This piece is faaaascinating

Am I too poor to have a baby? How society convinced us that childbearing is morally wrong without a fat budget.

The idea that you need to save up a certain amount of money before you have kids is really common.

But I think it's wrong.

Here's my argument in @vox.com (gift link):

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Even as millions have benefited from GLP-1s in wealthy countries, these medications have remained out of reach for most of the world. Now, for India, this medication just got a lot more accessible. www.vox.com/future-perfe...

What should you be teaching your kids right now to prepare them for an AI-scrambled job market? The best educational choice you can make for your child might not focus on your child at all.

I finally wrote out an answer to the question I get so often: "What should I be teaching my kids right now to prepare them for an AI-scrambled job market?"

Hint: The best educational choice you can make for your kid might not focus on your kid at all

www.vox.com/future-perfe...
@vox.com

Is it wrong to send your kid to private school? How to think about what’s best for your child — and for all the other children, too.

What do you owe in a situation of structural injustice? (eg you want the best for your kid, and you think that means private school, yet you don't want to undermine public schools)

The philosopher Iris Marion Young offered a super helpful frame for this kind of dilemma:

www.vox.com/the-highligh...

Let us know what moral dilemmas you’re grappling with. You could be featured in the next Your Mileage May Vary column! I'm Sigal Samuel, a senior reporter for Future Perfect, Vox’s section about how to do good in today’s confusing world. My advice column — Your Mileage May Vary — offers people a unique framework for thinking through their ethical questions. My answers are based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple, equally important yet often conflicting moral values. When values clash, dilemmas arise. I show how wise people — from ancient philosophers to spiritual thinkers to modern scientists — have thought about these values and conflicts between them. Check out previous columns here. So: Whether it’s about how you use tech or how you travel, what you eat or what you teach your kids, let me know the philosophical or spiritual questions that are plaguing you and Your Mileage May Vary can help! Want to participate? Submit your question(s) below. Feel free to email sigal.samuel@vox.com if you’d prefer to communicate with me directly rather than filling out this form. (We take your privacy seriously. All submissions will be published anonymously. By submitting a question, you acknowledge that it may be published in a story on Vox.com. By participating, you also agree to Vox Media Inc. Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.)

Is there an ethical dilemma keeping you up at night? @sigalsamuel.bsky.social's unconventional advice column, Your Mileage May Vary, can help. Submit your question anonymously here: voxdotcom.visitlink.me/BI4RWH

Is it wrong to send your kid to private school? How to think about what’s best for your child — and for all the other children, too.

What do you owe in a situation of structural injustice? (eg you want the best for your kid, and you think that means private school, yet you don't want to undermine public schools)

The philosopher Iris Marion Young offered a super helpful frame for this kind of dilemma:

www.vox.com/the-highligh...

Let us know what moral dilemmas you’re grappling with. You could be featured in the next Your Mileage May Vary column! I'm Sigal Samuel, a senior reporter for Future Perfect, Vox’s section about how to do good in today’s confusing world. My advice column — Your Mileage May Vary — offers people a unique framework for thinking through their ethical questions. My answers are based on value pluralism — the idea that each of us has multiple, equally important yet often conflicting moral values. When values clash, dilemmas arise. I show how wise people — from ancient philosophers to spiritual thinkers to modern scientists — have thought about these values and conflicts between them. Check out previous columns here. So: Whether it’s about how you use tech or how you travel, what you eat or what you teach your kids, let me know the philosophical or spiritual questions that are plaguing you and Your Mileage May Vary can help! Want to participate? Submit your question(s) below. Feel free to email sigal.samuel@vox.com if you’d prefer to communicate with me directly rather than filling out this form. (We take your privacy seriously. All submissions will be published anonymously. By submitting a question, you acknowledge that it may be published in a story on Vox.com. By participating, you also agree to Vox Media Inc. Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.)

Got a big life question you’ve been stuck on? 🤔

Vox’s Your Mileage May Vary column is here to help—no judgment, just thoughtful advice. Submit your dilemma anonymously here: voxdotcom.visitlink.me/dcT--8

“On Liberty” Now Officially Has Two Authors - Daily Nous An edition of On Liberty published this month is the first to officially name Harriet Taylor Mill as a co-author alongside John Stuart Mill. The new volume is edited by Piers Norris Turner (Ohio State...

Harriet Taylor Mill officially recognised as co-author of 'On Liberty'! dailynous.com/2026/03/19/o...

U.S. military is using AI to help plan Iran air attacks, sources say, as lawmakers call for oversight Anthropic’s Claude AI systems have become a crucial tool for the military despite the company’s clashes with the Defense Department.

In @nbcnews.com, @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social underscored that the use of AI speeds up the pace of warfare in ways that undermine accountability for mistakes. Speed "is really a cover for indiscriminate targeting when you consider how inaccurate these models are,” says Khlaaf.

shorturl.at/tKGjM

Should you be panic-switching to a career that's less AI-replaceable?

I say hold up. Our answer can't just be that everyone becomes a plumber.

Drawing on Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's "mattering map," which shows how people make meaning, I offer an alternative:
www.vox.com/future-perfe... @vox.com

*Stares in Marcus Aurelius*

Should you be panic-switching to a career that's less AI-replaceable?

I say hold up. Our answer can't just be that everyone becomes a plumber.

Drawing on Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's "mattering map," which shows how people make meaning, I offer an alternative:
www.vox.com/future-perfe... @vox.com

I once - no, twice! - went to a Starbucks in Mumbai. It was very cringe of me, so no judgment here

The honest conversation about antidepressants I wish my psychiatrist had with me How to think about long-term use, dependence, and withdrawal — according to a professional.

The honest conversation about antidepressants I wish my psychiatrist had with me

Thanks to @awaisaftab.bsky.social for answering my questions about long-term use, dependence, and withdrawal

Gift link: www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Do you need to know who you’d be without antidepressants? After years on psychiatric drugs, some ask if they owe it to themselves to try coming off the medication.

Do you owe it to yourself to try life without your antidepressants?

This is the question a @voxdotcom.bsky.social reader asked me.

My response: You don't have 1 true self, so you can't “owe” it to that self to do X or Y. Instead, here's how I approach this dilemma

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

A rescue mission on behalf of women philosophers | Aeon Essays In the long 19th century, many women philosophers were marginalised or ignored. We need to rediscover them

History’s overlooked women in philosophy did not stand at the periphery of the debates of their time. They were at the very centre of them. To mark the beginning of #WomensHistoryMonth, we are sharing this incisive Essay from the archive which tells these trailblazing women’s stories

Do you need to know who you’d be without antidepressants? After years on psychiatric drugs, some ask if they owe it to themselves to try coming off the medication.

Do you owe it to yourself to try life without your antidepressants?

This is the question a @voxdotcom.bsky.social reader asked me.

My response: You don't have 1 true self, so you can't “owe” it to that self to do X or Y. Instead, here's how I approach this dilemma

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The one question everyone should be asking after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon The US said we can’t afford to let a surveillance state like China win the AI race. Well...

What’s the point of the US winning an AI arms race if the government is going to create a China-like surveillance state anyway?

The Pentagon’s behavior has been eerily reminiscent of China’s “military-civil fusion”

Gift link to my piece:

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

The one question everyone should be asking after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon The US said we can’t afford to let a surveillance state like China win the AI race. Well...

Good line of analysis from @sigalsamuel.bsky.social.

"But what if authoritarian rule that uses tech to surveil people in alarming ways is already becoming the norm in the US? If America is shape-shifting into the bogeyman it critiques, what happens to the case for racing ahead on AI?"

The one question everyone should be asking after OpenAI’s deal with the Pentagon The US said we can’t afford to let a surveillance state like China win the AI race. Well...

What’s the point of the US winning an AI arms race if the government is going to create a China-like surveillance state anyway?

The Pentagon’s behavior has been eerily reminiscent of China’s “military-civil fusion”

Gift link to my piece:

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

One of the hottest therapy styles is scientifically shaky — so why does it seem to work? Why everyone is obsessed with Internal Family Systems, even though its claims are dubious.

Lots of my smart friends are into IFS. They swear by this style of therapy. I'm skeptical of it, and I wrote about why for @vox.com

Gift link:
www.vox.com/future-perfe...

Thank you, Liz, I appreciate that!

Claude has an 80-page “soul document.” Is that enough to make it good? Anthropic philosopher Amanda Askell reveals what went into the chatbot’s moral education.

Chatbots don’t have mothers, but if they did, Claude’s would be Amanda Askell. She’s an in-house philosopher at the AI company Anthropic, and she wrote most of the document that tells Claude what sort of personality to have — the “constitution” or, as it became known internally, the “soul doc.”

Your friends are still acting like everything is normal in America. What do you do? All Americans live in a “dual state.” Here’s what that means — and how to help others see it.

A thoughtful piece from @sigalsamuel.bsky.social: "For you, the tricky question is: How do you get someone to realize that they’re in a dual state, when its darker half has not yet touched their life personally?" www.vox.com/future-perfe...

‘ “the prerogative state,” only becomes visible to you when you do something that the powers that be don’t like. Then suddenly you’re in a realm where the rule of law does not exist”’
Really helpful piece from @sigalsamuel.bsky.social

Your friends are still acting like everything is normal in America. What do you do? All Americans live in a “dual state.” Here’s what that means — and how to help others see it.

You are living in a "dual state." Acting morally begins with understanding that.

My latest for @vox.com:

www.vox.com/future-perfe...

You want a baby. Is it ethical to choose surrogacy? The line between medically necessary and elective surrogacy isn’t as tidy as people assume.

You want a baby. You just don't want to be pregnant. Is it ethical to choose surrogacy?

Gift link to the newest installment of my unconventional @vox.com advice column, Your Mileage May Vary:

www.vox.com/the-highligh...

The 2,000-year-old debate that reveals AI’s biggest problem Silicon Valley is racing to build a god — without understanding what makes a good one.

So it's 2026 and my basic sense is that Silicon Valley is racing to build a god — without understanding what makes a good one.

A bearable god leaves space for human agency!

Gift link for my piece about harnessing the wisdom in religion to make better tech: www.vox.com/future-perfe...

How do you know if you’re wasting your life? You were told you’d change the world. But there’s a better way to think about your potential.

You were told you’d change the world. Now you feel like you’re wasting your potential.

But do you actually need an extraordinary career, or is a “smallish” life enough?

My thoughts in @vox.com:

www.vox.com/future-perfe...