“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.”
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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?”
Together in a Shrinking Space
Lucy Guerin Inc performs Guerin’s Split at the Baryshnikov Arts Center,
October 13 through 15.
Scream
My pal went into the Donmar’s Measure for Measure expecting a fight. She’d read that Josie Rourke’s production presents the cut-down text twice. The first, set at the time of Shakespeare’s 1604 premiere, where deputy governor Angelo attempts to coerce soon-to-be-nun Isabella into sex to save her brother’s life. The second, set today – same plot but with a female minister harassing a young man. Pal was having none of it.
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.