ArchiveArticles
The Flea Market of the Internet: Breaking the Addiction
When, after a bad experience, I called Amazon the “Walmart of the Internet,” a friend pointed out that Amazon is, in fact, much worse than Walmart
A Timely Leak Offers a Peek Into Chinese Cyberespionage Worldwide
What Chinese hackers are doing can sound as exciting as a spy movie — but it is much more dangerous
Former Googlers Weren’t Shocked by Gemini
The new bot simply reflects the tech giant's ideological commitments.
Mainstream Publication Endorses Suicide
The Politico story violates media guidelines and does a profound disservice to our society.
The Two-Sided Lottery Card Paradox and Infinity
Assuming the infinite often leads to ridiculous conclusions.
Moving Life Online is Making Us Depressed
The phone-based childhood robs kids developmentally, says Jonathan Haidt
Are Near-Death Experiences Just Another Branch of Research Now?
We should hope so because there are a number of interesting allied research areas that would be better studied without preexisting prejudice against NDEs
Are Mind vs. Brain Issues Going Mainstream?
Capitol Hill lobby HillFaith has been sponsoring discussion of the immateriality of the mind in recent years
Invisibility Isn’t Science Fiction; It’s Interesting Engineering
Things are visible only when light strikes them but light can sometimes be manipulated so as not to strike them, with remarkable results.Invisibility is one of those interesting concepts that started out as imagination: What if I were invisible? Or— in the hands of a storyteller — what if my character were invisible? Tolkien famously made it a power granted by the Ring in The Lord of the Rings. The concept is used in science fiction too, for example, in the form of the cloaking device: However, as science fiction writer Douglas Adams (1952–2001) noted satirically in Life, the Universe, and Everything, in everyday life, “The Somebody Else’s Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what’s more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people’s natural disposition not Read More ›
Anna Karenina and How to Read Long Books
"One chapter at a time" is actually how books like Tolstoy's were intended to be read.
Dune, Part Two: Paul Becomes a Hero — Very Reluctantly
Some departures from the book work better than others. The “reluctant hero” trope simplifies a complex political situation but at a cost
Yes, TikTok is Bad. But is a Ban the Answer?
This might be the way censorship sneakily invades.
Fine-Tuning of Universe Makes a Top Neuroscientist “Very Hopeful”
Allen Institute’s Christof Koch talks about the assumptions underlying his consciousness theory — which led many other neuroscientists to try to Cancel him
Too Much Focus on Mental Health?
Is our fixation on wellbeing making us miserable?“We have to deal with the cancer that is mental health.” So tweeted former presidential nominee Nikki Haley back in January. Most people knew what she meant, which was that we have to take mental health seriously and do our best to foster positive mental health. From the way she phrased it, though, you’re tempted to think that “mental health” itself is, well, what she said it is: a “cancer.” The emphasis on mental health and therapy is widespread. In many ways, it is good and proper to encourage people to be more open about their mental struggles and to get help for what they’re going through. The amount of trauma, abuse, and other mental disorders that people hide is Read More ›
Escaping the Dopamine Cartel
We can't even be bothered with "entertainment" anymore.
At Chronicle of Higher Ed: Critical Thinking Isn’t Just Chat
Gary Smith and Jeffrey Funk test Big Tech’s chatbots for critical thinking skills before an academic audience — with sobering but often hilarious results
Is Our World, Post-1950, Really a Geological Epoch?
Some earth scientists lobby for calling the past 75 years the Anthropocene epoch, giving it equal importance with the 16-million-year Upper Jurassic
Grappling Honestly With Science’s Blind Spot
An astrophysicist, a theoretical physicist, and a philosopher all walk into a bar and say, “At the heart of science lies something we do not see that makes science possible” Um… yes!