Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Emilee Rader, Professor of Information, University of Wisconsin-Madison

If you use a mobile phone with location services turned on, it is likely that data about where you live and work, where you shop for groceries, where you go to church and see your doctor, and where you traveled to over the holidays is up for sale. And U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is one of the customers.

The U.S. government doesn’t need to collect data about people’s locations itself, because your mobile phone is already doing it. While location data is sometimes collected as part of a mobile phone app’s intended use, like for navigation or to get a weather forecast, more often locations are collected invisibly in the background.

I am a privacy researcher who studies how people understand and make decisions about data that is collected about them, and I research new ways to help consumers get back some control over their privacy. Unfortunately, once you give an app or webpage permission to collect location data, you no longer have control over how the data is used and shared, including who the data is shared with or sold to.

Why mobile phones collect location data

Mobile phones collect location data for two reasons: as a by-product of their normal operation, and because they are required to by law.

Mobile phones are constantly scanning for nearby cell towers so that when someone wants to place a call or send a text, their phone is already connected to the closest tower. This makes it faster to place a call or send a text.

To maintain quality of service, mobile phones often connect with multiple cell towers at the same time. The range of the radio signal from a cell tower can be thought of as a big bubble with the cell tower in the center. The location of a mobile phone can be calculated via triangulation based on the intersection of the bubbles surrounding each of the cell towers the phone is connected to.

In addition to cell tower triangulation, since 2001 mobile phone carriers have been required by law to provide latitude and longitude information for phones that have been used to call 911. This supports faster response times from emergency responders.

How location data ends up being shared

When people allow webpages and apps to access location data generated by their mobile phones, the software maker can share that data widely without asking for further permission. Sometimes the apps themselves do this directly through partnerships between the maker and data brokers.

More often, apps and webpages that contain advertisements share location data via a process called “real-time bidding,” which determines which ads are shown. This process involves third parties hired by advertisers, which place automated bids on the ad space to ensure that ads are shown to people who match the profile of interests the advertisers are looking for.

To identify the target audience for the ads, software embedded in the app or webpage shares information collected about the user, including their location, with the third parties placing the bids. These third parties are middlemen that can keep the data and do whatever they want with it, including selling the data to location data brokers, whether or not their bid wins the auction for the ad space.

What happens to the data once it is shared

The data acquired by location data brokers is sold widely, including to companies called location-based service providers that repackage it and sell access to tools that monitor people’s locations. Some of these tools do things like provide roadside assistance. Others are used by police, government agencies and others to track down individuals.

In October 2025, news outlets reported that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had purchased a location surveillance tool from a company called Penlink that can track movements of specific mobile devices over time in a given location. Tools like this allow users to access location data from “hundreds of millions of mobile phones” without a warrant.

Why it matters

The invisible collection, sale and repackaging of location data is a problem because location data is extremely sensitive and cannot be made anonymous. The two most common locations a person visits are their home and where they work. From this information alone, it is trivially easy to determine a person’s identity and match it with the other location data about them that these companies have acquired.

Also, most people don’t realize that the location data they allowed apps and services to collect for one purpose, like navigation or weather, can reveal sensitive personal information about them that they may not want to be sold to a location data broker. For example, a research study I published about fitness tracker data found that even though people use location data to track their route while exercising, they didn’t think about how that data could be used to infer their home address.

This lack of awareness means that people can’t be expected to anticipate that data collected through the normal use of their mobile phones might be available to, for example, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

More restrictions on how mobile phone carriers and apps are allowed to collect and share location data – and on how the government is allowed to obtain and use location information about people – could help protect your privacy. To date, Federal Trade Commission efforts to curb carriers’ data sales have had mixed results in federal court, and only a few states are attempting to pass legislation to tackle the problem.

Emilee Rader receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

– ref. Yes, the government can track your location – but usually not by spying on you directly – https://theconversation.com/yes-the-government-can-track-your-location-but-usually-not-by-spying-on-you-directly-267808

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Leonel Lagos, Associate Professor of Construction Management; Director of Research, Applied Research Center, Florida International University

As U.S. electricity demand rises and technology companies seek to build more and larger data centers to drive artificial intelligence systems, the main question arising is how to generate all that power.

According to the International Energy Agency, large-scale data centers around the world used about 460 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2022, a figure that analysts expect to continue rising years into the future.

One potential solution being proposed is nuclear energy – produced by existing large-scale nuclear power plants, reactivated old ones, new ones that might be constructed with government subsidies, and other, smaller types of nuclear plants that are in development and not yet available.

The discussion around powering AI data centers, in particular, has involved a type of nuclear power plant called a small modular reactor. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, there are about 70 different designs being researched and developed around the world, including reactors that could one day serve small or remote communities, military applications and even ships at sea or spacecraft.

Proponents say these reactor designs provide consistent power without climate-changing carbon emissions. They can also be located close to places that need their energy, reducing dependence on the electricity grid. They are still years from being commercially available: Demonstration projects may begin construction before 2030, with commercial ones reaching operation perhaps by the mid-2030s. And there is not yet a plan from the U.S. Department of Energy to handle the radioactive waste they would generate.

I am an engineer whose work focuses on the nuclear industry, including waste handling and decommissioning of nuclear reactors. Here’s what this type of reactor is, how it works and what it can do:

The basics

There are three general sizes of nuclear reactors – only one of which, conventional nuclear plants, has been built commercially. Conventional plants are built in permanent locations on large plots of land around reactor cores as tall as 30 feet (10 meters). They usually generate more than 1,000 megawatts of power, enough to supply 700,000 to 1 million homes.

The other types are still being researched and are considerably smaller. Microreactors have cores that are small enough to fit into the trailer of a semitruck. They can be installed on land about as big as a football field and generate less than 20 megawatts.

Small modular reactors are in between. Their cores are roughly 9 feet (3 meters) across and 18 feet (6 meters) tall. The entire operation occupies an area of about 50 acres and can generate up to 300 megawatts of electricity.

Because of the reactors’ size, they can be built in factories from various components and then be shipped by truck, rail or water to the location where they are assembled.

All the different types of small modular reactors generate heat the same way: by splitting heavy atoms and capturing the heat into a variety of materials – like water, liquid metal or molten salt – that circulate through water to generate steam that drives a turbine.

They are also designed with safety features to reduce the risk and severity of accidents that might release radiation or radioactive material into the surroundings. For instance, passive systems and those based on fundamental principles like gravity can terminate nuclear reactions before they reach levels where explosions or leaks might occur. These reactors also produce less heat and have far smaller amounts of nuclear material than traditional large reactors, which can reduce the radioactivity risk as well.

Construction and deployment

Small modular reactors are well-suited to provide electricity in remote places or regions without a large power grid – places where large nuclear power plants are impractical.

Their compact design and flexible placements make them ideal for small geographical regions or industrial installations, like desalination plants, or in countries just starting to develop nuclear power.

They can be built and put into operation within two or three years – more quickly than the decade or longer it can take to secure permits and construction of standard nuclear power plants and complete construction of a large nuclear plant.

There remains a range of technical challenges before small modular reactors can actually be built and put into use. These include relatively straightforward questions like how many people are needed to operate each reactor, and more complex decisions about refinements to safety regulations, both in the U.S. and internationally. It’s also not yet clear what the best way is to manage the transport of radioactive materials, especially for reactors that use coolants other than water, which could produce new forms of radioactive waste.

Understanding the fuel

Larger nuclear power plants use fuel that is about 5% uranium-235, the element that splits in a nuclear reaction, releasing heat. But many small modular reactor designs use a different fuel, with between 5% and 20% uranium-235.

This different fuel, called “high-assay low-enriched uranium,” lets the reactors generate more electricity from a smaller volume of fuel material. And though it contains significantly more uranium than standard nuclear fuel, it remains far below the concentration of 90% uranium-235 that is used in nuclear weapons.

The more concentrated fuel also allows reactors to run longer between refueling and reduces the amount of radioactive waste that remains after the fuel is spent.

US efforts

The U.S. Department of Energy is working to develop domestic manufacturing of this type of uranium for small modular reactors, to avoid being dependent on foreign sources.

Under a government contract, a Maryland-headquartered nuclear fuel company called Centrus Energy has produced nearly 1 ton (920 kilograms) of that fuel since 2023 under a contract estimated to cost taxpayers US$120 million. In mid-2025, Centrus received a $110 million contract extension to produce that amount again by the middle of 2026.

The Department of Energy is distributing the fuel Centrus has made to five companies for demonstrations and development projects.

Managing waste

All nuclear plants require safe handling of the fuel and the resulting waste. There is no permanent place to store nuclear waste in the U.S. Most nuclear waste is stored on the land around the reactors where it was generated.

The Department of Energy says it is trying to find a place to temporarily store waste from small modular reactors, but that process has been tied up in the courts for years and may not be resolved anytime soon.

Other industrial uses

In addition to delivering electricity, small modular reactors can also directly generate large amounts of heat.

That can be useful for desalination plants, which use both electricity and heat to convert seawater into fresh water for drinking and irrigation. Remote mining operations also often need both heat and power to operate equipment, ensure living quarters are habitable and process minerals.

Small modular reactors may also be useful on university campuses. A microreactor planned for the University of Illinois will provide power and steam to campus buildings, while also teaching students how to operate nuclear plants, and offer research and demonstration opportunities for more reactor improvements in the future.

Leonel Lagos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What are small modular reactors, a new type of nuclear power plant sought to feed AI’s energy demand? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-small-modular-reactors-a-new-type-of-nuclear-power-plant-sought-to-feed-ais-energy-demand-268628

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Roger Meiners, Goolsby-Rosenthal Endowed Chair of Economics, University of Texas at Arlington

Higher education is under stress. The highest-profile threat has been the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to several universities, including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.

Research universities heavily depend on federal money to conduct research and carry out other areas of work. For example, after tuition, federal money allocated for research made up 40% of the total revenue for two major research universities – Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology – in the 2022-23 academic year.

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has terminated various federal grants for universities valued between US$6.9 billion and $8.2 billion.

While there’s been a lot of public attention to the federal government’s financial pressure on universities, universities have been experiencing financial pressure from other sources.

Understanding that is key for applicants and parents to understand their bargaining position when choosing whether and where to pursue a college degree.

As scholars of public administration and economics and former university administrators, we think parents and college applicants need to understand this economic landscape to make smart choices about making such a major investment. Here are four key things to know.

1. Universities are an industry

Most American private colleges and universities are nonprofits, but they still care about revenue. These schools aren’t responsible to shareholders, but they may respond to pressure from alumni, students, employees, donors, boards, the federal government and, if the schools are public universities, state governments.

And like businesses, nonprofit colleges and universities need money. As a result, despite what you might think, most colleges are not particularly selective. Though they don’t advertise that fact, hundreds of schools will take any student who meets minimal academic requirements and can pay tuition.

The added cost of teaching additional students is minimal when there are empty seats, so admitting more students can lead to an increase in revenue for most schools.

This is important because colleges’ costs – largely staff salaries and building maintenance – are hard to cut and are mostly fixed. Those costs must be spread across fewer students when there are unfilled seats.

As the number of people who go to college is declining, colleges need to respond to people’s skepticism about the value of degrees – but change is difficult

Becoming a smaller school is challenging. If students show less interest in foreign language study and more interest in data science classes, the school cannot have a German language professor suddenly teach data science.

As a result, colleges can become stuck with faculty who teach course students don’t want to take.

Unlike business leaders, who may be rewarded for fixing a failing company by laying off workers, university leaders who eliminate faculty positions become unpopular among their peers. This can reduce their chance to advance their careers at their current universities or switch to a new school.

2. Schools have to work to admit students

Colleges enrolled 8.4% fewer students in 2024 than when attendance peaked at 21 million in 2010. As a result, schools must increasingly compete harder to attract students.

One way is to offer a better price, meaning lower tuition. Like most elite schools, Harvard has a listed price of about $60,000 for tuition alone in one academic year – and nearly $87,000 when food, housing and other services are included. Few students actually pay that amount, though the exact percentage getting a discount is not public information.

The average net price a Harvard student paid in 2023-24 was $17,900, as colleges offered either financial aid, straight-up discounts or scholarships.

Most schools engage in this sort of price discrimination, the term economists use to describe charging different prices to different customers based on their willingness to pay. In some ways, this is much like airlines selling seats on the same flights at different prices.

3. Schools have a declining foreign customer base

Another enrollment remedy for colleges and universities to boost tuition revenue has been focusing on admitting international students, who typically pay full price.

One-fourth of all international students in the U.S. come from China, while another quarter come from India.

Most schools have not pursued this strategy of expanding foreign enrollment as aggressively as Columbia University, where international students approach 40% of the student body.

By comparison, international undergraduate students made up 6% of Columbia’s undergraduate student population in 2000, and 12% in 2011.

But the revenue that international students generate is not a guarantee. Foreign student enrollment declined 17% from fall of 2024 to 2025.

In part, that’s because of some students’ inability to get a visa or fear their authorization to study in the U.S. will be revoked.

Rising competition from universities in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, combined with stricter U.S. visa policies and geopolitical tensions with China, have led to rapid declines in Chinese students enrolling at American schools.

The number of Chinese undergraduate and graduate students attending U.S. colleges and universities has dropped from 317,299 in 2019 to 265,919 in the 2024-25 school year.

This change has increased the financial strain on American colleges and universities, many of which have grown accustomed to having large numbers of international students who pay their own way.

4. The value of the product is in question

With recent changes to federal loan forgiveness programs, some students and their parents are questioning the value of a college degree.

Just 22% of Americans said in 2024 that a college degree is worth the cost, if a student has to borrow money to get it.

The University of Texas system – made up of nine universities and four medical schools – shares information on the average income of graduates for every degree program after graduation.

In the case of the University of Texas at Arlington, the average salary for a drama, theater arts and stagecraft major is $14,933 one year after graduation. This amount goes up to $39,608 10 years after graduation, resulting in a negative $324,210 return on the price of college over that first decade.

Of course, some degrees pay off. A University of Texas at Arlington graduate with a degree in civil engineering earns an average of $67,920 one year after college and $105,377 10 years after graduation, demonstrating a positive return on investment of $1.15 million.

We believe that universities and colleges should reform to address the next generation’s uncertainty about higher education.

College applicants should be asking hard questions. What is the data on graduates’ earnings compared to the cost of their program? Where are graduates employed?

If more people treated buying a college degree with the same care they use to buy their first home – an equivalent investment – colleges and universities would feel pressure to become more transparent for students and parents. They would also become more aligned with the rapidly evolving demands of the workplace.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Federal funding cuts are only one problem facing America’s colleges and universities – https://theconversation.com/federal-funding-cuts-are-only-one-problem-facing-americas-colleges-and-universities-268974

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Anne Pisor, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Demography, Penn State

Imagine going from having a book club with your co-workers to seeing them only on a Signal chat where every member has to be vetted – and the main conversation topic is when you might lose your job.

That’s what it was like for workers at one federal agency earlier this year.

“I’d never seen anything like the sort of organization that happened during the RIFs (layoffs, or reductions in force) in supporting each other with news, information and job resources,” said Anthony, a federal worker who’d been with the agency for almost a decade before his position was eliminated. He asked that his real name and other identifying details not be published, out of fear of retaliation.

Anthony’s not alone. So far in 2025, tens of thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs. And during the shutdown, approximately 600,000 were threatened with layoffs.

But something else happened alongside the cuts: Federal workers began building support networks online – connecting with colleagues inside their agencies and with strangers outside them.

I’m an anthropologist, which means I study human nature and human diversity, and I’m an expert in how people cooperate to manage risk. Watching federal workers use social media to provide mutual support offered a rare real-time view of the process. To deepen my understanding, I interviewed several federal workers who work in different parts of government.

They told me that in the past, federal workers haven’t always interacted with their co-workers outside of work, much less connected across federal agencies. But thanks to online platforms, that’s changing.

As they’ve faced RIFs, operational changes from the Department of Government Efficiency (or DOGE) and the longest government shutdown in history, current and former federal workers have come together in online spaces to support one another. The result is a vivid example of how people create resilient networks, often spanning group boundaries and distance, in response to uncertainty and threats.

Reaching out across groups and across distance

In 2025, federal workers built social networks like the ones we study in my lab. When experiencing widespread shocks – things such as droughts or mass job loss – humans past and present have relied on relationships that stretch beyond the individuals affected. Often that means getting support from people at a distance, and it can also mean reaching out across groups.

When just a few people reach across groups, social scientists call these connectors “brokers.” They often move information across groups. As a user of LinkedIn and Bluesky, I have observed that federal workers in positions of power, or who have been recently RIFed and thus have less to lose, are often brokers, because with visibility comes risk of retribution. These brokers share information on where to find unemployment benefits or how to sign petitions calling for scientific independence.

There are even more connections spanning distance and agencies when workers can remain anonymous. Platforms such as Reddit and Bluesky are places where workers feel safer to speak freely. There, workers can share information and also frustration, little wins, and some laughs.

What’s more, as my lab has shown, these long-distance relationships can also bolster collective action – working toward a shared goal, often across space and across groups, such as federal agencies.

For example, Julia Simon – who agreed to let me use her name but asked that other identifying details be withheld – has a friend who works at the same federal agency as her but lives in a different part of the country. This year, her friend suggested that Julia join the Federal Unionists Network. Members from across agencies provide mutual support and work together toward change in their union – the American Federation of Government Employees – and beyond.

“I’ve felt that within my own local and district I’ve been seen as too radical so my ideas tend to get shot down or ignored,” Simon told me in an interview. “But finding a group of other AFGE activists who have similar views and goals has been validating.”

Hunkering down among trusted others

That said, when people fear surveillance and possible retaliation, they may not reach out to long-distance connections. Instead, networks often shift toward tight-knit clusters, reducing risk of exposure and increasing trust.

In 2025, many federal workers leaned into private Signal chats with their co-workers. Users are vetted before they can join Signal chats to help workers feel safer in these spaces.

When workers were faced with RIFs, a visit from DOGE or the government shutdown, Signal chat activity would increase, workers told me.

“The content was largely ‘I heard from our division director that the RIF notices will go out Friday’ or ‘If you’re comfortable with it, here’s a Zoom workshop on how to manage your emotions during layoffs,’” Anthony said. At their peak, he told me, these chats had hundreds of participants.

Mason, furloughed from a different agency during the shutdown, gave another example. “Today, there are about a dozen messages among federal employees who are trying to provide information and support to each other about applying for unemployment benefits,” he said in an interview.

Though these Signal groups are tight-knit, long-distance relationships still are a source of information – bringing news from spouses and friends at other agencies and content from Reddit, LinkedIn and Bluesky.

For some workers, the most important benefit of these Signal chats is the sense of community they provide.

“These group chats and communities sprung up because we were being terrorized and we only had each other for support,” Anthony said. “I remember seeing some wild statistic early on that said a lot of folks support DOGE’s mission – from our side, it was like, ‘Guess we’re on our own.’ I can’t tell you how many times I heard, ‘Nobody is coming to save us’ – so that’s why we needed these groups.”

Learning from federal workers’ experiences

These stories from federal workers are a reminder of how hundreds of thousands of Americans working for the public may be experiencing uncertainty, fear, loss and isolation this year.

They also offer important lessons on how to build the resilient networks that sustain us as people.

First, if you feel you cannot trust others, trust can emerge in highly connected clusters that can pool information and take action. As Anthony highlighted, forming these clusters can provide individuals with a sense of community.

Second, connections spanning groups and distance open doors for transmitting information and, as Julia experienced, for engaging in collective action. Long-distance relationships can also help you access things that can be hard to find, such as information about what’s next, support with food or loans, and even new job opportunities.

These resilient networks are a reminder that online platforms have a silver lining. Many news stories focus on how social media use can negatively affect people’s mental health or social relationships. What federal workers highlight, however, is that the effect of online platforms on your well-being can depend on how you use them.

LinkedIn, Reddit, Signal and other platforms can allow you to create and sustain networks that might be impossible to have in person, either because trust is low or simply because you’re busy. Online platforms allow people to build tight-knit clusters or to have more long-distance relationships at greater distances than ever before.

So whether you’re looking for like-minded others, people who can help you face something you’ve never faced before, or a sense of community when you’ve lost so much, online platforms remain an important tool to help us find each other.

Anne Pisor receives funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Penn State Social Science Research Institute. She has a long-distance social relationship with a source for this article.

– ref. A hard year for federal workers offers a real-time lesson in resilience – https://theconversation.com/a-hard-year-for-federal-workers-offers-a-real-time-lesson-in-resilience-270272

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ishani Banerji, Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing, Clemson University

Even before this year’s Spotify Wrapped drops, I have a hunch what mine will reveal.

I’m guessing I’ll be among Spotify’s top 1% of listeners for an obscure 2004 track titled “Rusty Chevrolet” by the Irish band Shanneyganock. I heard it first thanks to my son, whose friend had been singing it on the swings at school. My son found it utterly hilarious, and it’s been playing in our house nonstop ever since.

Like parents all over the world, I’ll rue how my son’s musical tastes have hijacked my listening history. But I’ll also be tickled to learn that our household is one of the few even listening to it.

Spotify Wrapped is an annual campaign by the popular streaming music platform. Since 2015, the streaming service has been repackaging user data – specifically, the listening history of Spotify’s users over the past year – into attractive, personalized slideshows featuring, among other data points, your top five songs, your total listening time and even your “listening personality.” (Are you a “Replayer,” a “Maverick” or a “Vampire”?)

As a consumer behavior researcher, I’ve thought about why these lists get so much attention each year. I suspect that the success of Spotify Wrapped may have a lot to do with how the flashy, shareable graphics are connected to a couple of fundamental – and somewhat contradictory – human needs.

Individuality and belonging

In 1991, social psychologist Marilynn Brewer introduced what she coined “optimal distinctiveness theory.”

She argued that most people are torn between two human needs. On the one hand, there’s the need for “validation and similarity to others.” On the other hand, people want to express their “uniqueness and individuation.” Thus, most of us are constantly striving for a balance between feeling connected to others while also maintaining a sense of our own distinct individuality.

At Thanksgiving, for example, your need for connection is likely more than satisfied. In that moment, you’re surrounded by family and friends who share a lot in common with you. In fact, it can feel so fulfilled that you may start craving the opposite: a way to assert your individuality. Maybe you choose to wear something that really reflects your personality, or you tell stories about interesting experiences you’ve had in the past year.

In contrast, you may feel relatively isolated when you move to a new town and feel a stronger need for connection. You may wear the styles and brands you see your neighbors and co-workers wearing, pop into popular cafes and restaurants, or invite people over to your home in an effort to make new friends.

Have it your way

When people buy things, they often make choices as a way to satisfy their needs for connection and individuality.

Brands recognize this and usually try to entice consumers with at least one of these two elements. It’s partly why Coca-Cola started releasing bottles featuring popular names on the labels as part of its “Share a Coke” campaign. The soft drink remains the same, but grabbing a Coke with your name on it can cultivate a sense of connection with everyone else who has it. And it’s why Apple offers custom, personalized engravings for products such as its AirPods and iPads.

Spotify Wrapped works because it nails the balance between competing needs: the desire to belong and the desire to stand out. Seeing the overlap between your lists and those of your friends fosters a sense of connection, and seeing the differences is a signal of your (or your kids’!) unique musical taste. It gives me a way to say, “Sure, I’ve been listening to ‘Soda Pop’ nonstop like everyone else. But I’m probably the only one playing ‘Rusty Chevrolet’ on repeat.”

The Wrapped campaign is also smart marketing. Spotify turns listeners’ unique, personal listening data into striking visuals that are tailor-made for posting to social media accounts. It’s no wonder, then, that the Wrapped feature has led to impressive engagement: On TikTok, the hashtag #SpotifyWrapped garnered 73.7 billion views in 2023. The annual campaign has earned numerous honors, including a Cannes Lion and several Webby Awards, otherwise known as the “Oscars of the Internet.”

It’s been so successful that it’s inspired a wave of copycats: Apple Music, Reddit, Uber and Duolingo now release similarly personalized “year-in-reviews.”

None, however, has managed to achieve the same level of cultural impact as Spotify Wrapped. So, when Spotify Wrapped 2025 drops, what will be on your list? And will you brag, hide or laugh at what it says about you?

Ishani Banerji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The marketing genius of Spotify Wrapped – https://theconversation.com/the-marketing-genius-of-spotify-wrapped-270135

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Michael Bruening, Professor of History, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Ideological division was tearing the country apart. Factions denounced each other as unpatriotic and evil. There were attempted kidnappings and assassinations of political figures. Public monuments and art were desecrated all over the country.

This was France in the middle of the 16th century. The divisions were rooted in religion.

The Protestant minority denounced Catholics as “superstitious idolaters,” while the Catholics condemned Protestants as “seditious heretics.” In 1560, Protestant conspirators attempted to kidnap the young King Francis II, hoping to replace his zealous Catholic regents with ones more sympathetic to the Protestant cause.

Two years later, the country collapsed into civil war. The French Wars of Religion had begun – and would convulse the country for the next 36 years.

I am a historian of the Reformation who writes about the opponents of John Calvin, a leading Protestant theologian who influenced Reformed Christians, Presbyterians, Puritans and other denominations for centuries. One of the most significant of Calvin’s rivals was the humanist Sebastian Castellio, whom he had worked with in Geneva before a bitter falling out over theology.

Soon after the first war in France broke out, Castellio penned a treatise that was far ahead of its time. Rather than join in the bitter denunciations raging between Protestants and Catholics, Castellio condemned intolerance itself.

He identified the main problem as both sides’ efforts to “force consciences” – to compel people to believe things they did not believe. In my view, that advice from nearly five centuries ago has much to say to the world today.

Foreseeing the carnage

Castellio rose to prominence in 1554 when he condemned the execution of Michael Servetus, a medical doctor and theologian convicted of heresy. Servetus had rejected the standard Christian belief in the Trinity, which holds that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons in one God.

Already condemned by the Catholic Inquisition in France, Servetus was passing through Geneva when Calvin urged his arrest and advocated for his execution. Servetus was burned alive at the stake.

Castellio condemned the execution in a remarkable book titled “Concerning Heretics: Whether They are to be Persecuted and How They are to be Treated.” In it, Castellio questioned the very notion of heresy: “After a careful investigation into the meaning of the term heretic, I can discover no more than this, that we regard those as heretics with whom we disagree.”

In the process, he laid the intellectual foundations for religious toleration that would come to dominate Western political philosophy during the Enlightenment.

But it took centuries for religious toleration to take hold.

In the meantime, Europe became embroiled in a series of religious wars. Most were civil wars between Protestants and Catholics, including the French Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts from 1562 to 1598. These included one of the most horrific events of the 16th century: the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, when thousands of Protestants were slain in a nationwide bloodbath.

Castellio had seen the carnage coming: “So much blood will flow,” he had warned in a treatise 10 years earlier, “that its loss will be irremediable.”

Remembering the Golden Rule

Castellio’s 1562 book, “Advice to a Desolate France,” was a rarity in the 16th century, for it sought compromise and the middle ground rather than the religious extremes.

With an extraordinarily modern sensibility, he decided to use the terms each side preferred for themselves, rather than the negative epithets used by their opponents.

“I shall call them what they call themselves,” he explained, “in order not to offend them.” Hence, he used “Catholics” rather than “Papists” and “evangelicals” rather than “Huguenots.”

Castellio pulled no punches. To the Catholics, referring to decades of Protestant persecution in France, he said: “Recall how you have treated the evangelicals. You have pursued and imprisoned them … and then you have roasted them alive at a slow fire to prolong their torture. And for what crime? Because they did not believe in the pope, the Mass, and purgatory. … Is that a good and just cause for burning men alive?”

To the Protestants, he complained, “You are forcing them against their consciences to attend your sermons, and what is worse, you are forcing some to take up arms against their own brothers.” He noted that they were using three “remedies” for healing the church, “namely bloodshed, the forcing of consciences, and the condemning and regarding as unfaithful of those who are not entirely in agreement with your doctrine.”

In short, Castellio accused both sides of ignoring the Golden Rule: “Do not do unto others what you would not want them to do unto you,” he wrote. “This is a rule so true, so just, so natural, and so written by the finger of God in the hearts of all,” he asserted, that none can deny it.

Both sides were trying to promote their vision of true religion, Castellio said, but both were going about it the wrong way. In particular, he warned against trying to justify evil behavior by appealing to its possible effects: “One should not do wrong in order that good may result from it.”

In another essay, he made the same point to argue against torture, writing that “Evil must not be done in order to pursue the good.” Castellio was the anti-Machiavelli; for him, the ends did not justify the means.

Force doesn’t work

Finally, “Advice to a Desolate France” argued that forcing people to your own way of thinking never works: “We manifestly see that those who are forced to accept the Christian religion, whether they are a people or individuals, never make good Christians.”

Americans, I believe, would do well to bear Castellio’s words in mind today. The country’s two dominant political parties have become increasingly polarized. Students are reluctant to speak out on controversial topics for fear of “saying the wrong thing.” Americans increasingly think in binary terms of good and evil, friends and enemies.

In the 16th century, Christians failed to heed Castellio’s advice and continued to kill each other over differences of belief for another hundred years. It would be wise to apply his ideas to today’s bitter divisions.

Michael Bruening does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why one theologian’s advice for a bitterly divided nation holds true today – https://theconversation.com/why-one-theologians-advice-for-a-bitterly-divided-nation-holds-true-today-266457