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Do Markets Make Us Moral?
A new study [PDF] examining the United States between 1850 and 1920 found that expanded market access -- driven largely by railroad expansion -- made Americans more trusting of strangers and more outward-looking, but weakened family-based care for the vulnerable.
Researchers Max Posch of the University of Exeter and Itzchak Tzachi Raz of Hebrew University compared places and people gaining different levels of commercial connectivity. In better-connected regions, Americans became more likely to marry outside their local communities, and parents more likely to pick nationally common names for children. Trust toward others rose, as measured through language in local newspapers.
The researchers used multiple tests to rule out the possibility that these shifts simply reflected places getting richer. The cultural changes were concentrated among migrants in trade-exposed industries; workers in construction and entertainment showed no effect. But market access also meant orphans, the disabled, and the elderly became less likely to be cared for by relatives at home.
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'Call Screening is Aggravating the Rich and Powerful'
Apple's call-screening feature, introduced in iOS 26 last year, was designed to combat the more than 2 billion robocalls placed to Americans every month, but as WSJ is reporting, it is now creating friction for the rich and powerful who find themselves subjected to automated interrogation when dialing from unrecognized numbers.
The feature uses an automated voice to ask unknown callers for their names and reasons for calling, transcribes the responses, and lets recipients decide whether to answer -- essentially giving everyone a pocket-sized executive assistant.
Venture capitalist Bradley Tusk said his first reaction when encountering call screening is irritation, though he understands the necessity given the spam problem. Ben Schaechter, who runs cloud-cost management company Vantage, said the feature "dramatically changed my life" after his personal number ended up in founding paperwork and attracted endless sales calls.
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