It’s enough for them to draw attention to an idea that is worth pursuing further—and an idea need not be true, well-justified given all our evidence, nor even believed by the scientist in order to pass that test. - Nautilus
"Scientists have to deal with this uneasy balance between being free to do what they like and needing to face the consequences of their unplanned actions, but if science is to thrive that’s the way it has to be." - 3 Quarks Daily
In recent years, I.Q. scores have stopped rising or have even begun to drop in countries like Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France and Britain. Some researchers suggest that we have pushed our mental equipment as far as it can go. It may be that “our brains are already working at near-optimal capacity.” - The New York Times
And that's fine. "Published authors, more often than not famous ones, have had few scruples when it comes to committing literary larceny. 'Authors are like privateers,' claimed Samuel Johnson, 'always fair game for one another.'" - The Smart Set
It's been ... a lot. "It is a generation-defining cataclysm, but for many of us the day-to-day reality has been lonely, even dull. It is a call to action, but the most useful thing most of us can do is stay at home. Covid-19 is a disease that attacks the lungs, but it has also worsened mental health while...
The ways that each culture defines gender norms and structures are unique. Historically, the U.S. enforced a rigid gender binary to support its relentless growth, eliminating any traces of those that threatened its perception of normalcy. Prior to colonization, many Indigenous cultures valued queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people as integral members of society. - Inside Design
For almost any abstract notion, some philosopher has wondered what it really is. Yet, despite this wealth of questions and the centuries spent tackling them, philosophers haven’t successfully provided any answers. They’ve tried long and hard but nothing they’ve said towards answering those questions has quite made the grade. - Aeon
“The debate isn’t about whether there’s been racism; it’s about what racism has meant and what it’s done to America. Is it something that’s been progressively overcome as we move toward fulfilling our national ideals, or is it something that’s been a constant force in society, making society itself irredeemably racist?” - Christian Science Monitor
The nation-state is not so old as we are often told, nor has it come to be quite so naturally. Getting this history right means telling a different story about where our international political order has come from—which in turn points the way to an alternative future. - Boston Review
Empathy, of course, is a two-way street, and we humans don’t exhibit a whole lot more of it for bots than bots do for us. Numerous studies have found that when people are placed in a situation where they can cooperate with a benevolent A.I., they are less likely to do so than if the bot were an actual...
"In the prevailing scientific worldview, counterfactual properties of physical systems are unfairly regarded as second-class citizens, or even excluded altogether. Why? It is because of a deep misconception, which, paradoxically, originated within my own field, theoretical physics. The misconception is that once you have specified everything that exists in the physical world and what happens to it—all the actual...
For the first time, Timothy Morton wrote, we had become aware that “nonhuman beings” were “responsible for the next moment of human history and thinking.” The nonhuman beings Morton had in mind weren’t computers or space aliens but a particular group of objects that were “massively distributed in time and space.” Morton called them “hyperobjects.” - The New Yorker
"In the past, statistical analysis at this scale was limited by the complexity of the task and the lack of mathematical and computational tools. The triumph of modern machine learning lies in developing increasingly sophisticated, efficient, and data-driven computational methods for doing such analysis. “But is this AI?” ask the skeptics. It is too narrow, too specialized, too dependent...
There is the possibility that technology can come to influence or reflect our values in ways that are beyond our control. For example, wearable technologies (such as fitness trackers or smart watches) provide us with a stream of biometric information. This information changes the way in which we experience ourselves and the world around us. - 3 Quarks Daily
