We’re witnessing a major shift in traditional social life, but it’s not because we’re always online, or because our tech is becoming conscious, or because we’re getting AI lovers like Samantha in Spike Jonze’s film Her (2013). To the contrary, we’re learning that humans can bond, form attachments and dedicate themselves to non-conscious objects or lifeless things with shocking ease. – Aeon
Category: ideas
Some Advice From The Ancients On Dealing With “Alternative” Facts
From teaching Greek texts I have become increasingly convinced that the Theogony’s narrator quotes the Muses not merely to evade responsibility for telling an unknown story nor to praise the wisdom of the gods. Instead, he is giving us advice for how to interpret myth and storytelling in general: Don’t worry about what it is true or not. Just try to make sense of the story as you encounter it, based on the details it provides. – The Conversation
Why We’re Both Repelled And Drawn To Disgusting Things
“We need to account for the fact that we chase after disgust. Our attraction to disgust is hardly modern. The grotesque fascinated painters from the Renaissance to Goya, with his visages of Saturn, and Francis Bacon, with his distorted portraits.” – Nautilus
Are You Sure The Person You’re Arguing With Online Is Real?
The sheer profusion of actors online has foreclosed their need to be real at all: the armies of bots and the Russian sockpuppets, the corporate tweeps and the AI deepfakes. One can just as easily get into a heated dispute with a bot account generating random replies, or with an automated customer-service agent matching inputs to outputs, as with a human foe who is frantically tapping words into a glass rectangle. – The Atlantic
Lind: Blame The Elite Managers For The Rise Of Global Populism
Once, Michael Lind observes, “trade unions, participatory political parties, and religious and civic organizations compelled university-educated managerial elites to share power with them or defer to their values.” But beginning in the 1970s, the managers “unilaterally abrogated” this power-sharing settlement. Now, “no longer restrained by working-class power,” the “metropolitan overclass” has, as Lind puts it, “run amok.” – Washington Post
What Is Liberalism? (Whatever It Is, It Seems In Decline)
Recent debates have tended to confuse rather than clarify matters. In left-of-center discourse, “liberalism” and “leftism” are often invoked as respective shorthand for neoliberalism and social democracy. Neither of these positions sits outside the boundaries of liberalism, broadly construed, and most of the positions currently marked as leftist have been supported in other times and places by those we’d describe as liberals. Still, even if this confrontation doesn’t signal a verdict on liberalism tout court, it does at least provide clear battle lines in a conflict with real stakes. – Dissent
Did Internet Pioneers Blow It When It Comes To Free Speech?
Increasingly, I’m hearing from politicians, activists, and people like my journalist friend who say that maybe we 1990s-era internet activists blew it. The story goes that we were so shortsighted in our focus on things like internet free speech and digital privacy that we overlooked a whole spectrum of long-term threats posed by digital technologies, the companies that sell them, and the governments that deploy them. This perspective suggests that the internet freedom my colleagues and I championed has instead chained us all by corrupting democracy and poisoning relationships. In recent years, my views have evolved. – Slate
New Pew Study: Experts Believe Tech Will Weaken Democracy
Some 49% of these respondents say use of technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade, 33% say use of technology will mostly strengthen core aspects of democracy and democratic representation and 18% say there will be no significant change in the next decade. – Pew Research
Parasite Rode A Wave Of Korean Culture Across The World
K-Pop and K-Drama success wasn’t by accident. “The wave spread across Asia before reaching a global audience thanks to savvy social networking strategies and a steady stream of media with increasingly high production values.” – Los Angeles Times
Fleabag And Feminism
Well, that’s a fraught subject. Phoebe Waller-Bridges, who wrote the show and plays the character, says, “Actually, she wishes she were more perfect, and that feels like it was an attack on feminism itself.” (The writer says she does, sometimes, share her character’s views.) – BBC