Our Times

In his note, Abramov, who’s worked at the social network for four years, compared Facebook to a nuclear power plant. Facebook, unlike traditional media sources, can generate “social energy” at a scale never seen before, he said.

“But even getting small details wrong can lead to disastrous consequences,” he wrote. “Social media has enough power to

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Paul Bogard’s 2013 The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light is probably about as a good a survey of the consequences of light pollution as you’re likely to find. Bogard traces the rise of the regime of artificial lighting and its less than benign consequences for both humans and non-humans, from the

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Multiple studies have now shown that the Syrian crisis was triggered in part because of the fallout and mismanagement following one of the worst droughts in centuries—linked to shifting rainfall patterns due to a warming planet. Along with the pure and immediate horror that humanized a refugee crisis many people knew of only via statistics, the

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I think that this whole smartphone scrolling, content consuming, ubiquitous posting, Extremely Online thing is going to go the way of the Fedora, or the Marlboro smoked at cruising altitude in economy class. In the end it is all going to fade. This may not happen for a good number of years, but I truly believe it will happen. I think we’ll look... See more

Young people do not degenerate; this occurs only after grown men have already become corrupt,” wrote Montesquieu in the eighteenth century.1 Our children may take this statement to heart when they find that their elders are leaving them with a poorer future. Three-quarters of American adults today are not confident that their children will be

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But is there not some truth to claim that reality pales in comparison to the digitally mediated worlds on offer? My most straightforward answer is, of course, no. But viewed from a certain angle, perhaps. As an example, consider the case of someone who has only lived where light pollution obscures all but a few of the brightest stars. Under these

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Trauma is a far subtler concept than many of us realise. It isn't just a word for something extremely stressful. It doesn't always come from short, sharp shocks like car accidents, terrorist attacks, or firefights. And, trauma isn't the same thing as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). What trauma is about is events and their effect on the mind.

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