Daniel Rourke /stream

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A proposal to build two huge barriers — one that would connect Norway to Scotland, the other France to England — was described as a warning about the urgency of the…

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Yes, that Charles Murray, who in 1994 co-authored “The Bell Curve,” with Richard J. Herrnstein, arguing in two notorious chapters that I.Q. differences between the races were mostly innate and mostly…

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While technology critics drag technological solutionism in five thousand words or 280 characters, artist and environmental engineer Tega Brain wields solutions against themselves, in the form of objects and installations.

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What does it take to think beyond the human? Can we imagine our human selves in other lives? And should we? While contemporary answers to these questions have highlighted the desirability…

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Of all the weird scenes that populate seventies science-fiction cinema, the most bizarre might be in 1971’s The Omega Man.

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Gaia Vince discovers that analyzing the genetics of ancient humans means changing ideas about our evolution. The Rock of Gibraltar appears out of the plane window as an immense limestone monolith…

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No matter how President Trump’s impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very…

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Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life – money, power, jobs, university admission – should be…

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As the decade began, there were rea­sons to be optimistic: America had elected its first black president, and despite a global recession just two years earlier, the world hadn’t cascaded into…

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Levels of inequality have changed dramatically during the course of human evolution: from the social hierarchies of our great ape ancestors to egalitarian small-scale societies of hunter-gatherers, and then to large-scale…

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It’s underwater—and the consequences are unimaginable. Unless you are given to chronic anxiety or suffer from nihilistic despair, you probably haven’t spent much time contemplating the bottom of the ocean.

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Rosemary Woodhouse has unwrapped a piece of steak from its waxy brown paper. She cuts it in half and drops it into a hot pan. It sizzles. She flips it. She…

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When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us.

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Onstage at the November 20 Democratic debate, presidential candidate and Universal Basic Income evangelist Andrew Yang used one of his precious minutes of speaking time to casually claim that “data is…

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Calculating the patterns and cycles of the past could lead us to a better understanding of history. Could it also help us prevent a looming crisis? By In its first issue…

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Beginning with the figure of Roko’s Basilisk, a hypothetical vengeful future AI that emerged in online forums, Ana Teixeira Pinto launches her analysis of the psychological state engendered by online interaction…

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In 2007, Kenneth Stanley, a computer scientist at the University of Central Florida, was playing with Picbreeder, a website he and his students had created, when an alien became a race…

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If you want to appear very profound and convince people to take you seriously, but have nothing of value to say, there is a tried and tested method. First, take some…

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A proposal to build two huge barriers — one that would connect Norway to Scotland, the other France to England — was described as a warning about the urgency of the…

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Yes, that Charles Murray, who in 1994 co-authored “The Bell Curve,” with Richard J. Herrnstein, arguing in two notorious chapters that I.Q. differences between the races were mostly innate and mostly…

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Go meatless to save the earth! After all, the meat industry contributes 14.

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What does it take to think beyond the human? Can we imagine our human selves in other lives? And should we? While contemporary answers to these questions have highlighted the desirability…

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Gaia Vince discovers that analyzing the genetics of ancient humans means changing ideas about our evolution. The Rock of Gibraltar appears out of the plane window as an immense limestone monolith…

Bookmark

No matter how President Trump’s impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very…

Bookmark

Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life – money, power, jobs, university admission – should be…

Bookmark

As the decade began, there were rea­sons to be optimistic: America had elected its first black president, and despite a global recession just two years earlier, the world hadn’t cascaded into…

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A year ago, I came across an article by Stephen Elliott, a writer I’d admired.

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It’s underwater—and the consequences are unimaginable. Unless you are given to chronic anxiety or suffer from nihilistic despair, you probably haven’t spent much time contemplating the bottom of the ocean.

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When humans started to tame dogs, cats, sheep, and cattle, they may have continued a tradition that started with a completely different animal: us.

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In her new book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, Ruha Benjamin breaks down the “New Jim Code,” technology design that promises a utopian future but serves racial…

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Calculating the patterns and cycles of the past could lead us to a better understanding of history. Could it also help us prevent a looming crisis? By In its first issue…

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Beginning with the figure of Roko’s Basilisk, a hypothetical vengeful future AI that emerged in online forums, Ana Teixeira Pinto launches her analysis of the psychological state engendered by online interaction…

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On an April afternoon in 1929, a timid-looking man with a broad face appeared at Moscow’s Academy of Communist Education and asked to see a memory specialist. The man, who would…