Mind over Mechanism
Gallery
The Benefits of Corruption
PhilosophyA philosophy of economics take on why greasing a functionary's palms might be more efficient than regulatory oversight.
Lanyards vs. Little Green Men
PhilosophyA field guide to ontological shock: what happens when reality's load-bearing wall goes missing. The public will be fine with disclosure — ants or soul-containers. The church and the scientific establishment, not so much.
I, Optimus
PhilosophyWe are about to mass-produce phenomenological consciousness. Or not — we cannot tell the difference, and never will. The philosophical zombie has graduated from thought experiment to product specification, and twenty million households are queueing.
Printing people: fact or fantasy?
ScienceWhat would printing a human actually require? Writing hard science fiction means doing the work, so here is every step, scanning to reanimation, rated out of five for how close we are. Fifty years without AI design. Ten with.
Did dogs advance civilisation?
SciencePerhaps we only shaped dogs after they had shaped us. After all, they have been our neighbours for 300,000 years.
Stop Doom-Scrolling. Watch Tarkovsky
PhilosophyIf ever there was a time when we needed an alternative to instant gratification and serotonin overload, it is now.
Lord, protect us from the benevolent
PhilosophyRapid action feels like virtue. Restraint rarely does. Yet such action comes with unintended consequences.
Is there Time?
ScienceMany physicists agree that time is not real yet why is it so hard to let go of time as a sensation?