Tag: Society
-
Comment Peter Thiel et les techno-réactionnaires américains récupèrent la pensée du philosophe chrétien René Girard
Selon le philosophe, le désir naît toujours de l’imitation de celui d’un autre. Parti aux Etats-Unis en 1947, il remarque en enseignant le français que le « désir mimétique » est l’un des grands ressorts des récits littéraires. A partir de Proust, mais aussi de Stendhal, Dostoïevski, Flaubert ou Cervantès, René Girard montre que, loin des clichés romantiques…
-
Something Big Is Happening — matt shumer
Amodei has a thought experiment I can’t stop thinking about. Imagine it’s 2027. A new country appears overnight. 50 million citizens, every one smarter than any Nobel Prize winner who has ever lived. They think 10 to 100 times faster than any human. They never sleep. They can use the internet, control robots, direct experiments,…
-
Tough Love: Do I Like Being Single Too Much to Fall in Love?
Half the time, we look over at our boyfriends-turned-husbands, with their graying hair and gorgeous eyes, the reassuring heft of them, which deters intruders and quiets our fears and calms the kids, and wonder what they’re still doing with us. Any time you give blood, you offer up a vein and suffer the pinch. Only…
-
For a long time I have been predicting the return of phrenology – Marginal REVOLUTION
The Photo Big 5 provides predictive power comparable to race, attractiveness, and educational background, and is only weakly correlated with cognitive measures such as test scores. We show that individuals systematically sort into occupations where their personality traits are valued and earn higher wages when traits align with occupational demands — Read on marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/for-a-long-time-i-have-been-predicting-the-return-of-phrenology.html
-
The Discourse is Getting Both Smarter and Dumber
I think that when historians look back on the Trump era, they will be more likely to note the collapse in norms surrounding things like truth and corruption and the existence of a fair justice system than policy changes. Likewise, think about how in late 2025 the most popular podcasts in the country among right-wingers…
-
Experts warn of threat to democracy from ‘AI bot swarms’ infesting social media | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
political leaders could deploy almost limitless numbers of AIs to masquerade as humans online and precisely infiltrate communities, learn their foibles over time and use increasingly convincing and carefully tailored falsehoods, to change population-wide opinions. — Read on www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/22/experts-warn-of-threat-to-democracy-by-ai-bot-swarms-infesting-social-media
-
Trump airing Macron’s private message was designed to hurt and intimidate | Donald Trump | The Guardian
No president had ever achieved such omnipresence. In this fractured country, it gives him a singular power. It wasn’t money that propelled him but conversation. The creation of chaos is not an accidental byproduct of Trump, it is the method. Every void is filled with a provocation. He lights more fires than can be put…
-
A Visualization of the Evolution of Paris, 300 BCE to 2025
A Visualization of the Evolution of Paris, 300 BCE to 2025 — Read on kottke.org/26/01/a-visualization-of-the-evolution-of-paris-300-bce-to-2025