On the grounds that “philosophy is about everything and games are about everything”, the authors of Ten Things Video Games Can Teach Us advance the thesis that gaming is a forum for learning about key subjects like the nature of consciousness, logic and ethics.
Author: Douglas McLennan
The Arts: Building People Who Can Have Bigger-Than-Me Experiences?
A survey of high-school students that has been repeated for the past 60 years presents a startling picture. In 1950, 12 percent of students agreed with the statement, “I am a very important person.” By 1990 that had risen to 80 percent. Other scholars have found that student scores on an index of empathy have been going down over the same period. Moreover, recent research in cognitive science suggests that media overload (often implicated in iCreativity) may reduce compassion, empathy, moral reasoning, and tolerance. For many young people, if they cannot insert themselves into an experience—capture it in what some observers call “life-catching”—and share it online with friends, then it is not worth the effort.
This Year’s Longlist For The Giller Prize
A handful of writers on the longlist have been previously recognized by the Giller Prize: Eden Robinson was shortlisted in 2000 for Monkey Beach, Michael Redhill was shortlisted in 2001 for Martin Sloane, Rachel Cusk was shortlisted in 2015 for Outline and David Chariandy was longlisted in 2007 for his novel Soucouyant.
Artists Defend Documenta Over Charges Of Huge Deficits
More than 200 artists, including Nairy Baghramian and Nikhil Chopra, have subsequently backed the curatorial team in an open letter. “Criticisms of Documenta 14 have been expanded to suggest that a deficit in the operating budget is primarily due to the Athenian chapter of Documenta. We are concerned about this urge to put ticket sales above art,” the letter says.
Is Artificial Intelligence About To Disrupt The News Business?
Over the past year, the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and other global tech giants have all said, in different ways, that they now run “AI-first” companies. I can’t remember a single senior news exec ever mentioning AI and machine learning at any industry keynote address over the same period. Of course, that’s not necessarily surprising.
On Netflix, It’s Like Classic Movies Don’t Exist
“Netflix’s selection of classic cinema is abominable—and it seems to shrink more every year or so. As of this month, the streaming platform offers just 43 movies made before 1970, and fewer than 25 from the pre-1950 era (several of which are World War II documentaries). It’s the sort of classics selection you’d expect to find in a decrepit video store in 1993, not on a leading entertainment platform that serves some 100 million global subscribers.”
Netflix Announced A Major New Standup Comedy Initiative. Will It Help Or Hurt Comedy?
“I do feel like Netflix is commodifying stand-up. This boom, at least as defined by me, is about treating comics as individual artists with distinct points of view, not people providing a service. Stockpiling stand-up as content and telling people it’ll be there whenever you need a laugh is completely antithetical to that. Has the boom already given way to a bloat?”
New Banksy Murals Turn Up In London As Basquiat Show Opens
The works, near the Barbican Centre, mark the opening of an exhibition by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
How Hull Became Britain’s Ballet Talent Engine
Skip back a generation or two, and those to have emerged from other Hull dance schools include former Royal Ballet principal Mark Silver and ex-Birmingham Royal Ballet principal Robert Parker. Hull seems to have a particularly good record with male dancers.
Silicon Valley Companies Say They’re Building A Better World. But They Can’t Even Build A Better Silicon Valley
This failure to create places for people—our logical “target user,” in the region’s parlance—is, in part, to blame for the soul-crushing, NIMBY-inducing, place-agnostic sprawl we’ve idly cobbled together here. Planning-wise, the city that’s supposed to be inventing the future remains trapped in the 1950s, as Allison Arieff wrote recently in The New York Times. The Valley of Heart’s Delight’s once fine agricultural complexion is now forever marked with the suburban scars of endless tract homes, bland office parks, and a dogmatic adherence to California’s transportation motto—”Park Free or Die.”