Leipzig, 9 October 1989 — When Fear Was No Longer Enough Thirty-seven years ago today, around 70,000 people marched through Leipzig. The East German authorities were prepared to…

Today, Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy praised her bold, inventive work and the way she moves freely between poetry, essay, fiction and the…

We have composed operas, founded institutions, launched spacecraft, and acquired an impressive vocabulary for distinguishing ourselves from the animal kingdom…

Fair play je krásná zásada. Zvlášť když nikoho nestojí bod, vítězství ani prémii. Na tréninku jsme velkorysí, při slavnostech mluvíme o úctě k soupeři a před…

There is something reassuring about the long term. Problems become strategies. Losses become adjustments. Deadlines become target dates. And if the future…

Denis Diderot was born 313 years ago, on 5 October 1713. By day, he worked on the *Encyclopédie*, trying to organise everything humanity knew. He also found time to write *Les…

How hard can financial forecasting be? If the market rises, you saw it coming. If it falls, you warned everyone. And if nothing much happens, uncertainty…

Strategic Choices, Operational Consequences, and the Limits of Leadership Presentations Strategy has a curious property. The more people work on it, the harder it becomes to explain what it is actuall...

Strategic Choices, Operational Consequences, and the Limits of Leadership Presentations Strategy has a curious property. The more people work on it, the harder it becomes to explain what it is actuall...

Finally, an International Day That Actually Makes Sense October 1 is International Coffee Day. Finally, an international day whose importance requires no lengthy explanation. We…

There was a time when the meaning of life required philosophers, long walks, difficult books and, occasionally, several decades. Now it takes less than a…

Bohatství má mnoho výhod. Lepší dům. Větší pohodlí. Méně čekání. A někdy také podivuhodnou schopnost proměnit význam slov. Nepořádek se může stát sbírkou. Tvrdohlavost důsledností. Pomoc firmě strat...

Would You Like Some Weapons, Mr. President? According to the U.S. ambassador, Trump asked Xi Jinping whether he would be interested in buying American weapons. Trump denied it.…

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There was a time when silence was simply what remained when nobody was making noise. Now it has become a service category. We pay extra for quiet rooms, quiet…

Same Machine, Different Packaging Xi Jinping said in Washington that AI must remain under human control and serve humanity. Trump prefers to call much the same thing “Super…

The Gatsby Brand F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896. James Gatz did something we would now describe in much more modern terms: he chose a new name, built a new…

For centuries, the horse pulled our carts, our ploughs, our wars — and much of what we later called civilisation. It never asked for a kingdom. It never…

Mír konečně dostal svůj den Lidstvo si velkoryse ponechalo zbývajících 364 dní pro sebe. Dnes je Mezinárodní den míru. Valné shromáždění OSN jej vyhlásilo právě před 45 lety, v…

Peace Finally Got a Day… Humanity generously kept the other 364 for itself. Today is the "International Day of Peace" (established by the UN 45 years ago, in 1981). This year’s UN…

Cizí úspěch je zvláštní věc. Čím je nám dotyčný bližší, tím přesněji dokážeme vysvětlit, proč se mu daří. Štěstí, známosti, dědictví, dobrý marketing, správný okamžik. Důvod se obvykle najde. Jen mál...

Cats have never suffered from the illusion that humans are in charge. We buy the food. We open the doors. We clean the bowls, adjust the cushions and…

Do you have something to say that deserves more than three seconds? INI offers writers, essayists and columnists a place to publish, build a presence and reach readers — without…

What if the Big Bang happened today? There would be a livestream, a hashtag, premium content, an auto-renewing subscription — and, naturally, millions of…

A vacuum cleaner, a box of bags, and one perfectly reasonable Sunday purchase. What begins as a minor retail irritation becomes a look at how modern selling…

What if rest itself has become another task to perform correctly? A quiet satire about schedules, sleep scores, mindful productivity — and the strange modern…

INI went live a week ago. Seven days is far too little time for grand conclusions, but enough for a character to begin taking shape. The English edition has already started…

The pig has spent centuries carrying accusations it never invented: greed, filth, vulgarity, excess. Perhaps the problem was never the animal. Perhaps it was…

The bull became optimism. The bear became fear. Neither animal ever asked for the job. A satire about the human habit of giving our greed, panic and financial…

Dolly was born a clone. She had no choice in the matter. We do. We copy sentences, fears, enemies, loyalties — sometimes even our conscience. We call…

On September 8, 1944, the first V-2 to strike London killed three people. Exactly sixteen years later, Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicated the Marshall Space…

A glass of tap water used to be a gesture. Now it can be treated as lost revenue. What happens when the most ordinary human need is repackaged, renamed and…

An independent literary space for essays, satire and stories about society, history, culture, work and human nature—without convenient answers.

The eagle never asked to become a symbol of freedom. It simply flew. We were the ones who gave it meaning, placed it on flags and seals, surrounded it with power — and eventually discovered that fre...

Független irodalmi tér esszéknek, szatíráknak és történeteknek társadalomról, történelemről, kultúráról, munkáról és emberi természetről — kényelmes válaszok nélkül.

Google began with a simple promise: help us find the world. It worked remarkably well. Then, search by search, the system learned what we wanted, where we went, what held our attention — and eventua...

Dogs rarely interrupt. They offer no advice, no theories, no carefully prepared perspective. They simply stay — while we explain, overthink, dramatize, and occasionally lose the leash we were holding...

The sparrow has one serious disadvantage: it is always there. No rarity, no scandal, no personal brand — just a small bird going about its ordinary life while the rest of us search for something more...

An independent literary space for essays, satire and stories about society, history, culture, work and human nature—without convenient answers.

A Fable of the Proper Form of Independence

“The rat’s greatest offence is that it does remarkably well in the world we have created.”

August 24, 1967 — Abbie Hoffman, Wall Street, and the strange pull of free money

August 23 — when, in 1973, explaining a hostage’s behaviour proved easier than taking seriously what she was saying