It’s a stupid reason. Historically, if you were a peasant and had been granted access to land, you grew food or herbs. If however you were a lord, you got your food from your peasants. You had no need to grow your own food. So they could afford to grow lawns as a sign of wealth.

This has transferred across into the modern psyche. Lawns are a way of saying “i’m so rich, i don’t have to worry about sustenance. In fact i’ll throw money at it to maintain this slab of green rather than have it provide food, or shade.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-brain/202002/the-strange-psychology-the-american-lawn

I’ll politely agree to disagree. I’ve seen The Economist labeled as neoliberalist, but my personal opinion is that they tend to push more for centrism and social democracies in the articles and podcasts i’ve consumed.

If OP has access to these magazines, it doesn’t hurt for them to check it out for themselves.

Now in terms of media literacy, i’ll throw this into the ring. When reading an article, we should categorise what we read into the following. Verifiable Fact (ie, it is possible to obtain primary evidence that it had happened), Opinion (Someone’s interpretation of a piece of information in context of their own bias or goals), or Fabrication (Generalisation, unverifiable evidence, No True Scotsman arguments, etc).

I tried to call out the bias that The Economist has for OP, but it doesn’t change that their ‘Factual Reporting’ is high. You may not agree with their Opinion of what the facts mean. But it doesn’t change factuality if it is verifiable. Given OP’s interests “politics, philosophy, interesting facts, history, social issues.” I maintain that The Economist is among the most well written magazines that provide what he/she is looking for.

And on the note of bias, i’ll ask. “Is Lenin’s opinion of a Western magazine in context of UK inaction in WW1 following Germany’s invasion of Serbia really the most unbiased evaluation, nor is it even a relevant evaluation given that it was made over a hundred years ago?”

The Economist. They’re big on free markets and open democracy. So they’re pretty much smack dab in the middle for political bias (i consider then ‘soft’ neoliberalism. Still neoliberalism but at least they still respect that there is a human price that needs to be considered). They’re recognised for reliable, factual reporting and analysis (as long as you keep in mind their analysis is coached per their belief in free markets/open democracies as the superior model). But in terms of factuality and having journalists on the ground actually interviewing primary sources, they’re great. https://adfontesmedia.com/the-economist-bias-and-reliability/

Helix. I hate tweaking my ide. I just want to launch it and get to work. Setting up my LSP/formatter/theme is the most i’m willing to put up with and that’s all Helix asks for to be an IDE.