“The reality is a lot of the profits go to a few super tech houses in Silicon Valley and the result is you lose entire segments of the cultural creation population,” says John Degen, executive director of The Writers’ Union of Canada and chair of the International Authors Forum. “You end up either with superstar authors, or a vast underclass wanting to be superstars and no middle class. It’s been completely hollowed out.”
Author: Douglas McLennan
Irish Arts Funding Up 10 Percent, To Highest In Ten Years
The figure falls short of an historic high of €83 million (£72.7 million) in 2007 but is being seen as a significant step towards Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s 2017 commitment to doubling government support for the arts within seven years.
Small UK Music Venues Are Shutting Down. Is It Because Of Robots?
“Music has become very open source. The channels in which you discover new artists have changed drastically. We can’t have our culture curated by robots; it has to be people who know what they’re talking about. We need cultural wayfinders who are willing to take risks.”
Deep Disagreements Over Facts And How We Form Beliefs
One particularly pernicious form of disagreement arises when we not only disagree about individuals facts… but also disagree about how best to form beliefs about those facts, that is, about how to gather and assess evidence in proper ways. This is deep disagreement, and it’s the form that most societal disagreements take. Understanding these disagreements will not inspire optimism about our ability to find consensus.
Have We Screwed Up The Balance Between Idleness And Work?
Like Montaigne, who played a diffident but competent role in politics—he was mayor of Bordeaux—most of us forge a rotten compromise between idleness and industry. What else can we do? We see the flourishing of life in the little moments, as we see the scale of its shirked responsibilities. To manage our ambivalence is necessary work.
What Its Like To Read 171 Books To Judge The Booker Prize
I thought it’d be tough. I thought it’d be hard work. But I also thought I’d be able to do it. I mean, I read quickly. But it was a huge ask. It did just swallow up my year. I got to a point where I was actually dreaming mash-ups of the books I was reading. I would wake up in the morning and go, “Did that happen?”
M.I.T. Makes A Billion-Dollar Bet On AI, Starting A New College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is taking a particularly ambitious step, creating a new college backed by a planned investment of $1 billion. Two-thirds of the funds have already been raised, M.I.T. said, in announcing the initiative on Monday. The linchpin gift of $350 million came from Stephen A. Schwarzman, chief executive of the Blackstone Group, the big private equity firm. The college, called the M.I.T. Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, will create 50 new faculty positions and many more fellowships for graduate students.
Music That Explores What Gentrification “Sounds” Like
With an ensemble of six vocalists and 18 instrumentalists, the 80-minute “Place” obliquely yet obsessively mulls gentrification; displacement; the powers and limitations of white male privilege; and the intersection of shifts in communities and families, including the birth of Mr. Hearne’s children and the breakup of his marriage.
The ABT Dancers Taking On Harvard Business School
Last year, Crossover Into Business program director and HBS professor Anita Elberse was developing a case study on ABT, and reached out to the company executive director Kara Medoff Barnett, an alumna of HBS. “Anita mentioned the Crossover Program as an experience that has been transformative for professional athletes,” says Barnett. “We looked at each other and had the same idea: How about inviting the ABT dancers to sit next to the NBA players?”
After Furious Debate, A Place Is Found In Paris For Jeff Koons Tulips
There was an uproar from critics who argued that the gesture was clumsy and opportunistic, if not cynical, as Mr. Koons didn’t have a direct connection to the terrorist attacks. “The general outcry was in part caused by a form of outdated anti-Americanism, but it was also a sincere, offended one,” said Guillaume Piens, the director of the Art Paris Art Fair. “Whenever artists touch on memory and victims, it’s hard to see an uninterested, mere artistic act only.”