“She responded, battling back her antagonists and becoming something of a folk hero in the process. Now her engagements often combine her two pursuits, as her talk at Women in the World did: tracing the history of misogyny from the ancient world to today.”
Category: ideas
Our Biggest Blind Spot With Artificial Intelligence? Assuming It’ll Be Like The Human Kind
“The entire discourse around A.I. implicitly presupposes the superiority of E.I.” – evolved intelligence, i.e., the human and animal kind. “Much of the dystopian hysteria around A.I. reflects the fear that it will act as humans act (which is to say violently, selfishly, emotionally, and at times irrationally) – only it will have more capacity. In essence, much of what we fear is a much more competent E.I.”
The Personal Memories We Think Of As Making Up Our Identities – What If We Didn’t Have Them? Here’s A Woman Who Doesn’t, And Never Has
“Susie McKinnon has no core memories that she is aware of. But there can be no doubt of her personality. … She has a job and she has hobbies, values, beliefs, opinions, a nucleus of friends. Though she doesn’t remember being a part of the anecdotes that shaped her into this person, she knows very well who she is. Which raises the question: Just how expendable is this supposedly essential part of being human after all?”
The Ancient Discovery That Is Changing What We Know About Chinese History
“The texts show that some philosophers believed that rulers should also be chosen on merit, not birth—radically different from the hereditary dynasties that came to dominate Chinese history. The texts also show a world in which magic and divination, even in the supposedly secular world of Confucius, played a much larger part than has been realized. And instead of an age in which sages neatly espoused discrete schools of philosophy, we now see a more fluid, dynamic world of vigorously competing views—the sort of robust exchange of ideas rarely prominent in subsequent eras.”
Neurasthenia Wasn’t Just Some Bogus 19th-Century Ailment – In Fact Some Of Us Might Have It Right Now
We’d probably call it burnout.
The Grave-Robbed Ancient Manuscripts That Are Changing Our Understanding Of History And Philosophy
“The texts also show a world in which magic and divination, even in the supposedly secular world of Confucius, played a much larger part than has been realized. And instead of an age in which sages neatly espoused discrete schools of philosophy, we now see a more fluid, dynamic world of vigorously competing views — the sort of robust exchange of ideas rarely prominent in subsequent eras.”
How Did Architecture – And Development – Pass East New York By?
“An account of a tour though East New York reads like a Dickens parody. Walk the streets and you’ll pass scrapyards; junkyards; auto dismantlers; methadone clinics; prostitution motels that charge by the hour; seventeen mental health facilities; fifteen drug-treatment facilities; twelve homeless shelters; half-way houses and three-quarter houses.”
What Happens After A Town Dies?
“‘They’re haunting places,’ says Nick Trujillo, a New Mexico resident who that has made a hobby of exploring the lonesome ghost towns in the eastern part of his state. ‘There is something deeply personal about entering someone’s house, even if they have been gone for decades.'”
Is It Really Intelligent To Pooh-Pooh IQ Tests?
“‘IQ tests just measure how good you are at doing IQ tests.’ This is the argument that is almost always made when intelligence-testing is mentioned. It’s often promoted by people who are, otherwise, highly scientifically literate. … In fact, decades of well-replicated research point to IQ tests as some of the most reliable and valid instruments in all of psychological science.”
Blindsight – When Your Brain Sees What You Don’t
“Blindsight offers a tantalizing hint about human consciousness. It demonstrates the difference between merely processing visual information in the brain, like in a computer, versus having a reportable conscious experience of it.”