The opacity of machine learning systems raises serious concerns about their trustworthiness and their tendency towards bias. But the brute fact that they work could be bringing us to a new understanding and experience of what the world is and our role in it. - Aeon
Whether or not a certain line of work is shameful or honorable is culturally relative, varying greatly. Farmers, soldiers, actors, dentists, prostitutes, pirates and priests have all been respected or despised in some society or other. - 3 Quarks Daily
Within the state and between the state and those it governs, personal relationships are much less significant than they used to be after a centuries long effort to redescribe them as ‘corruption’. But they are merely down; not out. - 3 Quarks Daily
And that is ... an indictment of toxic masculinity? Sure, yes, absolutely. "Messing up, it must be said, is very much part of the Marvel hero’s DNA." - The Guardian (UK)
Especially in the performing and visual arts, NY isn't going to survive long without those Euros (and many other forms of currency) pouring in. Says one marketer: "Arts and culture are going to lead our recovery. That is the backbone." - The New York Times
In actuality, Facebook is basically spending $10 billion on a prayer that, in the short run, it might change the conversation. It gives them an opportunity to talk about the metaverse instead of insurrection and teen depression. - New York Magazine
If spending this kind of money on something as flimsy as a JPEG seems absurd, recall that collectors have bought empty space, a closed gallery, and a duct-taped banana. The fine art world hasn’t been held back by such concerns. - Wired
NFTs have fundamentally changed the market for digital assets. Historically there was no way to separate the “owner” of a digital artwork from someone who just saved a copy to their desktop. - Harvard Business Review
The dynamic nature of Beeple’s art speaks to an emerging paradigm in both art and crypto, where the artist and the buyer are in prolonged conversation—and the transaction is just the start of the deal. - Quartz
Perhaps the ultimate postmodern irony is to be both – to sell out to the system while sending it up. It becomes impossible to distinguish the boss from the bohemian. - The Guardian
In a widely cited paper from 2007, on a number of common measures of innovation and wealth creation, cities deliver benefits that exceed what we would expect by a simple scaling up of the numbers of people involved, and at lower cost in terms of the infrastructure required. - Aeon
“Powers and Thrones” reminds us why modern scholars cringe at any reference to the term “Dark Ages.” The idea that the early Middle Ages were an era of barbarism and ignorance is refuted by Dan Jones’s vast array of evidence to the contrary. - The New York Times
While depressed people are not literally in a different world, they are in a different state of consciousness – one they can become awake to and, hopefully, awake from. - Psyche
Previously philosophy was a kind of luxury: You can indulge in it or not. Now you really need to answer crucial philosophical questions about what humanity is or the nature of the good in order to decide what to do with, for example, new biotechnologies. - The New York Times
Sound familiar? "Collective narcissists tend to respond to the perceived threats of other groups in outsize, often aggressive ways. ... Meanwhile, group narcissists glorify positively valued in-group members and tend to overlook their moral transgressions." - The Atlantic
