Our Times
Of course, things have not quite worked out this way. As the late nineteenth-century French sociologist Émile Durkheim perceived, the flipside of free-floating autonomy is anomie — a society without any authoritative norms. Pried from closed communities, many people suffer from pathologies of isolation and purposelessness. Family breakdown, drug
... See morenoemamag.com • Surveillance Capitalism vs. The Surveillance State - NOEMA
3| Und auch allgemein gilt: Männer halten quasi ein Monopol auf tödliche Gewalt. Eine riesige Meta-Analyse zu 150 psychologischen Geschlechterunterschieden ergibt: Die Bereitschaft, andere zu töten, ist der größte gemessene Unterschied zwischen Männern und Frauen überhaupt (Q1).
Titiat Scriptortwitter.comI actually think there is far too little panic (or better yet, apprehension) about AI. I even see many Christian friends speak enthusiastically about it as a “helpful tool” rather than an alien agent. I first noticed about 10 years ago that one way to get a machine to pass the Turing Test is to make it more human-like, but perhaps the easier method... See more
John Halbigsubstack.comWe of the age of the machines,” Henry Beston wrote in the 1920s,
“having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of the night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk,
... See moreL. M. Sacasas • What Did We Lose When We Lost the Stars? - The Convivial Society
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
... See moreJoel Kotkin • The Coming of Neo-Feudalism
Books matter. Making them is a combination of craft and insight. Publishing them is a generous act of faith. Adding to the corpus of shared knowledge is important. Books change the culture when people act on them, even if they don’t sell many copies. And sometimes the backlist surprises the accountants.
But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more
But the economics of new books have nothing to... See more
Books don’t sell
Der russische Philosoph Michail Bachtin (1895–1975) war der Ansicht, Menschen zu täuschen heißt, sie zu Objekten zu machen. Aber warum sollte ein Objekt glauben, das sei schlimm?
Timothy Snyder, Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) und Andreas Wirthensohn • Und Wie Elektrische Schafe Träumen Wir
Narratives may not be adequate for understanding the complex reality that confronts us, but they may nonetheless be necessary to get us to do act responsibly in the face of that reality. In other words, we’re now operating at a scale for which our most basic cognitive tool may no longer be adequate.
L. M. Sacasas • Narrative Collapse
In den meisten Ländern kann man sich heute – eingeschränkt allenfalls durch Eigentumsrechte – innerhalb des Territoriums frei bewegen, muss aber staatliche Kontrollen akzeptieren, sobald man eine Staatsgrenze überschreiten möchte. Der Staat wurde zum einzig legitimen Akteur der Mobilitätsermöglichung und ‑beschränkung sowie der Grenzkontrolle am
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