Some HBO shows are streaming on Netflix in the US for the first time

Your eyes aren't deceiving you. There really is an HBO show on Netflix. All five seasons of Issa Rae's highly acclaimed comedy-drama series Insecure are now streaming on Netflix in the US. Not only that, more HBO shows are on the way to the service as Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) tries to wring more revenue out of its expansive library.

Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under and Ballers are also coming to Netflix as part of the deal, the company told Deadline. Meanwhile, Netflix users outside the US will be able to stream True Blood on the service. This is the first time that HBO content has appeared on Netflix in the US, though some has previously been available on Prime Video. The shows will still be available on Max.

This is part of an effort to boost WBD's revenue. Late last year, the company removed some notable titles from Max, including Westworld and The Nevers. Those shows, and many others from the WBD library, are available to watch on free, ad-supported channels on Roku, Tubi and Amazon's Freevee.

Zaslav and his team have employed other tactics to improve WBD's bottom line. Those include pulling many shows and movies from Max to reduce costs, cancelingMax-exclusive projects before they were done (reportedly in favor of tax writeoffs in some cases) and laying off employees.

Insecure

Increases in investigating academic misconduct due to chatGPT?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, 

My employer uses turnitin and asks us to investigate every single case where turnitin shows any percentage of assignments being generated by AI. I think this has gotten a bit out of hand despite constantly warning my students about the policy. (Student who have something detected also tend to conclude their assignments with “some experts say X some experts say Y and this is an important issue so we need to investigate further and have more discussions.”)

I think this has substantially increased my workload and that of the casual staff who works with me. Is this getting more common? How have others dealt with the increased workload and potential unpaid work of casual staff?

Good questions. I haven't had a major surge in investigations or made any major changes to how I teach yet yet, but I spoke to friend recently who has who told me that they are now simply having students do all of their work by hand in class. 

What about the rest of you? Have you experienced a big surge in academic misconduct cases because of AI? If so, how are you dealing with it? And either way, if you have experienced a surge or not, have you adopted any teaching strategies to prevent AI-based misconduct?

Norms for expressing gratitude to advisors after completing a dissertation?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

What are the norms (in the US) for expressing gratitude to your dissertation advisor/dissertation committee upon completing your dissertation? A handwritten card seems appropriate. Should you give a small gift as well?

Good questions. Another reader submitted the following reply: 

The important thing is to keep the relationship professional. Where I worked before (in the USA), we had an awkward situation where students from some countries would give professors expensive gifts as they left an exam 8in the Business School) - quite expensive bottles of wine, etc. This is wholly inappropriate in the USA, especially at a public university, even if it would be expected in tehir home country. The greatest gift you can give a supportive professor is to have a great career yourself - if you publish a book in 10 years, and your feelings are still really warm, then send them a copy of the book.

Do any other readers have any helpful tips?

On How to Teach Old Books, Burnyeat vs Strauss, Part II

[This post was first published at: digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work  consider becoming a paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]

As I noted yesterday, in his famous polemical 1986 NRYB essay, Burnyeat treats Leo Strauss as a charismatic (he uses "inspiring") teacher, who founded a school. He quotes Coser to emphasize the point that Strauss "alone among eminent refugee intellectuals succeeded in attracting a brilliant galaxy of disciples who created an academic cult around his teaching." But Burnyeat notes that inspiration is not sufficient to explain the nature of the school and he implies that there is something about the manner of teaching texts that can help explain not just the devotion of Strauss' students to their teacher, but also to the influence these have on their students (and indirectly on policy).  

This is worth reflecting on because even within analytic philosophy we are not immune to the charms (and vices) of school formation (I could list half a dozen in the Harvard, Pitt, Chicago triangle). Here, I focus on the teaching of (historically and culturally distant) texts. So I am leaving aside the teaching of methods and arguments, although in practice all these can blend into each other.

Burnyeat structures his critique of Strauss' teaching by way of a sharp contrast, which I treat as kind of ideal types in what follows. I have taken courses with Burnyeat (who was a spectacularly exciting seminar leader) and some of Strauss' inspiring students, and their ways of proceeding is, in practice, not so different as the ideal types suggest. 

First, let's look at how Burnyeat describes the method of teaching he favors (we will call it 'analytic pedagogy'). He writes:

When other teachers invite their students to explore the origins of modern thought, they encourage criticism as the road to active understanding. Understanding grows through a dialectical interaction between the students and the author they are studying.

Anyone that comes to analytic (history of) philosophy from other (more philological or historicizing) approaches will recognize what Burnyeat is gesturing at. There is a refreshing -- a term I often hear in this context -- lack of distance between student and text, and the students are encouraged not to treat the assigned material as eternal truths or authoritative, but as material to cut their teeth on in analytic pedagogy. Of course, Burnyeat himself is committed to the pedagogical thesis that we learn by way of criticizing what we're reading and discussing in class. And once this is properly structured -- notice the interaction between students and author is implied to go both ways, and so is dialectical -- this is supposed to produce understanding, although it is not entirely clear what the understanding is understanding of (the ancient texts, of the origin of modern thought, of the distance between us and the old texts?).

One way to think about analytic pedagogy is that philosophy students will seek out the arguments they can recognize in the text, and, if necessary, reconstruct them by looking for premises in the text. Often there are suppressed premises that will make an argument valid and these can be found elsewhere in a text. One can then explore to what degree the argument is sound and this may lead to lovely exploration for the reasons behind the premises and to what degree these stand up to scrutiny in light of an author's other comments. Even when Burnyeat's approach encourages what we might sometimes call an uncharitable attitude of 'fault-finding in a text,' with a skilled instructor and inquisitive students initial (and anachronistic) criticism need not be the end of the matter. 

Before I move on it is worth noting that Burnyeat frames his way of presenting his favored approach in terms of exploring 'the origins of modern thought.' At first sight, this is a peculiar move by Burnyeat, especially in the context of his polemic with Strauss. Let me make two observations, first, I find it peculiar he claims it because there is no reason to believe that the understanding that is yielded by the method Burnyeat defends should or would lead to better genetic understanding of modern thought. I am not claiming this method would hinder one from doing so (although I suspect it), but the dialectic Burnyeat describes doesn't get you there through engagement with texts unless the instructor has deliberately shaped the syllabus to do so (often by inscribing the syllabus in a narrative of progress or unfolding). Oddly enough, what may feel as independent criticism by the student is really, then, a carefully orchestrated (and predictable) march through history. This can still be riveting to the novice, but otherwise best not repeated.

Second, in the context with the polemic with Strauss, Burnyeat's phrasing is rather revealing (and so structures this post). Because Burnyeat explicitly presupposes that it is understanding modern thought that is the telos of pedagogy. Given the details of his criticism of Strauss, one cannot help but suspect that this enterprise becomes a kibd of vindicatory understanding of modern thought. To be sure, even there the means toward understanding will be critical, but it will be pursued with (what one might call for present purposes) shared 'modern' premises. This very much suggests that in the dialectical pedagogical process Burnyeat defends 'we' who are beneficiaries of progress are in a superior position to the authors studied in a number of (moral and technological) ways.

To be sure, there are ways of construing Burnyeat's phrase 'origins of modern thought' more innocently and without some of the baggage I am attributing to him. Feel free to do so, if you think that's right. But do remember that we're supposed to be dealing with an important contrast (and as, you shall see, is made explicit by Burnyeat). And, in fact, Burnyeat explicitly presents his own "task here" (not to be the polemical vanguard of analytic philosophy, but rather) "to tell readers who are interested in the past, but who do not wish simply to retreat from the present." (emphasis added) So, Burnyeat explicitly sees himself as, in some sense, providing an apologetics for a certain kind of modernity.

Strauss' proposed teaching method (hereafter 'Straussian pedagogy') is said to be constituted by a kind of immersion such that the student ends up (empathetically and intellectually) identifying with the author. I quote Burnyeat's summary:

Strauss asks—or commands—his students to start by accepting that any inclination they may have to disagree with Hobbes (Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides), any opinion contrary to his, is mistaken. They must suspend their own judgment, suspend even “modern thought as such,” until they understand their author “as he understood himself.”

Self-understanding is notoriously difficult and we're especially likely to fail to be aware of our own blind spots, so this will be a fraught enterprise. Before I get to Burnyeat's criticism of this way of doing things it's worth noting that the evidence Burnyeat cites on Strauss' teaching (from one of Strauss' students), doesn't merely require such sympathetic identification with an author, but also the embrace of the idea that what they say is "simply true." (emphasis in Burnyeat's text.) That is, the texts studied are treated as if they are a kind of revelation and in which no textual detail is unworthy of attention. Lurking here, thus, is a form of (or a variant on) the joint study Chavrusa (literally, fellowship) one may find in a Yeshiva. (Strauss was, I believe, never enrolled in a Yeshiva, but he may have encountered the practice when he boarded with a cantor in Marburg.)

Learning to suspend judgment is an important skill, one that guards against some non-trivial epistemic vices, especially common among philo-bros (fill in your favorite example). It is a bit of shame that Burnyeat did not pause to let him and his readers reflect on the significance of this. So, Burnyeat is correct to claim that for Straussian pedagogy, "it would be presumptuous for students to criticize “a wise man” on the basis of their own watered-down twentieth-century thoughts. Let them first acquire the wise man’s own understanding of his wisdom." And all I am pointing out in response is that even if one admires analytic pedagogy, it has down-side risks that the Straussian pedagogy internalizes. 

For, there is also no doubt that bracketing -- I use this phenomenological term in part because of Strauss's debts to that tradition --- the superiority of one's own intellectual culture will allow not just a more sympathetic engagement with the text (this is explicitly noted by Burnyeat), but also puts the student in the position to let the text criticize some of the student's (often tacit) commitments (say, about how certain social arrangements naturally are) immanently. (And while this may not be expected at first, it seems more plausible once one has gotten in the habit of treating multiple authors in this way.) This is quite salutary practical wisdom to acquire for educated elite (recall yesterday's post), or to put it more democratically, the public-spirited citizen.

At this point, I should note an important potential confusion in or caused by Burnyeat's argument. He correctly notes that understanding an "author “as he understood himself” is fundamental to Straussian interpretation" and "that it is directed against his chief bugbear, “historicism,” or the belief that old books should be understood according to their historical context." Burnyeat kind of implies that Strauss, thereby, proposes a-historical interpretation of old books, for he quotes Strauss as recommending "listening to the conversation between the great philosophers." This would, by implication, involve Straussian pedagogy in a kind of conceptual confusion because if one wishes to understand an author as she understood herself one needs to have a sense of how she understands or wishes to shape her context (and what that context might be.) In fact, if one goes to the primary text (of several) that Burnyeat cites (On Tyranny, p. 24) Strauss does not advocate an a-historical stance, rather he opposes historicism to what he calls "true historical understanding."*

It should be readily clear why Strauss rejects obtaining an understanding of old books from, as it were, the outside in that is, by appeal, to historical context. For, this is a mechanism to impose conformity on a text by way of assumptions about how a particular age must have or only could have thought. This is especially so because the historicist tends to assume that the past involves cultural unities (as a kind of organic whole.) In addition, the historicist student assumes she has a privileged methodological, asymmetric position relative to the past texts often constituted not just by this historical sense, but also by the progress achieved since.

For, even without being exposed to Dilthey (et al), students often come with some such sense of superiority toward the texts and they are often really surprised to find really smart people in the distant past. One need not be a Straussian or a conservative to appreciate this. In the Dawn of Everything, Graeber& Wengrow attack some such historicism because they, too, want to undercut a kind of self-satisfied eurocentrism and get their readers to appreciate the intelligence of those culturally and historically distant agents they discuss. To be sure, I doubt analytic pedagogy is itself intrinsically wedded to historicism. But by privileging criticism is may fall into similar traps. 

Okay, be that as it may, Burnyeat quotes Dannhouser (one of Strauss' students) as claiming that Strauss' pedagogy also involved the maxim that "one ought not even to begin to criticize an author before one had done all one could do to understand him correctly." So, this suggests that the Straussian student does get to criticism but only at a much later stage. So on Straussian pedagogy, sympathetic identification with an author is then necessary, but not sufficient to complete ones understanding. 

Interestingly enough, Burnyeat denies that one ever gets to the critical stage in Straussian pedagogy, because "It is all too clear" that completion of the first stage is an "illusory goal" given the constraints of university education ("the end of the term.") Again, it is worth noting that Burnyeat is so eager to criticize that does not pause to reflect on the possible benefits of practice in such incomplete identification--that learning to see the world from a diverging perspective is hard and requires effort and skill, may well be thought a useful democratic insight in a complex, multi-cultural society if not for the gentleman, then, for the citizen! (One can recognize this without embracing a natural aristocracy as the proper end of education.)

As an important aside. I met Burnyeat through Ian Mueller, who was much more of an eclectic than either Burnyeat or Strauss (and also much more willing than Burnyeat to let ancient commentators and differing scholarly traditions teach him something about Plato), actually taught (despite clear focus on discerning and rationally reconstructing arguments) in the manner I have called 'Straussian pedagogy.’ For the students that stayed, the effect was always a skeptical Aporia, but also a real appreciation of the difficulties of any interpretation. (For the details, see Stephen Menn's In Memoriam.)

Even so, Burnyeat worries that in virtue of the never-ending process of sympathetic identification with an author one's critical faculties are atrophied and that one ends up surrendering to the text or the teacher (and, if the latter, so a school is formed). As Burnyeat puts it surrendering the "critical intellect is the price of initiation into the world of Leo Strauss’s ideas." Let's stipulate that Burnyeat gets something right that the Straussian pedagogy risks under-developing certain critical skills.

To put some clothes on this claim: in Strauss' writings one repeatedly is directed to the idea that (to paraphrase one formulation) to philosophy means to ascend from public dogma or opinion to knowledge. But one is rarely shown what such knowledge is or the practice that might constitute it. As Burnyeat puts it, correctly, there is much talk in Straussian writings about the nature of “the philosopher” but no sign of any knowledge, from the inside, of what it is to be actively involved in philosophy. In fact, one would never guess from Strauss' writings that he was a student of Cassirer, Husserl, Heidegger who would have been in a position to advance any of their (ahh) programs. To put this as a serious joke: Strauss voluntarily abandoned his place on the philosophical research frontier, and his school never returned to it (except, perhaps, in the study of certain figures).

Burnyeat also observes this, "Certainly, neither Strauss nor Straussians engage in the active discussion of central questions of philosophy which is characteristic of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and modern philosophy departments. They confine themselves to the exposition of texts, mainly texts of political philosophy—not, for example, Aristotle’s Physics or Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason." In so far as they even care about old texts (and most do only in a very mitigated sense), nearly all my friends in analytic philosophy will agree vigorously with Burnyeat here.

But, of course, part of the issue here -- and I am baffled Burnyeat of all people misses this -- is what counts as "central question" or what is first philosophy. If one thinks that 'how should one live?' is central, then political philosophy becomes (at least closely related to) first philosophy and encompasses the rest. While, by contrast, structuring one's education around the so-called 'core' [Logic, Language, Epistemology, and Metaphysics], and to model ethics/meta-ethics on the principles popular in the core, becomes then criminally irresponsible if not to oneself then to society. The recurring inability to even think that responsible speech might be worth thinking about is, thus, symptomatic of the effect of analytic pedagogy. 

Finally, is peculiar that Burnyeat thinks that Straussian pedagogy leads, as described, to "initiation into the world of Strauss'" ideas. In fact, in nearly all the courses I attended taught by Straussians, Strauss was never mentioned, and that even was a kind of running gag about such courses. So, except for the Straussians (now quite aged) who studied with Strauss himself, his ideas could only be accessed through his texts. Unsurprisingly, Straussians themselves don't agree on his views and their own project (with East coast, West coast, Claremont approaches, etc.). At best what the class-room teaching does is whet an appetite to read his texts in the manner that he may wished to be understood. But the more likely impact of the Straussian pedagogy is to whet an appetite for more close reading of texts.

I don't mean to suggest that Burnyeat lacks an argument for his initiation claim. But it's important to see that the argument for this does not reside in the details of what I have been calling 'Strausian pedagogy.' Rather it resides in the purported power of a kind of indirect implication. For to get at Straussian content (of Strauss' own views or the views he attributes to the texts he discusses), "much labor is required to disentangle its several elements from his denunciations of modernity and the exegesis of dozens of texts." That is the Straussian hermeneutic (as distinct from Straussian pedagogy) reads texts as incredibly complex puzzles that can only be solved by a kind of capacious reading and multi-dimensional puzzle-solving. This requires certain dispositions most of us (even in the old-text studies niche of the universe) lack. And so the initiation through the hermeneutics selects on a certain set of dispositions and practices.

But we're left with a kind of weird puzzle here: if (and it is a big if) Burnyeat get Strauss' initiation practice right, and so has properly understood Strauss' teachings, how come it fails to work its magic on Burnyeat, who is singularly unpersuaded? (Persuade and its cognates are the key word in Burnyeat's essay.) This suggests that at best Burnyeat has uncovered a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition. One might think that Strauss mistakenly assumed a unity of the virtues thesis -- and given how often we are told about the need to return to the Ancients -- this assumption may seem plausible. But since Strauss is much exercised by the conditions under which philosophical teaching fails (Strauss likes to point at "rash Alcibiades"), and certainly is personally familiar with Heidegger as an exemplary case of a conspicuous lack of such unity, this assumption does not pass the smell test. At this point one may be tempted to claim that only exposure to Straussian pedagogy and exposure to Straussian hermeneutics is jointly sufficient to breed Straussians. But this can't be right because, as intended, and in fact, this is not so. (Even Burnyeat notes this because it's only a "few" who fall for it.) I leave it here, but will suggest -- I don't know where this inspiration comes from! -- that the nature of the "power of persuasion" in the Republic is a key to make progress on this very question.  

• This first appeared at: <On How to Teach Old Books, Burnyeat vs Strauss, Part II (substack.com)>a reader supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

*This is p. 25 in The University of Chicago (2009) edition

Burnyeat vs Strauss, Again

[This post was first published at: digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work  consider becoming a paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]

In a famous polemical essay (1986) in NYRB, my (recall) teacher, Myles Burnyeat, distinguished between two ways of entering Strauss’ thought: either through his “writings” or “one may sign up for initiation with a Straussian teacher.” That is, as Burnyeat notes, Strauss founded a school – he quotes Lewis Coser’s claim that it is “an academic cult” -- with an oral tradition. In the 1986 essay, Burnyeat spends some time on the details of Strauss’ teaching strategy and style that he draws from autobiographical writings by Bloom and Dannhauser[1] as well as by aptly quoting Strauss’ famous (1941) essay "Persecution and the Art of Writing." Somewhat peculiarly, given what follows, Burnyeat does not comment on the surprising fit he [Burnyeat] discerns between Strauss’ writing and teaching!

Burnyeat goes on to imply that without the oral tradition, Strauss’ writings fall flat, or (and these are not the same thing, of course) lack political influence. I quote:

“It is the second method that produces the sense of belonging and believing. The books and papers are freely available on the side of the Atlantic from which I write, but Strauss has no discernible influence in Britain at all. No one writing in the London Review of Books would worry—as Stephen Toulmin worried recently in these pages about the State Department’s policy-planning staff—that Mrs. Thatcher’s civil servants know more about the ideas of Leo Strauss than about the realities of the day. Strauss has no following in the universities where her civil servants are educated. Somehow, the interchange between teacher and pupil gives his ideas a potency that they lack on the printed page.”

I want to draw out to two themes from this quote: first, I’ll focus on the reception of Strauss in the UK. And, second, on the way governing elites are educated. So much for set up.

First, this is an extraordinary passage once we remember that already in 1937 Michael Oakeshott wrote an admiring and insightful review of Strauss’ ,The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: its Basis and its Genesis (1936) that is very much worth re-reading. (In his earlier, 1935, essay in Scrutiny on Hobbes, Oakeshott alerts the reader that he is familiar with Strauss’ (1932) French article on Hobbes.) It matters to Burnyeat’s empirical claim because while Oakeshott, who did have an impact British political thinking, certainly is not a slavish follower of Strauss, one would have to be confident that none of Oakeshott’s teachings weren’t taken from Strauss at all. Writing in the London Review of Books a few years later (1992), Perry Anderson alerts his readers to non-trivial differences between Strauss and Oakeshott (which is compatible with my claim), and more importantly for present purposes, treats Strauss as a major influence on the then newish resurgence of the intellectual right (although that can be made compatible with Burnyeat’s claim about Strauss’ purported lack of influence in the UK).[2]

But even when taken on its own terms, there is something odd about Burnyeat’s claim. For, even if we grant that Strauss has no following at all in British universities by the mid 1980s, this could have other sources than the lack of potency of Strauss’ ideas. After all, there had been a number of influential polemics against Strauss in the United Kingdom. Most notably, the so-called ‘Cambridge school’ of historiography (associated with Pocock, Dunn, and Skinner amongst others) polemically self-defined, in part, against Strauss and his school; this can be readily ascertained by, for example, word-searching ‘Strauss’ in Quentin Skinner’s (1968) "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas."[3] One can also discern, as I have noted before, such polemics by reading Yolton’s (1958) "Locke on the Law of Nature" in The Philosophical Review.[4] Yolton was then at Kenyon, but he had been an Oxford DPhil student of Ryle’s, who supervised his dissertation on John Locke.[5] Polemic is simply unnecessary with writings one foresees would have no influence or potency at all. So, I am afraid to say that Burnyeat’s presentation does little justice to even the broad outlines of the early reception of Strauss in the U.K.

As I noted, there is a second theme lurking in the quoted passage, namely Burnyeat’s interest in how civil servants are educated at university. This theme is developed by Burnyeat as follows in the NYRB essay:

The leading characters in Strauss’s writing are “the gentlemen” and “the philosopher.” “The gentlemen” come, preferably, from patrician urban backgrounds and have money without having to work too hard for it: they are not the wealthy as such, then, but those who have “had an opportunity to be brought up in the proper manner.” Strauss is scornful of mass education. “Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.” Such “gentlemen” are idealistic, devoted to virtuous ends, and sympathetic to philosophy. They are thus ready to be taken in hand by “the philosopher,” who will teach them the great lesson they need to learn before they join the governing elite.

The name of this lesson is “the limits of politics.” Its content is that a just society is so improbable that one can do nothing to bring it about. In the 1960s this became: a just society is impossible. In either case the moral is that “the gentlemen” should rule conservatively, knowing that “the apparently just alternative to aristocracy open or disguised will be permanent revolution, i.e., permanent chaos in which life will be not only poor and short but brutish as well.”

Burnyeat infers these claims from a number of Strauss’s writings in the 1950s and 60s which he has clearly read carefully. In fact, at the end of the second paragraph, Burnyeat adds in his note (after citing Strauss’ What is Political Philosophy? p. 113), “where Strauss indicates that when this argument is applied to the present day, it yields his defense of liberal or constitutional democracy—i.e., modern democracy is justified, according to him, if and because it is aristocracy in disguise.”

Now, even friends of mass education can admit that modern democracy is an aristocracy in disguise. This is not a strange claim at all when we remember that traditionally ‘democracy’ was associated with what we now call ‘direct’ or ‘popular’/’plebiscite’ democracy, whereas our ‘liberal’ or ‘representative’ democracy was understood as aristocratic in form if only because it functionally preserves rule by the relatively few as Tocqueville intimates. This fact is a common complaint from the left, and, on the right, taken as a vindication of the sociological ‘elite’ school (associated with Mosca, Pareto, etc.). It is not limited to the latter, of course, because the claim can be found in the writing of Max Weber on UK/US party politics (which Strauss knew well.)  

Of course, what matters is what kind of aristocracy modern liberal democracy is, and can be. And now we return, anew, to theme of the education of the governing elite(s) as Burnyeat put front and center in NYRB. That a liberal education can produce a ‘natural’ aristocracy is, in fact, staple of writings in what we may call ‘the conservative tradition’ as can be found in Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind. The idea is given a famous articulation in the writings of Edmund Burke (1791) “An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.” (I have put the passage from Burke in a note.)[6]

So, as summarized by Burnyeat, Strauss simply echoes a commonplace about how Burke is understood by post WWII conservatives. What’s distinctive then is that Strauss is presented as claiming that the ancient wisdom he discloses is that trying to bring about a fully just society would re-open the Hobbesian state of nature/war, that is, permanent chaos. It won’t surprise that Burnyeat denies this is the unanimous teaching of the ancients (although when I took a seminar with him about fifteen years later he came close to endorsing this himself as a reading of the Republic). For, the closing two paragraphs of his essay, drive this point home:

“Strauss believed that civil society must, of necessity, foster warlike habits and make its citizens apply different rules of conduct to one another and to foreigners. The impossibility of international justice was a considerable part of what persuaded him that “the justice which is possible within the city, can only be imperfect or cannot be unquestionably good.” But Strauss spent his life extolling what he believed to be “the truth” on the grounds that it is the unanimous “wisdom of the ancients.” Hence something more than an academic quarrel is taking place when Strauss defends his eccentric view that Plato’s Socrates agrees with Xenophon’s in teaching that the just citizen is one who helps his friends and harms his enemies.

Plato’s Socrates attacks this very notion early in the Republic. No matter: Strauss will demonstrate that it is the only definition of justice from Book I which is “entirely preserved” in the remainder of the Republic. Plato’s Socrates argues passionately in the Gorgias for a revolutionary morality founded on the thesis that one should not return wrong for wrong. Strauss’s unwritten essay on Plato’s Gorgias would have summoned all his Maimonidean skills to show that Socrates does not mean what he says. Much more is at stake here than the correctness or otherwise of the common scholarly opinion that Xenophon, a military man, was incompetent at philosophy and did not understand Socrates. The real issue is Strauss’s ruthless determination to use these old books to “moderate” that idealistic longing for justice, at home and abroad, which grew in the puppies of America during the years when Strauss was teaching and writing.”

That Xenophon was incompetent at philosophy and did not understand Socrates is, in the context of the debate with Strauss, a petitio principii. That’s compatible with the claim that Burnyeat is right about this. But it's worth noting that this is characteristic of analytic historiography. For example, in his early (1951) review of Strauss, Vlastos also describes Xenophon as having a “pedestrian mind.” (593)

Even so, that international justice between states is impossible is not a strange reading of the Republic (or the other ancients). Plato and Aristotle are not Kant, after all. (Plato may have thought that Kallipolis could have just relations with other Hellenic polities, but I see no reason he thought that this was enduringly possible with non-Greek barbarians.) And if we permit the anachronism by which it is phrased, it strikes me that Strauss is right that for the ancients civil society must, of necessity, foster warlike habits and make its citizens apply different rules of conduct to one another and to foreigners (even if many foreigners could be treated in pacific fashion and in accord with a supra-national moral norms). Part of Plato’s popularity (recall; and here) in the nineteenth century was undoubtedly due to the plausibility of reading him as a pan-hellenic nationalist. It doesn’t follow from this, of course, that for Socrates whatever justice is possible within the city has to be attenuated or imperfect. It is, however, peculiar that even if one rejects Strauss’ purported “great lesson” and if one grants that Kallipolis is, indeed, the ideal city one should treat the effort to bring it into being as anything more than a dangerous fantasy; and while I wouldn’t want to claim that a “just society is so improbable that one can do nothing to bring it about,” it is not odd to wish to moderate those that try knowing, as we do, the crimes of the Gulag or the Great Leap forward, if that's really what Strauss taught.

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[1] “Leo Strauss September 20, 1899–October 18, 1973,” Political Theory 2 (1974), pp. 372–392, which Burnyeat commends, and Werner J. Dannhauser, “Leo Strauss: Becoming Naive Again,” The American Scholar 44 (1974–1975),

[2] Anderson, Perry. "The intransigent right at the end of the century." London Review of Books 14.18 (1992): 7-11. Reprinted in Anderson, Perry. Spectrum. Verso, 2005.

[3] Skinner, Quentin. "Meaning and Understanding in thef History of Ideas." History and theory 8.1 (1969): 3-53. (There is a huge literature on the debates between the Cambridge school and Straussianism.)

[4] John W. Yolton (1958) "Locke on the Law of Nature." The Philosophical Review 67.4: 478.

[5] Buickerood, James G., and John P. Wright. "John William Yolton, 1921-2005." Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association. American Philosophical Association, 2006.

[6] “A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, or separable from it. It is an essential integrant part of any large body rightly constituted. It is formed out of a class of legitimate presumptions, which, taken as generalities, must be admitted for actual truths. To be bred in a place of estimation; to see nothing low and sordid from one’s infancy; to be taught to respect one’s self; to be habituated to the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look early to public opinion; to stand upon such elevated ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the widespread and infinitely diversified combinations of men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure to read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw and court the attention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; to be habituated in armies to command and to obey; to be taught to despise danger in the pursuit of honour and duty; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance, foresight, and circumspection, in a state of things in which no fault is committed with impunity and the slightest mistakes draw on the most ruinous consequences; to be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from a sense that you are considered as an instructor of your fellow-citizens in their highest concerns, and that you act as a reconciler between God and man; to be employed as an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefactors to mankind; to be a professor of high science, or of liberal and ingenious art; to be amongst rich traders, who from their success are presumed to have sharp and vigorous understandings, and to possess the virtues of diligence, order, constancy, and regularity, and to have cultivated an habitual regard to commutative justice: these are the circumstances of men that form what I should call a natural aristocracy, without which there is no nation.”

See also Kirk, Russell. "Burke and natural rights." The Review of Politics 13.4 (1951): 454.

U.S. Semiconductor Boom Faces a Worker Shortage

A silicon wafer, a thin material essential for manufacturing semiconductors, at a chip-packaging facility in Santa Clara, Calif.

Three new Star Wars movies are coming, including one with Daisy Ridley as Rey

The latest edition of Star Wars Celebration is underway and, along with some fresh details about shows coming to Disney+ over the next year or two, Lucasfilm revealed more info about what's ahead for the movie side of the franchise. It announced three Star Wars films, one of which will feature the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey.

That film will take place 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, the final movie in the Skywalker saga and the most recent Star Wars movie to hit the big screen. It will center around Rey forming a new Jedi Order. Academy Award winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (Ms. Marvel, Saving Face) will direct the film.

A movie from James Mangold (Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) will delve into the origins of the Force and the Jedi. It will be set 25,000 years before anything else we've seen in the Star Wars universe to date, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Meanwhile, Dave Filoni will finally get a shot at directing a live-action Star Wars movie. Filoni has been at the heart of the franchise for many years. He directed the 2008 animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars and has been deeply involved with the recent spate of Disney+ shows, such as The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew. Fittingly, the movie he's set to direct will tie the stories of those shows together and put a bow on them.

Disney and Lucasfilm haven't revealed release dates for any of these films. However, Disney's current slate includes holiday 2025 and 2027 dates for untitled Star Wars flicks.

After the last three Star Wars films (The Last Jedi, Solo and The Rise of Skywalker) didn't exactly receive wide acclaim, Disney and Lucasfilm walked back on their plans to release a movie every year. They have made several attempts to get other Star Wars films off the ground, including Patty Jenkins' Rogue Squadron, a trilogy from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, another trilogy from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and entries from Taika Waititi and Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige.

All of those projects have either been canned or deprioritized, according to reports. Disney and Lucasfilm are evidently hoping these three freshly announced films will reignite Star Wars' success in movie theaters, even if we'll have to wait at least a couple of years to see the first of them.

Rey (Daisy Ridley) in Star Wars Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker.

SSP’s Early Career Development Podcast Episode 13: Industry Primer — Books Within the Scholarly Publishing Landscape

In this episode of SSP’s Early Career Development Podcast, hosts Meredith Adinolfi (Cell Press) and Sara Grimme (Digital Science) speak to Ben Denne, Director of Publishing for Academic Books (Cambridge University Press), about the books side of scholarly publishing.

The post SSP’s Early Career Development Podcast Episode 13: Industry Primer — Books Within the Scholarly Publishing Landscape appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Putting papers in progress on one's website?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

What's the risk of putting the titles of one's "in progress" or "under review" papers on one's website? Sometimes I'll see a website where someone has replaced the title of their paper with something to the effect of "title redacted for review". And sometimes they'll even redact the titles of presentations on their CV (if they have a paper under review with the same title). But redacting titles of papers and presentations is a pain. So what's the risk?

Is the thought that reviewers might discover your identity and form biases? If so, are some authors more likely than others to suffer from deanonymization? Might those who study or work at prestigious institutions, or who have excellent publication records, even benefit from a positive presumption after deanonymization?

Good questions. What do you all think?

Reviewing a paper again for another journal?

In our two most recent "how can we help you?" threads, two comments were posted (by the same reader?) on whether to accept a reviewer assignment for a paper that they already recommended rejecting at another journal:

I've been asked to review a paper in a journal that I've already reviewed in a different journal and recommended rejection. I haven't seen the new paper but the title is the same. I was quite sure the paper was not ready for publication then and its been about 3 months since then that I've received the request and so I think its unlikely the paper has substantially improved. Should I still take up the review request?

----

Should you review a paper that you've reviewed before for another journal that you recommended rejection there? I'm not sure if it seems unfair to them that they have to be reviewed by the same reviewer that already didn't like their work the first time and maybe deserve to have someone else read the work?

Good questions. Another reader submitted the following reply:

I have refused to review for a second time. Reason is that I believe that I may be mistaken. And being on the other end, my currently most cited paper (and among the top cited papers in the relevant debate) was rejected by a particular reviewer several times at different journals, always giving the same set of comments. (Almost prompting me to leave academics.) I think it would be bad to exacerbate one's mistake.

This is my policy as well, and for the same reasons. Peer-review is such a crapshoot, and referees so different in their judgments, that I think an author deserves a shot with different reviewers in different places. 

What do you all think?

What Comes After “Full” Professor?

Reddit is shutting down its Clubhouse clone on March 21st

Pour one out for a Clubhouse clone. Reddit will shut down its live audio chats on March 21st. It debuted Reddit Talk less than two years ago in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the company isn't necessarily killing off the feature due to a lack of interest.

Reddit still sees audio features as part of its future, but it's putting them on the backburner for now to focus on other priorities. The fact that the provider of the tech that powers Talk is closing shop complicated matters too.

"There’s significant work we need to do — like making Reddit simpler and building better subreddit infrastructure — before incorporating audio," it wrote in a post. "Our original plan was to maintain Talk while we worked on this. Unfortunately, the 3rd party audio vendor we use for Talk is shutting down its service. In other words, the resources required to keep Talk live during this transition increased substantially."

Any discussions that took place after September 1st last year will be available to download starting on March 21st. You'll have until June 1st to snag a copy of the recordings.

Reddit doesn't have a timeline for reviving Talk or debuting other audio features. As TechCrunch notes, though, interest in hosting live audio conversations with a public audience seems to have dipped across the board in recent times. Clubhouse exploded in popularity after the onset of the pandemic, sending other prominent tech companies racing to build their own versions.

However, Clubhouse's user numbers have reportedly dropped and prominent hires have moved on. Spotify has ended production of some live audio shows. In October, Amazon reportedly laid off dozens of people who were working on its live radio service, AMP.

That's not to say this broadcasting format is entirely dead and buried. Discord has expanded Stage Channels to include video. It seems Twitter is trying to jumpstart Spaces as well. The company confirmed this week it's testing updates for Spaces, which may include features such as themed audio stations.

Meanwhile, Reddit will kill off another feature on March 21st, when it brings the Happening Now experiment to an end. This feature enabled users to see ongoing Live Chats and Reddit Talks in subreddits they follow. It also shone a spotlight on popular conversations that were taking place across the platform.

Reddit Talks now have commenting built-in.

Wing debuts a rideshare-style drone delivery network

Ridesharing is convenient in part because there's often a vehicle near you, and Alphabet's Wing wants to extend that advantage to drone delivery. The company is debuting a Wing Delivery Network platform that relies on decentralized and highly automated pickups. Drones charge and deliver in whatever locations make the most sense for the broader system. If demand surges in a given area, more drones can operate around the nearest pads.

Crucially, your local restaurant or store doesn't have to do much to take advantage of the network. An AutoLoader system lets shops simply latch a package to a curbside pickup location and walk away — the drone handles the rest. Businesses have to order drones, but they don't have to manage the fleet or make employees wait for an aircraft to arrive.

The technology is also meant to scale elegantly. It's relatively easy to add new pad locations as usage grows, and the drones can double as scouts that expand the network. The drones can even make sure they're allowed to fly in a given area.

Wing expects "elements" of the Delivery Network to deploy over the next year, with demonstrations taking place worldwide in 2023. Provided all goes according to plan, the brand wants to handle "millions" of deliveries by mid-2024, at prices that beat conventional ground-based delivery.

There are catches. Drone regulations aren't always prepared to handle autonomous deliveries, let alone for decentralized systems. Amazon's Prime Air drones have made few deliveries precisely because of regulatory requirements. Likewise, there's no guarantee businesses will be willing to invest in drones and adapt their curbside pickup spaces. Wing's approach is markedly different than seen with other networks, however, and its combination of lightweight drones and gentle deliveries (Amazon's heavy drones have to drop packages from 12 feet up) may make it more appealing to officials and stores alike.

Wing drone carrying a package

New Center at the University of Pennsylvania to Address Racial Gap in Maternal Health

The University of Pennsylvania recently became home to the inaugural March of Dimes Research Center for Advancing Maternal Health Equity. Under the leadership of Elizabeth Howell, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology in the Perelman School of Medicine, the center will leverage the university’s research, technology, and partnerships to address racial disparities in maternal health outcomes — both deaths and serious medical complications — in the United States.

Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women in the United States, which has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country and the problem is getting worse.

A recent report from the Philadelphia Maternal Mortality Review Committee found that 80 percent of maternal deaths were among those who identified as Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Of those individuals, 80 percent were people who had identified social and structural barriers to health, such as mental health issues, substance use disorders, and lack of prenatal care.

The new center will facilitate basic, clinical, and policy research projects that develop and test maternal care models aimed at enhancing equity. In the center’s first year, March of Dimes is funding two specific projects:

1. Delivering postpartum care in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU): In partnership with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia clinicians will study whether delivering postpartum care in the NICU could improve outcomes for at-risk parents.

2. Integrated doula care delivery model: Through a collaboration with the nonprofit Cocolife, this research project will use qualitative interviews and focus groups to develop a model for integrating doulas into hospital-based maternity care.

Ideas being stolen at conferences?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a PhD student asks:

I'm a graduate student and I've submitted my paper to many conferences, including the graduate conference. I'm wondering if there is any chance that my ideas will be stolen and published before I publish them. I have this question because I've heard that many referees for graduate conferences are students, and I've heard that students have stolen other people's ideas from conference papers. Also, sometimes I come up with an idea and I think I've read it before, but I can't find it. But I'm not sure if it's from a draft I've read before.

I have all kinds of thoughts about this, and will probably weigh in down in the comments section. But, before I do, I'm curious to hear from other readers.

What do you all think? Have you ever run into problems presenting unpublished work at conferences or colloquia (viz. sketchy shenanigans that made you think someone took and published your ideas)? In line with this blog's safe and supportive mission, please don't make explicit or implicit allegations directed toward identifiable individuals. Instead, I'm just looking for a general sense of whether people have run into problems that have led them to think that presenting at conferences (and such) is risky for junior people for the kinds of reasons the OP mentions.

Problematic job-market practices?

In our January "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

This is a request, rather than a question. Could we make a chart with all of the unhelpful, problematic things we see through the job market process for schools--to generate collective knowledge? e.g. Some schools are atrocious with spousal hiring. Some schools pitch salaries very low, expecting you'll negotiate. Some schools have departments collapsing because the financial health of the university is bad. Surely, this information would be helpful to future candidates.

In brief, doing this sort of thing at the Cocoon isn't consistent with this blog's safe-and-supportive mission. Further, although I'm not a lawyer, I imagine that making a list of which schools do various "problematic things" could be legally problematic, viz. libel (if false allegations are spread that damages a program's reputation). However, what I think would be consistent with the Cocoon's mission is for job candidates to enumerate in fully general terms the kinds of unnecessary indignities or problematic practices they have faced on the market, without naming or otherwise implicating particular individuals, schools, or programs, either explicitly or implicitly. Doing this could be helpful, first of all, by drawing attention to the kinds of things that job candidates find to be problematic--and so, secondly, by perhaps generating some kind of impetus (viz. raising public consciousness in the profession) for improving hiring practices.

So, this is what I propose instead. Job candidates: without naming or (explicitly or implicitly) implicating any particular individuals, programs, or institutions, what general kinds of things have you encountered on the market that you consider to be problematic and warranting correction, and why? The OP named a few: schools being atrocious with spousal hiring, pitching extremely low salaries, having bad financial health as institutions that imperil departments, etc. What other kinds of (potentially) problematic things have job candidates encountered, and what (if anything) do you think would be better?

Amazon is shutting down eight cashierless Go stores

Amazon is closing down two cashierless Go stores in New York City, two in Seattle and four in San Francisco on April 1st, according to GeekWire. The e-retail giant made the announcement on the same day it admitted that it's pausing construction on its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia as it reassesses its office needs in the face of more and more people preferring to work remotely. As Bloomberg notes, these are Amazon's latest cost-cutting moves amidst slowing sales growth. In January, the company expanded its planned job cuts from 10,000 to 18,000 roles, with the layoffs since then mostly impacting personnel from its retail and recruiting divisions. 

Company spokesperson Jessica Martin told the publications in a statement: "Like any physical retailer, we periodically assess our portfolio of stores and make optimization decisions along the way. We remain committed to the Amazon Go format, operate more than 20 Amazon Go stores across the US and will continue to learn which locations and features resonate most with customers."

Amazon's Go stores were designed to be high-tech shops equipped with cameras and sensors that can detect when products are taken and returned to shelves. Customers can grab any item they want, which will be added to their virtual cart for online payment, and then walk out of the store without having to pass by a cashier. 

While Amazon still has over 20 Go stores in the country, it has long struggled to conquer the physical retail space and has been changing up strategies every so often. It used to have 87 retail pop-up kiosks across the US, but the company shut them down before the pandemic hit. And in 2022, Amazon closed down all 68 of its physical bookstores, pop-up locations and '4-star' shops in the US and UK. Just this February, though, CEO Andy Jassy said the company plans to go big on its brick-and-mortar grocery store business. He told the Financial Times: "We're hopeful that in 2023, we have a format that we want to go big on, on the physical side."

FILE - In this Jan. 22, 2018, file photo, workers as seen from a sidewalk window as they assemble sandwiches in an Amazon Go store in Seattle. A key executive behind Amazon Go, the online leader’s much heralded cashier-less grocery store, says she was surprised how many customers were hesitant to just walk out the store. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File)

The USPS is buying 9,250 Ford electric vans

The United States Postal Service isn't pinning all its electrification hopes on next-gen mail delivery vehicles. The service has signed a contract to buy 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vans, with the first units arriving in December. The handover should be complete by the end of 2024, Ford adds. The USPS is also placing its early orders for over 14,000 charging stations for its facilities across the country.

The USPS already plans to buy at least 60,000 of its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) by 2028, with 75 percent of them being electric. The Ford vans are part of an additional plan to buy 21,000 "off-the-shelf" EVs. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says this helps the USPS quickly act on a strategy that improves mail service and working conditions while keeping costs down for the self-sufficient agency. The total vehicle investment is expected to cost $9.6 billion, including $3 billion in funding thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act.

The charging network may not grow as quickly. The USPS expects to provide chargers to at least 75 locations within the next year, but doesn't estimate how it will expand in following years.

The overall EV push represents a sharp break from the initial plans. The USPS originally expected that most of its NGDV orders would be for gas-based trucks. The Biden administration fought that approach, claiming that the USPS under DeJoy ignored Environmental Protection Agency advice, rejected public hearings and relied on "biased" estimates. The service challenged the administration before relenting and shifting most of its purchases to electric models.

The transition will play an important part in the government's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions for itself and the country at large. The USPS represents the largest federal vehicle fleet — its EV purchases will have a significant impact relative to other agencies.

2022 Ford E-Transit electric van

Write recommendation letters for students you barely know?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Should you write letters of recommendations for undergraduate students who took you for a 300-student lecture, whose work you didn't personally grade and with whom you had no interaction?

I'd have thought the answer is obviously no, but then I wonder whether this disadvantages students, who need the letters and who can't always find a way to get to know professors... Is refusing at least a decent thing to do, or is it unfair to vulnerable, shy or otherwise struggling students?

Good questions. I'm not sure that I've encountered this kind of situation before, so I'm not sure exactly what I think. I suppose you could always ask such a student to provide you with some of their work to review, and then go from there. But again, I don't think I've ever encountered this situation. To the best of my recollection, I've only been asked to write letters for students who have taken multiple courses with me, and all of our courses are 25 students or less and we have no TA's, so I always feel well-positioned to decide whether I can write a good letter.

Anyway, what do you all think?

The best video streaming services in 2023

The number of video streaming services available has increased dramatically over the past few years as everyone, including Apple, Disney and ESPN, decides they want a piece of the pie. The days when Netflix was your only option are long gone now, and while that’s great for all of us itching to discover our next favorite TV show, finding the best streaming service can also be confusing and expensive. You’re now tasked with figuring out which services have the content you want to watch, which fit into your budget, which have the most compelling original series and movies, and more.

We at Engadget wanted to make that process easier for you so we’ve compiled a list of the best video streaming services you can subscribe to right now, with our favorite picks spanning across all content types and budgets. Now, should you go out and subscribe to all of the services listed here? Probably not, unless you’re a true cord cutter aching for content. But these are the services that offer the best bang for your buck, regardless of whether you’re a live sports buff, a classic movie lover or a general streaming enthusiast.

Netflix

Compared to other streaming services, no one offers more high-quality content at a single price than Netflix. Pick any category you can think of and Netflix probably has something that will fit the bill. Plus, new content is released every week and as a worldwide service, Netflix is consistently adding movies and TV shows from around the globe that can change the viewing experience in ways you may not have considered (Are you sure you’re not into K-Dramas, Finnish detective thrillers or British home improvement shows?).

Netflix is available in almost every country on the planet, and its app or website runs on most of the devices that connect to the internet. Those apps are also some of the most easy-to-use of any service. That doesn’t mean it’s always simple to choose something to watch, but when it comes to swapping profiles or simply picking up where you left off, it doesn’t get better than this. If you’re heading off the grid — or onto a plane — then you can easily download most (but not all) of its content to watch on your iOS or Android device.

If you somehow don’t have Netflix already (or someone to share a login with) then getting a taste of it is a little more complicated than it used to be. Netflix dropped its free trial period in the US a while ago so it’s important to have all your information in order before going in to create an account.

The other thing to keep in mind is that maybe if you’ve let your account lapse, the service that exists now is very different from what you would’ve seen two years ago, or five, or ten. Remaining the dominant player in subscription streaming has required adjustments to stay on top with a changing mix of content and plans to choose from.

In the US, there are four levels of Netflix you can subscribe to. All of them include unlimited access to the same content, work on the same devices and you can cancel or pause them at any time. The Basic with Ads tier costs $7 per month and it's the only option that includes advertisements. The difference between Basic ($10 per month), Standard ($15.50 per month) and Premium ($20 per month) comes down to picture quality and the amount of simultaneous streams allowed.

With both Basic tiers, you can expect 480p, aka DVD quality, and only a single stream available. If you’d like to watch streams in HD and allow for the possibility of up to two streams at once, then you’ll need to step up to the Standard package. If you share your account with multiple people or have a newer 4K display, then you may want the Premium package. You can watch content in the highest quality available going all the way up to 4K/HDR (F1 Drive to Survive, Stranger Things and Altered Carbon are some of my favorites at the level) and have four streams at once on one account.— Richard Lawler, Senior News Editor

Amazon Prime Video 

If you think of Amazon’s Prime Video package as a Netflix-lite, or even if you’ve only used it once or twice, then you may be underestimating the options available. The ad-free (other than trailers) subscription service is available as part of Amazon Prime, which you can purchase for either $15 per month, or $139 annually. While the subscription started out as a way to get free shipping on more purchases, Amazon has tacked on benefits that extend across books, music, games and even groceries. If you’d prefer to get Prime Video only, it’s available as a standalone for $9 per month.

We’ll focus on the video service, which includes a selection of original and catalog content that is a lot like what Netflix and the others offer. In recent years Amazon Prime has increased its original output with award-winning series like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, as well as highly-regarded genre content like The Boys and The Expanse.

When it comes to where you can watch Amazon Prime Video, the list of options rivals Netflix. Streaming boxes and smart TVs, whether they’re part of Amazon’s Fire TV platform or not, are almost a given. Game consoles? Check. The only major gap in compatibility was Google’s Chromecast, and it closed that hole in the summer of 2019.

Amazon also has a significant amount of content that’s available to watch in 4K and HDR and unlike Netflix it won’t charge you extra for the privilege. The same goes for simultaneous streams — Amazon’s rules say you can have up to two running concurrently. When it comes to downloads, Amazon allows offline viewing on its Fire devices, Android and iOS.

The only downside is that Amazon’s apps aren’t quite on par with Netflix in terms of usability. While all the features are there, simple things like reading an episode summary, enabling closed-captions or jumping out of one show and into another are frequently more frustrating on Amazon than on other platforms. The company also frequently insists on bringing its Fire TV-style interface to other platforms instead of using their native controls. That can make it harder to use, although on platforms where it hews to the built-in controls, like Roku, can be easier to use.

One other thing to think about is that Amazon’s video apps link to its on-demand store, and include access to Channels. For cord-cutters who just want a consistent experience across different devices, that means you can easily buy or rent content that isn’t part of the subscription. Amazon Channels lets you manage subscriptions to Britbox, Showtime, Paramount+ and others. — R.L.

HBO Max

In 2020, HBO decided to take the fight to its streaming competitors with HBO Max. It supplanted the existing HBO channels, as well as streaming via HBO Go or HBO Now by refocusing on original content and rebuilding the service for the modern era. HBO Max has the advantage of linking to one of the deepest (and best) content libraries available, drawing from the premium cable channel’s archives, the Warner Bros. vault, Studio Ghibli, Looney Tunes, Sesame Street and Turner Classic Movies.

If you pay for HBO from one of the major TV providers, then congratulations — you probably already have access to the full HBO Max experience. Just activate your account and start streaming. Otherwise, you can subscribe directly over the internet. HBO Max has a free 7-day trial, and costs $15 per month (or $150 a year) for the no-ads tier.

The company just came out with an ad-supported tier, which costs $10 per month or $100 per year. Along with ads, you won't be able to download content for offline viewing. Currently, HBO Max only offers 4K HDR streaming for certain content, and only those with the ad-free plan can access it. It can support up to three streams simultaneously, and offers individual profiles.

Since launch, HBO Max has come to more TV platforms and it's now available on Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Samsung and others. You can also stream it via a browser, Sony and Microsoft’s game consoles or with mobile apps on Android and iOS. It also includes support for AirPlay and Google’s Cast feature, which help it work with more smart TVs than just the ones listed here.

HBO Max content includes premium stuff that Warner yanked back from Netflix and others, like full series runs of Friends and The Fresh Prince, or DC Universe-related TV series and movies. The HBO library speaks for itself, with Game of Thrones, The Wire and older stuff like Band of Brothers, Flight of the Conchords or Entourage. It’s also investing in all-new content for HBO Max, like its Game of Thrones spin-off, House of the Dragon and a series based on the Last of Us video game.

We should mention, however, that HBO Max has recently canceled several shows ahead of the Discovery+ merger as a cost-cutting move. It is deprioritizing kid and family content, leading to the removal of Sesame Street spin-offs and a handful of Cartoon Network titles. Movies like Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt has also been axed. Despite these changes, HBO Max still has one of the best content libraries of any TV streaming service and is worthy of consideration. — R.L. and Nicole Lee, Commerce Writer

Hulu

Hulu started out as a bit of a curiosity — a joint venture by NBC, News Corp and a private equity firm to compete with Netflix by offering new episodes of TV shows. Then, after Disney joined up in 2009, bringing along its content from ABC and the Disney Channel, Hulu became a streaming network worth paying attention to. Today, Hulu's focus is still on recent TV episodes, but it also has a strong library of original series and films (like The Handmaid's Tale and Only Murders in the Building), as well as an archive of older TV and movies that often puts Netflix to shame.

Now that Disney owns a majority controlling stake in Hulu, following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox, the service is less of a collaboration between media giants. (Comcast still offers NBCUniversal content, but it can choose to have Disney buy out its shares as early as 2024.) Instead, it's yet another feather in Disney's increasingly important digital empire, alongside Disney+ and ESPN+. That may not be a great thing for the competitiveness of streaming services in general, but for subscribers it means they can look forward to even more quality content, like all of the FX shows that hit Hulu earlier this year.

Hulu subscriptions start at $7 a month (or $70 a year) with ads. You can also bump up to the ad-free plan for $13 a month (worth it for true TV addicts). The company's Live TV offering is considerably more expensive, starting at $70 a month with ads and $76 a month ad-free, but you do get Disney+ and ESPN+ services bundled in. Hulu allows two of your devices to stream at the same time, and you can also download some content for offline viewing. Hulu Live TV subscribers can also pay $10 a month for unlimited streaming at home (and for up to three remote mobile devices).

Given that it's one of the longest-running streaming services out there, you can find Hulu apps everywhere, from TVs to set-top boxes. The company has been slow to adopt newer home theater technology, though — we're still waiting for surround sound on Apple TV and many other devices, and there's no HDR at all. — Devindra Hardawar, Senior Editor

Disney+

Disney+came out swinging, leveraging all of the company's popular brands, like Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel. It's your one-stop-shop for everything Disney, making it catnip for kids, parents, animation fans and anyone looking for some classic films from the likes of 20th Century Pictures. And unlike Hulu, which Disney also owns, there aren't any R-rated movies or shows that curious kiddos can come across.

Given the company's new focus on streaming, Disney+ has quickly become a must-have for families. And at $8 a month (or $80 a year), it's a lot cheaper than wrangling the kids for a night out at the movies (or even buying one of the Disney's over-priced Blu-rays). You can also get it bundled with ESPN+ and Hulu for $14 a month. Some Verizon FiOS and mobile customers can also get Disney+, Hulu and ESPN for free.

Disney+ supports four simultaneous streams at once, and also lets you download films and shows for offline viewing. (That's particularly helpful when you're stuck in the car with no cell service and a crying toddler. Trust me.) You can access Disney+ on every major streaming device and most TV brands. While the service launched without support for Amazon's Fire TV devices, it's now available there as well. — D.H.

Apple TV+

Apple spared no expense with its streaming platform, launching with high profile series like The Morning Show. While they weren’t all hits initially (See you later, get it?), Apple TV+ has since amassed a slew of must-watch programming like Ted Lasso, Severance, and For All Mankind. Clearly, the iPhone maker is taking a different approach than Netflix or Disney, with a focus on quality and big celebrity names, rather than bombarding us with a ton of content. But that strategy seems to have paid off.

For $7 a month, there’s a ton of great shows and movies to dive into. But if you’re a dedicated Apple user, it may be worth moving up to an Apple One plan, which also bundles Apple Arcade, Apple Music, and 50GB of iCloud storage for $15 a month. Step up to $20 monthly, and you can bring in your whole family with up to 200GB of iCloud storage. And for $30 a month, Apple throws in News+ and Fitness+. – D.H.

YouTube TV

YouTube TV is a great option for cord cutters who still want to watch live TV without having to sign up for a contract. It carries over 85 different channels, so it’s highly likely that you won’t miss your cable TV or satellite subscription at all if you switch over. YouTube TV even carries your regional PBS channels, which is a rarity on most live TV streaming services.

Where YouTube TV really shines is in the live sports department. Not only does it offer sports-carrying channels like CBS, FOX, ESPN, NBC, TBS and TNT, it also offers specific sports coverage networks like the MLB Network, NBA TV and the NFL Network. You can even opt for a Sports Plus package for an additional $11 a month if you want specific sports channels like NFL RedZone, FOX College Sports, GOLTV, FOX Soccer Plus, MAVTV Motorsports Network, TVG and Stadium. Unfortunately, however, YouTube TV recently lost the rights to carry Bally Sports regional networks, which means that you won’t get region-specific channels such as Bally Sports Detroit or Bally Sports Southwest.

One particularly strong selling point for sports fans is that instead of always remembering to record a particular game, you can just choose to “follow” a specific team and the DVR will automatically record all of its games. Plus, if you happen to have jumped into the match late, there’s a “catch up with key plays” feature that lets you watch all the highlights up until that point so that you’re up to speed.

YouTube TV is on the expensive side at $65 a month, which might not be much more than your basic cable package. If you want to add 4K viewing (which is currently only available through certain sporting events) plus unlimited streaming, you’d have to cough up an additional $20 a month.

It currently offers one of the best cloud DVRs available. YouTube TV’s DVR has unlimited storage plus you have up to nine months to watch your recorded content before they expire. There are also no DVR up-charges here; you can rewind or fast forward through the recorded content as you please by default. We should note, however, that the on-demand content on YouTube TV does have ads which you can’t fast-forward through.

There’s also a plethora of premium channels that you can add for as low as $3 per month, such as Showtime ($11 a month), HBO Max ($15 a month), Starz ($9 a month), Cinemax ($10 a month) and EPIX ($6 a month). You can also subscribe to an Entertainment Plus bundle that includes HBO Max, Showtime and Starz for $30 a month. Other niche add-ons include CuriosityStream ($3 a month), AMC Premiere ($5 a month), Shudder ($6 a month), Sundance Now ($7 a month), Urban Movie Channel ($5 a month), and Acorn TV ($6 a month). — N.L.

Hulu + Live TV

Aside from on-demand and original content, Hulu also offers a Live TV add-on that lets you stream over 80 channels without a cable or satellite subscription. It’ll cost $70 a month, but that includes access to both Disney+ and ESPN+. Pay about $6 more and you’ll also be able to watch on-demand shows without any ads, which can’t be said with YouTube TV. As of April 2022, Hulu’s Live TV option also has unlimited DVR for up to nine months. That includes on-demand playback and fast-forwarding capabilities.

Hulu allows two simultaneous streams per account, but you can pay $15 more if you want unlimited screens (and up to three remote mobile devices). If you want, you can also add premium add-ons to your Hulu plan, such as HBO Max, Cinemax, Showtime, or Starz.

Hulu’s Live TV streaming service is a great option for sports fans, as it has access to channels like CBS, FOX, ESPN, NBC, TBS, TNT and more, all of which should deliver content for fans of most major sports like football, basketball and baseball. However, Hulu plus Live TV does not carry the NBA TV or the MLB Network, so you could miss out on additional sports coverage. — N.L.

ESPN+

Without a doubt, ESPN’s standalone service is the best deal in sports streaming. No one can compete with the network when it comes to the sheer volume of content. The platform hosts thousands of live college sporting events, plus MLB, MLS, NHL, NBA G League games and more. There’s plenty of pro tennis as well, and ESPN+ is an insane value for soccer fans.

On top of select MLS matches, ESPN+ is the US home of the Bundesliga (Germany) and the EFL cup (Carabao Cup). It’s also the spot for the UEFA Nations League international competition in Europe.

ESPN offers a slate of original shows and the full catalog of its 30 For 30 series on the service. And lastly, ESPN+ is the home of UFC. Fight Nights, Dana White’s Contender Series and other shows stream weekly or monthly, plus the app is how you access PPV events.

That’s a truckload of sports for $10 a month. If you splurge for the Disney bundle with Disney+ and Hulu (ad-supported), you can get all three for $14 per month. — Billy Steele, Senior News Editor

Paramount+

Formerly CBS All Access, Paramount+ may get the most attention for originals like Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard and The Twilight Zone, but it’s becoming a sports destination as well. The app began streaming NWSL soccer matches last summer when the league returned to the pitch. CBS also announced that All Access would be the live streaming home of the US women’s league. Unfortunately, you can’t watch every match there, but it’s a start.

Soon after, CBS added UEFA Champions League and Europa League soccer to its sports slate. The Champions League is the biggest competition in club soccer, pitting teams from various countries around the continent against each other to see who’s the best. Europa League does the same, but with less glory. Paramount+ is now the home of Series A soccer (Italy) and will broadcast CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers, which the US Men’s National Team will participate in.

At $5 a month with limited commercials, or $10 a month ad-free, Paramount+ isn’t a must have sports destination just yet. You can stream NFL and other games that air on your local CBS station inside the app, but the network is still filling out a well-rounded slate. For now, it’s more of a necessity for soccer fans than anything else. — B.S.

NBC Peacock

NBC made it clear before Peacock’s debut that Premier League soccer would be available on the standalone service. What we didn’t expect was that the network would put so many games there, basically forcing anyone who’s more than a casual fan to subscribe. This is partially due to PL scheduling. In the US, that means you need the $5/month service and access to NBC Sports network (through cable TV or live TV streaming) to follow comprehensively.

NBCUniversal had a similar structure in the past where one game per time slot was broadcast on NBC Sports and NBC Sports Gold was used as the overflow. Gold was also the home to cycling, Olympic sports and more. Now the Premier League is being used to push the new service Peacock, and with the current scheduling format, even more games are relegated to streaming only. Thankfully, Peacock does offer match replays, so there’s some added value there if you can’t be parked in front of your TV all day on Saturday and Sunday. Games currently run from about 7:30AM ET to around 5PM ET (matches usually at 7:30AM, 10AM, 12:30PM and one around 2:30 or 3:00PM).

Peacock also shows coverage of US Open tennis, NFL Wild Card games and will host “select events” from upcoming Olympics in Tokyo and Beijing. There’s also a smattering of sports talk shows available for free with paid users getting on-demand replays of Triple Crown horse racing and more. — B.S.

The Criterion Channel

While it's easy to find modern films on Netflix and other streaming services these days, classic cinema is often tougher to find. FilmStruck tried to solve that problem, but it couldn't find a large enough audience to survive. Now there's the Criterion Channel, which delivers a rotating array of its cinephile-approved library for $11 a month or $100 a year. (Where else can you stream something like the incredible ramen noodle Western Tampopo?)

It's a service that's built for movie lovers: It's chock full of commentary tracks, conversations with writers and directors, and some of the company's renowned special features. The Criterion Channel also does a far better job at curating viewing options than other services. Its double features, for instance, pair together thematically similar films, like the classic noir entries Phantom Lady and Variety. What’s more, its editors make it easy to find all of the available films from a single director, for all of you auteur theory connoisseurs.

Sure, it costs a bit more than Hulu and Disney+, but The Criterion Channel gives you access to a library that's far more rewarding than the latest streaming TV show. You can watch on up to three devices at once, and there's also offline viewing available for iOS and Android devices. It also supports major streaming devices from Apple, Amazon and Roku, but as far as TV's go, it's only on Samsung's Tizen-powered sets. Unfortunately, The Criterion Channel is only available in the US and Canada, due to licensing restrictions. — D.H.

Shudder

Sometimes, a good horror movie is the only way to deal with the constant anxiety of a potential climate apocalypse and the seeming downfall of modern society. If that describes your personality, it's worth taking a look at Shudder, AMC Network's streaming service dedicated to everything spooky. You'll find plenty of horror classics, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but Shudder has also gotten into the original content game with unique films like Host, which takes place entirely over a Zoom call.

If you're a bit squeamish, Shudder probably won't sell you much on horror. But for fans of the genre, it's a smorgasbord of content to dive into. You can try it out free for seven days, and afterwards it's $6 per month (or $57 annually). Shudder only supports viewing one stream at a time, and there's no support for offline viewing yet. You can find Shudder on major streaming device platforms, but since it's so niche, don't expect to find it on smart TVs anytime soon. — D.H.

Caucasian woman lying down on sofa in living room at home searching for film or TV series to watch for leisure on her tablet.