal companions reject it?

• Caring as a radical act

• Wellness, crypto, and other persistent grifts

You won’t want to miss any of it. Thank you so much to our supporting subscribers for making this newsletter possible. If you haven’t yet joined our community, why not become part of this and help us build the future of independent media today?

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In The Ink this week:

Paul Krugman on Trump’s budget cruelty

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And now…your Weekend Reads

Champagne and carbon credits

We’re not just in the era of the billionaire. We’re in the era of billionaire moral cosplay, where obscene wealth and performative wokeness coexist without contradiction. One minute you’re flying to space “to see Earth’s fragility,” the next you’re launching rockets, torching oceans, and parking your teak-lined guilt barge off the coast of Cannes to go applaud your fiancé for saving the planet. [Discoursted]

Emotional support robots