“Bizarre” is the right word — apparently, there was an event at the White House to bless a future of AI humanoid slaves taking over all of our menial jobs, like, you know, teaching.

At a bizarre White House event on Wednesday, first lady Melania Trump walked side by side with an artificial-intelligence-powered robot before spelling out a vision of the future in which children are taught by a “humanoid educator.”

Trump was hosting an international summit on technology and education in the East Room and arrived accompanied by a white-and-black robot that matched her stride, at points unsteadily.

It looks more like a PR event for a tech company called Figure, or a demo of their current model of robot, called Figure 03. I looked up their robot, and the technical details are sparse. They claim it “takes care of household tasks like laundry, cleaning, and doing dishes, all autonomously” — you mean, it’s a glorified autoloader for the dishwasher and washing machine? I do all that already, and don’t need a robot to do it. Cleaning is a more complex task, but I don’t see how a robot is managing dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning up cat vomit, picking up the books I leave scattered all over the place and putting them back on the shelf correctly, or just generally tidying up after my sloppy self. They have videos of the robot in action, but they make it look like their most important task is walking slowly carrying a tray to serve champagne to wealthy venture capitalists at parties in your multi-million dollar home. A very important function to some people, I’m sure, but not something I’m at all concerned about.

You can buy your very own champagne-server and dishwasher loader for the low, low price of $30,000-$50,000, available in white, light gray, or soft blue.

Melania talked about how a humanoid robot could take over the task of teaching your children. Please note the very important word in the first sentence of this quote.

Addressing delegates at the two-day Fostering the Future Together summit, the president’s wife proceeded to speak glowingly about an imaginary robot teacher named Plato, an allusion to the philosopher in ancient Greece.

She envisioned the tech-fueled guide having a deep understanding of every major subject, including classical studies, and being available “in the comfort of your home.”

Arguing that AI will be “formed in the shape of humans,” she said the robotic Plato would “provide a personalized experience adoptive to the needs of each student.”

This “teacher” does not exist, and it specifically is not Figure 03, which looks like it’s straining its mighty brain just to walk across a room without falling over. She’s just “envisioning” things, you know. Maybe someday we can replace all those human classics teachers with machines that will also serve champagne. The techbros are all just waiting for mechanical Plato to walk into their house and teach them impressive-sounding stuff. Finally, an excuse to learn Latin, without the fuss of a human instructor!

Melania Trump is the perfect humanoid to promote this important cause.

But Trump didn’t linger. She was in the room for seven minutes for her introductory remarks, departing before a panel discussion on artificial intelligence in education and skipping the networking and relationship-building she encouraged her fellow spouses to take advantage of during Tuesday’s event.

Maybe she could have her personal humanoid robot do all those tiresome activities?

Alan Dershowitz wants to sue Bassem Youssef — actually, he kinda wants to sue everyone. Alan doesn’t seem very smart, though, because with his ugly history he should avoid the public eye. He should especially avoid targeting skilled comics and satirists.

That was satisfying, and I learned many new things about Dershowitz. He seems to have made a career of rushing to the aid of high profile, wealthy sleazebags.

And it’s the Pope, no less!

Pope Leo made a plea on Wednesday for countries to offer their ​citizens universal healthcare, calling it a “moral imperative” that ‌people have access to the health services they need.
Previous popes have called for countries to offer universal healthcare, but calling ​an issue a “moral imperative” is an unusually strong ​term for a pope to use, indicating that ⁠something is required by Catholic teaching.

Wow. I do agree completely with that — universal healthcare is one of the basic things a government should provide for its people. Otherwise, what is the point of the government? We form a community to provide mutual aid and give us all better healthcare, better education, better defense, better food, clean water, clean air…I could go on.

Thank you, Pope Leo XIV, for wielding your religious influence for a good cause.

Now I’m worried, though. What is JD Vance, our Catholic vice-president, going to do? He’s already killed one pope, is he getting a death squad together to dispatch to the Vatican? I would also ask if our very Catholic Supreme Court is going to recognize their moral imperative now.

At 21, Joy Brooks had spent her whole life as a member of an evangelical charismatic church in Leicester. Her husband and three children were part of the community, too, and she worked for the Church as an events producer. But she was struggling to cope with her job, and was burning out. Her husband suggested stepping away from the community for a bit. At first, she was uncertain. “I was thinking, ‘I’m going to destroy my kids’ lives if I pull them out [of Church],’” she tells me. But his concern for her mental health gave her pause. “I now know he was thinking, ‘We’re never going back’. He opened the door enough for me to leave.”

Brooks now describes herself as agnostic, “with an allergy to certainty in religion”, while her husband believes “there probably is ‘something’, but he wouldn’t claim to know much more than that”. Having seen other marriages end after one party left the Church, she feels lucky that they moved together. But it still came at a personal cost. “About 90 per cent of our closest friendships ended,” she says. “The relational loss was the thing that hit first, before the loss of beliefs. At first I was too scared to let my beliefs unravel because I couldn’t face losing anything else.”

Twelve years on, Brooks has a Master’s in counselling and provides therapy for people questioning their faith. She’s also a host of Nomad, a podcast for Christians who are questioning their faith, and works part-time as an NHS counsellor. As a private therapist, she specialises in working with clients who are “deconstructing” their beliefs. This is a relatively new term used to describe the process whereby people untangle their own ideas from those imparted by their faith, examining where these might overlap, and where they don’t.

The term originated in the US, where it was originally connected with the “exvangelical” movement and used to describe people leaving conservative evangelical Christianity, often taking on more liberal positions but not necessarily leaving the faith altogether. That same year, non-denominational pastor and author Brian Zahnd defined “deconstruction” as “believers in the process of paring away the extraneous elements of culture, myth and toxic dogma from their faith”. In 2019, a piece published by Premier Christianity defined it as “what happens when a person asks questions that lead to the careful dismantling of their previous beliefs”.

This process can also be helpful for people leaving their faith, or breaking their connections with institutional religion. The proportion of Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated – that is, atheist, agnostic or simply “nothing in particular” – has been growing for many years, although the latest stats suggest this trend may be levelling off. In the US, therapists offer “deconstruction” as a practice, and the term is starting to be used by some therapists in the UK, too, to describe the work of helping their patients navigate profound changes in their belief structure.

When Brooks became a therapist, she decided to specialise in deconstruction. For many clients, “the process is ongoing, maybe for decades or a lifetime,” she says. “But it’s not necessarily all really painful and difficult – there’s a lot of growth and stimulating exploration too.”

'Post-cult counselling'

Therapy to support people leaving religion is nothing new, and there are many kinds of therapy designed to support survivors of religious trauma, or to guide patients through the challenges of leaving a religious community.

The psychotherapist Gillie Jenkinson has developed a new methodology aimed at people who are leaving, or who have left high-control religious groups. She was part of such a group herself, which she describes as “a Bible-based cult”. After leaving, she gained a Master’s in Gestalt psychotherapy and in 2023 published the book Walking Free, which outlines her “post-cult counselling” methodology. She also offers therapy sessions online and trains UK and international therapists in how to use her process.

Jenkinson says her work helps people to understand the dynamics of the group they have left. “This is the process of how they developed a cultic or what I call an ‘introjected pseudo-identity’,” she explains. “You need to change to become a [cult] member ... If you’re born into the group, then you’re ‘introjecting’ constantly.” She describes this pseudo-identity as being like a “foreign” part that belongs to the group, “sitting over” the authentic identity. “For me it took me over. I fully changed when I was in the group.” The untangling process is painstaking. “As one of my therapists said, it’s like sifting sugar and salt.”

The idea of “deconstruction” helps to describe this process, which is not as simple as a total rejection. Some people choose to walk away from their religious group, but find themselves missing the positive aspects of being part of the faith or community. Abi Millar was brought up in an evangelical church in the north east of England but left at the age of 17, after several years of questioning. Later in life, she found that she missed aspects of her former faith, and began to look into secular forms of spirituality, which she writes about in The Spirituality Gap, published in 2025. Through psychedelics, somatic practices, meditation, nature and music, Millar has been able to discover new sources of profound meaning and deeper forms of connection with others and the world.

Millar tells me she didn’t have any therapy while leaving the faith. “I’m sure a therapist could have helped me, but it would have to have been someone specifically trained in these issues,” she says. “Back in the noughties (pre-Zoom) that would have been highly location-dependent and there wasn’t anything local to me.” Instead, she turned to informal support through online forums and books. “I fully believed myself to be ‘bad’, which I now understand is typical for people ‘leaving the fold’,” Millar tells me. “This was the water I swam in, and I didn’t recognise it for what it was: a cognitive distortion. Similarly, I didn’t frame my feeling of unsafety as a problem with me, so much as a problem inherent to the godless universe. It wasn’t till much later that I really grappled with it.”

Beliefs that linger

There are other ways to support the process of deconstruction, aside from therapy. Humanists UK, the charity that publishes this magazine, runs a programme called Faith to Faithless, which provides support and advice to those who have left or are leaving high-control religious groups, with support delivered by volunteers – some of whom have lived experience. The number of people using the programme’s peer support service jumped from 71 in 2023 to 260 in 2025. In February 2024, they launched a helpline, which has already responded to over 900 people.

One of the helpline volunteers, Iacopo, 39 – who did not wish to give his last name – grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness. He left in 2007. More than a decade later, during the first Covid-19 lockdown, he noticed that something did not feel right for him. At the time he was working for a corporation and says it began to feel controlling in a similar way to how the Jehovah’s Witness community had felt. “It was really very recently when I started deconstructing properly,” he says. “I started to notice that there were things about the way that I was behaving and the issues that I was facing that felt like patterns repeating.” He also found it difficult to shake the influence of particular ideas. He said that the impact of teachings about demons and possession lasted a particularly long time for him.

For the past couple of years Iacopo has worked with a therapist who follows Jenkinson’s “Walking Free” modality. He says specialist therapy was essential for him: “I went for somebody who would immediately get exactly what I’m talking about. That way, I can cut to the chase.”

While therapists with lived experience face particular challenges, they are also able to bring to bear unique insight and understanding. Aisha Khan is a therapist who draws on her own experience of leaving the Islamic faith. Growing up in the UK, she struggled to disclose to her family that she was not a Muslim. When she finally did, a friend – another ex-Muslim – suggested to her: “‘There aren’t many therapists who know what our struggles are. That’s something you should look into doing.’ I didn’t follow up at the time, because I wasn’t in a great place with that stuff myself,” she says. “But years later, I thought, ‘This is something I could support other people with’.”

Why specialists are needed

Khan is now an accredited therapist practising in Yorkshire. As she grew her specialism, she noticed two challenges that non-specialist therapists might face when working with people who are questioning or leaving their religion. The first is a failure to explore beliefs with clients. “People can present in session as religious, for example, wearing religious garments,” she says. “I’ve definitely been guilty in the past [of assuming they believed in that faith]. That’s one thing that I wish had been taught to me when I was in training. We don’t actually know a person’s religious beliefs if they don’t mention it.”

The second is assuming that faith is a “protective factor”, a term used in mental healthcare to describe something that helps someone cope, such as relationships, pets or a creative practice. But faith isn’t always “protective” and a lack of understanding increases the risks to clients, Khan says. For example, those struggling with their faith might be encouraged by their therapist to speak to people within their community, which can actually make things worse.

She experienced this herself after seeking counselling when she was grappling with how to tell her family. “There was a lot of having to explain why, for both the cultural and religious stuff,” she says. “One big area is that not all counsellors or therapists fully understand some of the risks that can be associated with leaving high-control religion. I felt like I had to fill in the gaps of why it wasn’t as simple as walking away, or sharing everything openly.” In new clients, Khan notices a lot of self-blame and perfectionism. “I often hear about guilt and shame, and that goes across all of the religions,” she says. “A lot of the time, people will be hiding parts of themselves from their loved ones.”

After a while, clients might begin to express a newfound vulnerability. “There may well be more existential themes coming up,” Brooks says. “People might say, ‘When I was anxious before, I used to be able to pray,’ or ‘I felt like God cared about me or would help me, and now I don’t know what to do’ – things around what helps a person feel safe in the world.” Khan says she also has clients with “sticky” beliefs. “Some people who’ve actually denounced faith completely and declared they aren’t religious anymore, still have this fear of hell,” she says. This is something she struggles with herself. “In my head I don’t think hell exists, but actually there’s a part of me that feels terrified that I’m going to burn in eternal torment. I can feel it in my body. That’s not an easy thing to tell someone.”

But while having personal experience of leaving a faith helps in many ways, it can also be a hindrance. Brooks says her greatest professional challenge is not to project her own experience onto her clients. Both personal therapy and professional supervision help reduce the risk of this. She’s been left with a lot of anger about the harm and injustice caused, but she sees her work on the Nomad podcast as a form of activism that fulfils her.

True freedom of belief

The wider provision of therapy aimed at supporting apostates, as well as other forms of advice and support, are also part of a broader cause to provide true freedom of religion or belief in the UK, which includes protecting the right of people to leave a faith. Religious affiliation in the UK is declining. Those saying they had “no religion” rose by 12 percentage points at the last census in 2021 and while this is largely due to religion “ageing out” (younger generations being less religious than older ones), a proportion of this shift will also be down to people changing their beliefs.

In 2023, the Bloom review into freedom of religion or belief recommended that the UK government fund services like Faith to Faithless as part of a wider package of reforms to protect those leaving faith groups, and those at risk of religious harm. The government hasn’t yet taken up the recommendation.

Whether people are receiving therapy or other forms of support, deconstruction is going to be a long and complex process. Millar says it took many years before she could untangle her old faith from her current desire to live a spiritual life. Today, she sees her departure from the Church as more of an arrival. “Over time, losing your religion may start to feel less like a loss,” she says, “and more like an opportunity to rebuild yourself from the ground up.”

In future, the idea of “deconstruction” may gain more recognition amongst mental health providers, particularly in countries where religion is in decline. And specialised therapists like Jenkinson, Brooks and Khan will be ahead of the curve.

This article is from New Humanist's Spring 2026 edition. Subscribe now.

Bari Weiss has made a lot of bad decisions since being put in charge of the news division at CBS. One of her most amusing was promoting Tony “Two-Cuts” Dokoupil to be the head newscaster for the evening news. It seems the primary motivation for promoting him was his love of Israel and Judaism — he earned his nickname because he was so devoted to his version of Judaism that, despite already being circumcised, he got a second circumcision because his rabbi said the first one wasn’t good enough.

That’s one of the defining characteristics of the Weiss regime: a fervent dedication to Zionism and Israel that she’s using to shape the news program.

Dokoupil is no Walter Cronkite, the anchorman I grew up listening to in the 60s and 70s. That era is definitely over now, and Weiss is accelerating its decline. The facts and figures are in, and CBS is in trouble.

CBS Evening News has struggled to gain a foothold since relaunching with new anchor Tony Dokoupil in January.

Ahead of the end of the first quarter later this week, the news program is on track for its lowest-rated first quarter this century, across both total viewers and the crucial 25-54 demographic, Status reports, citing preliminary Nielsen ratings. The program is currently averaging 4.3 million viewers; in the 25-54 demographic, ratings are down by 18 percent at just 541,000 viewers.

To make matters worse, the network’s morning show—of which Dokoupil, 45, used to be co-host—is also failing to attract viewers, with CBS Mornings experiencing its lowest-rated quarter on record, averaging 1.8 million total viewers, down from 13 percent in the same quarter last year.

The disastrous ratings are a blow to Weiss, 41, who was installed as editor-in-chief after billionaire nepo baby and Paramount Skydance owner David Ellison acquired her outlet, The Free Press, for $150 million in October. She had no experience in broadcast journalism and reports directly to Ellison.

You should never put billionaires in charge of anything — they’re all incompetent. Disastrous ratings don’t actually matter to Weiss. She got her $150 million. The network can go into a death spiral, but she got hers.

“It’s pretty terrible. Once you’re under 4 million, you’ve got to be worried that you’re in a death spiral,” another CBS insider said. “If they can’t retain an audience in the middle of a war, God help you when the war ends.”

Other industry insiders concurred, with a TV news veteran telling Status on Saturday, “The first rule of television medicine is do no harm—and Bari has done so much harm.”

Go anti-woke, go broke, but they’ll never figure that out because once you’re rich enough, consequences don’t matter anymore.

Ed Brayton and I set up freethoughtblogs as a cooperative venture. Although we did try running ads to bring in some revenue, ads proved to be intrusive and obnoxious — blog ads tend to play all kinds of stupid games to get your attention — so we gave up on that. So right now the site runs in the red, just a little bit, and that’s OK. My Patreon account covers the server cost just fine, and I’m not interested in profit.

By comparison, take a look at the financials for Truth Social.

Trump Media & Technology Group burned through a staggering $712 million last year while bringing in a mere $3.7 million in revenue, a ratio as upside-down as Trump has turned the country.

There’s no actual business here, just a megaphone for a doddering old man.

To be fair, you could also call Pharyngula “a megaphone for a doddering old man,” but at least I’m not blowing $700 million to keep it running. I suspect there’s an interesting leak in the money pipeline that is diverting donations from billionaires to inflate that budget, and that leak is spilling money into Trump’s pocket, so it’s not a real loss to him.

I’m going to have to get a few more patreon followers if it costs hundreds of millions to run a website.

This post contains a video, which you can also view here. To support more videos like this, head to patreon.com/rebecca! Transcript: Unfortunate content warning: today I’m going to be talking about, what else, powerful men who sexually abuse women, plus self-harm. If that’s too much for you right now, I absolutely understand and encourage you …

Olga Koch is a Russian-British comedian. Her award-winning debut show “Fight” told the wild story of how her father briefly served as deputy prime minister of Russia in the 1990s, under President Boris Yeltsin, but later fled the country. She has appeared on television shows including “Mock The Week”, “QI” and “Live at the Apollo” and is working on a PhD in human-computer interaction.

Your new one-woman comedy show “Fat Tom Cruise” is touring in Britain and Australia. It’s described as “immersive” and “genre-defying”. What does that mean?

I want to keep it as vague as I can to preserve the element of surprise. It’s a history lesson, it’s a gossip session and it’s a horror story. I’m really honing my storytelling abilities but also using a tremendous amount of tech in a way that I never have before.

There’s quite a bit of time travel. We’re going from the 70s all the way to the present day and the jumps occur constantly, so it’s a matter of creating a visual language for the audience to understand what timeline we’re in without constantly having to remind them. It’s like watching movies that do a really good job of signposting where you are at the very beginning and then later on you don’t have to be reminded what year it is. So, how do you achieve that on stage with one person who’s wearing the same outfit throughout? It’s a really interesting challenge.

Your first show explained how your dad came to play a key role in Russia’s privatisation efforts in the 1990s. Having moved to the UK when you were 14, is there anything you think the west gets wrong about Russia?

I’m very careful about not co-opting the experience of living in Russia or being Russian today because I truly don’t know what it’s like. Me and my fiancé went to Paris last weekend, and we went to Napoleon’s tomb. On the tomb is every battle he won, and one of them is Moscow. I have never in my life been so angry, because I was like “He didn’t win Moscow, we gave him Moscow! That was a strategic military decision to leave Moscow, light it on fire and then let him have it.” My fiancé was like “I’ve never seen you this angry, and I’ve never heard you refer to Russia as ‘we’ before”. I think it’s because I have as much claim on the Napoleonic wars as any Russian living today, whereas I don’t feel comfortable saying “we” when it comes to Russia now.

That being said, in some aspects the Russia that I lived in and remember was significantly more progressive than people give it credit for. I have a joke that Russia was one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote – in a single-party state. But my grandmothers were engineers and the idea that I would study computer science [Koch has a degree in the subject from New York University] was not as crazy in Russia as it felt in the US at the time I was studying. Obviously, Russia, especially in the last 10 to 15 years, has become more traditional and religious than before, but in the country that I was raised in, some things were more progressive than people realise.

In “Fight”, you mention an interesting anecdote about visiting the “Museum of Democracy” – officially the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center – in Yekaterinburg and seeing that your father had been written out of history. What did you take from that moment?

It was a matter of growing up. The thing that really struck me is how well produced the museum is. It’s a really high-budget operation. They have a recreation of the president’s study there, you walk in and they play Yeltsin’s resignation speech, and it feels very emotionally powerful. And then you leave and realise you’ve just been successfully manipulated into feeling all these things in a sort of Disney-level production.

I was in my early 20s at the time and it generally made me more cynical when it comes to museums and countries writing their own histories as a whole. You know how the domino falls for everyone at some point? That was my sort of red pill Matrix moment – although not in the context of how “red pill” is used today, of course!

In your previous show, “Olga Koch Comes From Money”, you explored what it means to come from privilege. What made you write about that?

I think socio-economically we have reached a boiling point where it’s something that we can no longer ignore. It’s something that needs to be discussed, and it felt very cruel and unfair that the only people who are forced to have that conversation are people who come from working-class backgrounds. As a person who comes from tremendous privilege, the silence of that became deafening.

But also, after 10 years of doing stand-up, I felt – maybe wrongfully so or rightfully so – that I finally had the writing and performance ability to tackle a subject like that. It was one of the most agonising processes because I wanted to do it in an aggressively objective way, but there was a constant understanding of my own inability and failure to do so, because I’m so entrenched in it. There’s a silly gag in the show, “There’s only so much self-awareness and perspective I can have. It’s like taking a selfie – my hand can only extend so far before I have to hand my camera to my butler.”

You have experience of how different countries and cultures view money, and in the show you talked about the various moral mythologies around it.

Yes, so in Russia, money is luck, in America, money is hard work – with the caveat that people can work hard doing bad things – and then in the UK, money is something you get from your dad. Every country or culture thinks that theirs is the objective and correct attitude, when in reality there is no such thing.

The other big theme in your comedy is tech, and you’re doing a PhD now in human-computer interaction. What does that mean?

Oh boy, if I knew. It started in the 80s but now that computers are everywhere, everything is human-computer interaction. You unlock a door and it’s a computer now, because we don’t use keys anymore. You use a microwave and that’s human-computer interaction because it has a microchip in it. So it used to be how you interacted with a computer at work and what the interface would look like, and now it’s literally everything because we’re putting microchips everywhere.

One of my biggest pet peeves in life is putting a microchip in something that doesn’t need it. A door doesn’t need it, a scale doesn’t need it – there’s even electronic toothpaste dispensers. You can’t squeeze out your own toothpaste? Come on, buddy. The amount of tech waste we are creating with all these micro things, it makes me so angry.

What’s the focus of your PhD?

Parasocial relationships [one-sided relationships that people develop with someone they don’t know, such as a celebrity or social media influencer]. I used to think that parasocial relationships were an anomaly or almost pathological. But then when I met people who have all these intense parasocial relationships – for example, people who have one-sided conversations with celebrities constantly on social media – I realised it was the most normal thing in the world. If you are exposed to personal information about a person, which we are every day on Instagram stories, it is totally normal for your brain to short circuit and think you know this person. I got interested in it because I started experiencing it myself in some small way. People have seen the inside of my house, people have seen me without make-up, in settings that 30 years ago only a close friend or family member would have seen me in. Of course your brain thinks you know me.

It’s a weird phenomenon, but is it a problem?

The problem isn’t people developing any of those feelings or attachments; the problem is the technology that is actively encouraging it in order to increase screen time and addictiveness. People experiencing the effects of the technology aren’t to blame, it’s the architects of the technology. I don’t know if they know the true repercussions [of what they’re doing].

After your PhD, I hear you have plans to go into tech communications?

That’s always been the dream. I think that comedy is the best way to learn things. As children and young adults, we’re okay being patronised when it comes to learning things, but the older we get, the more sensitive we get to feeling like somebody’s patronising us or teaching us something. Comedy is a great way to sneakily teach people.

I read this paper that I keep coming back to. It said that people who watch satirical news shows are actually as, if not more, informed than people who watch the news. But satirical news shows do something that the regular news doesn’t do, which is give context. If John Oliver or Jon Stewart explain something happening in Congress, on The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight, they’re never just giving you that piece of news in isolation. They’ll go through the rigmarole of explaining “This is how the Congress works”. But because they’re doing it in a comedy setting, you don’t realise you’re being taught. I mean, Horrible Histories – what’s that? If you’re laughing, you don’t realise that you’re learning.

“Fat Tom Cruise” is touring until 4 December.

This article is from New Humanist's Spring 2026 edition. Subscribe now.

I have recently received emails about my work into the pace of life, and so I thought that it would be a good time to reflect on the topic.

I’ve always been fascinated by the work of the late, great psychologist Robert Levine. In the early ‘90s, Robert pioneered a brilliant way to measure the pace of life in cities by secretly timing how fast pedestrians walked.

His findings were startling. People in Western Europe were sprinting through life, while those in Africa and Latin America took a more measured pace. Within the US, New Yorkers were the speed-demons, while Los Angeles leaned into a slower groove.

But this wasn’t just about getting to lunch on time. Levine discovered that a faster pace of life was a double-edged sword. Higher speeds were linked to higher income and increased happiness, but also more coronary heart disease and a decrease in helpfulness.

In 2006, I teamed up with British Council to measure walking speeds across the world. On August 22, our research teams went into city centres and found busy streets that were flat, free from obstacles, and uncrowded. Between 11.30am and 2.00pm local time, they secretly timed how long it took people to walk along a 60-foot stretch of the pavement. All the people had to be on their own, not holding a telephone conversation or struggling with shopping bags. The results are shown in the table below.

City (Country)
Fastest
1 Singapore (Singapore)
2 Copenhagen (Denmark)
3 Madrid (Spain)
4 Guangzhou (China)
5 Dublin (Ireland)
6 Curitiba (Brazil)
7 Berlin (Germany)
8 New York (USA)
9 Utrecht (Netherlands)
10 Vienna (Austria)
11 Warsaw (Poland)
12 London (UK)
13 Zagreb (Croatia)
14 Prague (Czech Republic)
15 Wellington (New Zealand)
16 Paris (France)
17 Stockholm (Sweden)
18 Ljubljana (Slovenia)
19 Tokyo (Japan)
20 Ottawa (Canada)
21 Harare (Zimbabwe)
22 Sofia (Bulgaria)
23 Taipei (Taiwan)
24 Cairo (Egypt)
25 Sana’a (Yemen)
26 Bucharest (Romania)
27 Dubai (UAE)
28 Damascus (Syria)
29 Amman (Jordan)
30 Bern (Switzerland)
31 Manama (Bahrain)
32 Blantyre (Malawi)
SLOWEST

We compared the 16 cities that were in Levine’s work and our own and determined that the pace of life had increased by 10%! The pace of life in Guangzhou (China) increased by over 20%, and Singapore showed a 30% increase, resulting in it becoming the fastest moving city in the study. Projected forward, the results suggest that by 2040, they will arrive at their destination several seconds before they have set-off.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Robert Levine about this work. I believe it may have been his final interview. You can listen to him discussing the “Geography of Time” below.

Finally, what is your pace of life? Are you moving too fast? Here are four questions to help you to decide.

– When someone takes too long to get to the point, do you feel like hurrying them along?

– Are you often the first person to finish at mealtimes?

– When walking along a street, do you often feel frustrated because you are stuck behind others?

– Do you walk out of restaurants or shops if you encounter even a short queue?

About the opportunity

New Humanist is looking for a freelance designer to produce a suite of marketing materials for the magazine.

We're keen to hear from people who can bring some flair to traditional advertisements (both print and digital), inserts, banners and social media cards.

These will mostly be promoting our subscription packages, building on existing images such as magazine covers.

Requirements

We're looking for a professional with experience of designing ads for magazines or journalistic publications, combining design and marketing expertise.

Ideally, you'll have design experience across print, digital and social media.

Rate

£250 a day, for an estimated 3-4 days' work.

How to apply

Please apply with your CV and examples of relevant work, to editor@newhumanist.org.uk with the subject line DESIGNER in all caps.

Please apply as soon as possible or by 26th March at the latest.

This post contains a video, which you can also view here. To support more videos like this, head to patreon.com/rebecca! Transcript: Recently, the actor Hugh Jackman made the gossip rag headlines for performing a song and dance routine at the 95th birthday party of Logan Roy…sorry, I mean Rupert Murdoch. I must have been confused …

Job title: Art Director, New Humanist

Hours: Up to 6 days for an initial redesign project, followed by 5 days each quarter on an ongoing basis

Location: Largely remote, with 2 days each quarter in our central London office

Rate: £250 per day

Contract: Freelance

Start date: ASAP but no later than 20th April

We're looking for an Art Director for the beautiful print edition of our magazine. The role involves creativity and a keen eye for magazine design, a good understanding of story presentation, knowledge of legal issues surrounding the use of images in an editorial context, and experience of collaborating with editors in a magazine or journalism environment.

The role will kick off with a partial redesign project, which is expected to take 4-6 days of design work. This will involve creating new InDesign templates and producing designs for new article formats, with lots of opportunity for creative input.

After this, you'll work five days per quarter (3 remote, 2 in the office) on each edition of the magazine, on an ongoing basis. The Art Director takes the lead on layout design, picture research and image permissions, commissioning the cover illustration, managing image library accounts and overseeing the picture budget. There is also a small amount of work each quarter creating social media and other digital assets.

About New Humanist

New Humanist is a quarterly non-profit magazine covering politics, human rights, science, technology, philosophy and culture, and has been published since 1885.

This is an exciting time to join an award-winning magazine, with an exceptional reputation for its design. Since January 2025, we have been published by the charity Humanists UK, and our readership is growing. Join our small, passionate team at New Humanist, producing ethical journalism to the highest standards.

To apply, please send your CV and portfolio to editor@newhumanist.org.uk, with the subject line Art Director. Applications must be received by midnight on 30th March 2026.

We look forward to receiving your application!

Frontline Poets (River Books) by Joe Freeman and Aung Naing Soe

Talk of male anatomy was the last thing I expected as I walked into a book launch at Bangkok’s foreign correspondents’ club. Yet there it was, beaming across the projector screen: a poem about a political penis tattoo. “On my manhood rests a tattooed / portrait of Mr. President / My beloved found that out after / we wed / She was utterly gutted / Inconsolable.”

This is the most reserved translation of a terse, subversive piece written by Maung Saungkha, a poet in Myanmar. When he posted his work to Facebook in October 2015, he “dropped the poetic equivalent of a bombshell,” according to a new book by journalists Joe Freeman and Aung Naing Soe – a bombshell that led to six months behind bars for online defamation of the president. It was while covering this bizarre court case that Freeman and Aung Naing Soe first met Maung Saungkha. A decade on, he is one of five poets they have profiled in a deeply moving, often humorous book that repeatedly defies expectations.

While it includes several works translated from Burmese to English for the first time, this is not a poetry anthology. Rather, it is a history of Myanmar told through the lives of poets who have not only chronicled but actively participated in decades of political upheaval, resistance and conflict since the end of colonial rule. Yet its main goal is not to explain Myanmar’s many deep divisions, or why the 2021 military coup and subsequent civil war unfolded. Instead, at its core, the book is an exploration of why poetry is still such a powerful force in Myanmar, where the literary form continues to be a vehicle for resistance and identity. Writers evade military censorship with obscure metaphors, short works become rebel anthems, and poignant poems allow people to reflect on all that they have lost.

“I abandoned everything after I had abandoned everything” is one especially gut-wrenching line, in a long, tumbling poem by Yoe Aunt Min that depicts the mind of a rebel fighter. After the coup in February 2021 and the junta’s violent crackdown on peaceful protesters, Yoe Aunt Min followed Maung Saungkha into war. Maung Saungkha had become the leader of an armed opposition group called the Bamar People’s Liberation Army, and Yoe Aunt Min was one of his first recruits. Their journey from poets and activists to armed fighters living in the jungle hits on another theme in the book. Yoe Aunt Min’s vivid, meandering poem points at this shift in her own life, before concluding: “What kind of wisdom is necessary for those who hold / lethal weapons? / I don’t know how to solve this. / Please answer.”

The book asks what it means to be a frontline poet – whether that frontline is Maung Saungkha and Yoe Aunt Min’s battlefield, the street protests that cost another poet, K Za Win, his life, or the displacement camps where two others, Lynn Khar and A Mon, fled to safety. Yet despite the palpable sense of loss, the narrative balances heartbreak and horror with humour, humanity and – much like the penis poem – the unexpected.

The book evokes a vivid picture of life in Myanmar, and of the poets who remain determined to better their country against extraordinary odds.

This article is from New Humanist's Spring 2026 edition. Subscribe now.

This post contains a video, which you can also view here. To support more videos like this, head to patreon.com/rebecca! Transcript: Last week I saw a news story going viral on social media: “U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus”! And I thought, yep. Obviously. I was an adult for …

I have a variety of techniques I use to deal with the ongoing collapse of everything, most of them different kinds of drugs. But I also have healthy habits, like reading, and when it comes to reading purely for pleasure, I find myself turning back again and again to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. If you …

This post contains a video, which you can also view here. To support more videos like this, head to patreon.com/rebecca! Transcript: I’ve previously admitted my enjoyment of the true crime genre, so you may not be surprised by a recent news story I’ve been following: an Austrian man has been found guilty of gross negligent …

Here is a quick and easy way of boosting your motivation….

There was a long running rivalry between tennis stars Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. In 2012, they faced one another in the final of the US Open. Murray took the first two sets but Djokovic battled back to win the next two sets. Murray took a toilet break and, according to several reports, looked in the bathroom mirror and shouted “You are not losing this match…you are not going to let this one slip’ Murray then walked back out and faced his opponent for the deciding set.

In 2014, psychologist Sanda Dolcos (University of Illinois) carried out some great experiments exploring how motivation is affected by whether we talk to ourselves in either the first or second person.

In one study, she had people try to complete some difficult anagrams. Some participants were asked to motivate themselves by using first-person sentences (“I can do it”) whilst others gave themselves a second-person pep talk (“You can do it”). Those using the ‘you’ word completed far more anagrams than those using the ‘I’ word. Dolcos then asked other people to motivate themselves to exercise more in either the first person (‘I should go for a run now’) or second person (’You must go to the gym’). Those using the ‘you’ word ended up feeling far more positive about going for a run or visiting a gym, and planned to take more exercise over the coming weeks.

Whatever the explanation, it is a simple but effective shortcut to motivation. And it worked for Andy Murray because he broke Djokovic’s serve, won the shortest set of the match, and emerged victorious.

When you are in need of some fast acting and powerful motivation, talk to yourself using the magic ‘you’ word. Tell yourself that ‘you can do it’, that ‘you’ love whatever it is that you have to do, and that ‘you’ will make a success of it. You may not end up winning the US Open, but you will discover how just one word has the power to motivate and energise.

Dolcos, S., & Albarracin, D. (2014). The inner speech of behavioral regulation: Intentions and task performance strengthen when you talk to yourself as a You. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44(6), 636–642.

I recently ran a session at the University of Hertfordshire on the 7 factors that I believe underpin an impactful presentation.

While preparing, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a hugely knowledgeable director who had worked with many magicians. He explained that magicians often weaken their performances by letting the audience experience the magic at different times.

Imagine that a magician drops an apple into a box and then tips it forward to show that the apple has vanished. The box must be turned from side to side so that everyone in the audience can see inside. As a result, each person experiences the disappearance at a slightly different moment and the impact is diluted.

Now imagine a different approach. The apple goes into the box. The lid is pulled off and all four sides drop down simultaneously. This time, everyone sees the disappearance at the same time and the reaction is far stronger.

The same principle applies to talks. Some years ago, I ran a year-long experiment with the British Science Association about investing on the FTSE 100. We gave a notional £5,000 to a regular investor, a financial astrologer (who invested based on company birth dates) and a four-year-old child who selected shares at random!

If I simply show the final graph, people in the audience interpret it at different speeds. Some spot the outcome instantly. Others take longer. The moment fragments.

Instead, I build it step by step. First, I show a blank graph and explain the two axes.

Then I reveal that both the professional investor and the financial astrologer lost money.

Finally, I reveal that the four-year-old random share picker outperformed them both!

Now the entire audience sees the result at the same moment — and reacts together. That shared moment creates energy.

It’s a simple idea:

Don’t just reveal information. Orchestrate the moment of discovery.

If you want bigger reactions, stronger engagement, and more memorable talks, make sure your audience experiences the key moments together.

This week we have a quick quiz to test your understanding of sleep and dreaming. Please decide whether each of the following 7 statements are TRUE or FALSE. Here we go….

1) When I am asleep, my brain switches off.

2) I can learn to function well on less sleep.

3) Napping is a sign of laziness.

4) Dreams consist of meaningless thoughts and images.

5) A small amount of alcohol before bedtime improves sleep quality.

6) I can catch up on my lost sleep at the weekend.

7) Eating cheese just before you go to bed gives you nightmares

OK, here are the answers…..

1) When I am asleep, my brain switches off: Nope. When you fall asleep, your sense of self-awareness shuts down, but your brain remains highly active and carries out tasks that are essential for your wellbeing.

2) I can learn to function well on less sleep: Nope. Sleep is a biological need. You can force yourself to sleep less, but you will not be fully rested, and your thoughts, feelings and behaviour will be impaired.

3) Napping is a sign of laziness: Nope. Your circadian rhythm make you sleepy towards the middle of the afternoon, and so napping is natural and makes you more alert, creative, and productive.

4) Dreams consist of meaningless thoughts and images: Nope. During dreaming your brain is often working through your concerns, and so dreams can provide an insight into your worries and help come up with innovative solutions.

5) A small amount of alcohol before bedtime improves sleep quality: Nope. A nightcap can help you to fall asleep, but also causes you to spend less time in restorative deep sleep and having fewer dreams.

6) I can catch up on my lost sleep at the weekend: Nope. When you fail to get enough sleep you develop a sleep debt. Spending more time in bed for a day will help but won’t fully restore you for the coming week.

7) Eating cheese just before you go to bed gives you nightmares: Nope. The British Cheese Board asked 200 volunteers to spend a week eating some cheese before going to sleep and to report their dreams in the morning. None of them had nightmares.

So there we go. They are all myths! How did you score?

A few years ago I wrote Night School – one of the first modern-day books to examined the science behind sleep and dreaming. In a forthcoming blog post I will review some tips and tricks for making the most of the night. Meanwhile, what are your top hints and tips for improving your sleep and learning from your dreams?

I am a huge fan of Dale Carnegie and mention him in pretty much every interview I give. Carnegie was American, born in 1888, raised on a farm, and wrote one of the greatest self-help books of all time, How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book has now sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

I first came across his work when I was about 10 years old and read this book on showmanship and presentation….

According to Edward Maurice, it’s helpful if magicians are likeable (who knew!), so he recommended that they read Carnegie’s book. I still have my original copy, and it’s covered in my notes and highlights.

One of my favourite — and wonderfully simple — pieces of advice is to smile more. Since the book was written, psychologists have discovered lots about the power of smiling. There is evidence that forcing your face into a smile makes you feel better (known as the facial feedback hypothesis). In addition, it often elicits a smile in return and, in doing so, makes others feel good too. As a result, people enjoy being around you. But, as Carnegie says, it must be a genuine smile, as fake grins look odd and are ineffective. Try it the next time you meet someone, answer the telephone, or open your front door. It makes a real difference.

In another section of the book, Carnegie tells an anecdote about a parent whose son went to university but never replied to their letters. To illustrate the importance of seeing a situation from another person’s point of view, Carnegie advised the parent to write a letter saying that they had enclosed a cheque — but to leave out the cheque. The son replied instantly.

Then there is the power of reminding yourself how much the people in your life mean to you. Carnegie once asked the great stage illusionist Howard Thurston about the secret of his success. Thurston explained that before he walked on stage, he always reminded himself that the audience had been kind enough to come and see him. Standing in the wings, he would repeat the phrase, “I love my audience. I love my audience.” He then walked out into the spotlight with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.

This is not the only link between Carnegie and magic. Dai Vernon was a hugely influential exponent of close-up magic and, in his early days, billed himself as Dale Vernon because of the success of Dale Carnegie (The Vernon Touch, Genii, April 1973). In addition, in 1947 Carnegie was a VIP guest at the Magicians’ Guild Banquet Show in New York. Here is a rare photo of the great author standing with several famous magicians of the day (from Conjurers Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4; courtesy of the brilliant Lybrary.com).

Front row (left to right): Elsie Hardeen, Dell O’Dell, Gladys Hardeen, J. J. Proskauer
Back row: E. W. Dart, Terry Lynn, Al Flosso, Mickey MacDougall, Al Baker, Warren Simms, Dale Carnegie, Max Holden, Jacob Daley

If you don’t have a copy, go and get How to Win Friends and Influence People. Some of the language is dated now, but the thinking is still excellent. Oh, and there is an excellent biography of Carnegie by Steven Watts here.

check, 1, 2…is this thing on? hi everyone! it’s been a while.

Someone contacted me hoping to find young atheists who might be interested in being part of a new series. I’m not particularly interested in having my mug on TV, but I would love to have some great personalities represent atheism on the show, so I offered to repost his email on my blog: My name […]

All throughout my youth, I dreamed of becoming a writer. I wrote all the time, about everything. I watched TV shows and ranted along with the curmudgeons on Television Without Pity about what each show did wrong, convincing myself that I could do a better job. I flew to America with a dream in my […]

A friend linked me to this. I was a sobbing mess within the first minute. I sometimes wonder why I feel such a strong kinship to the LGBT community, and I think it’s because I’ve been through the same thing that many of them have. So I watched this video and I cried, because, as […]

UPDATE #1: I got my domain back! Many thanks to Kurtis for the pleasant surprise: So I stumbled upon your blog, really liked what I saw, read that you had drama with the domain name owner, bought it, and forwarded it here. It should work again in a matter of seconds. I am an atheist […]