News

Why AI Won’t Fix the World (Or Ruin it) I read a lot of hype about AI these days. A metric ton per day. I’m drowning in it, and I bet you are too.“AI will liberate humanity’s huddled masses!”says one side, fervent with hope.“No! AI will create the Skynet Bladerunner Matrix!”says the other, glum with … Read more

Or, Why Extreme Inequality Might Just Break the World Probably one of the most important, relevant, and interesting annual pieces of economic research in the world came out recently: Oxfam’s inequality report, which concludes that82 percent of global wealth createdlast year went to the top one percent.

Or, What Happens When Social Comparison Becomes a Drug? In Part I of this essay, I discussed how redeeming Facebook is going to be harder than Zuck thinks. Having had kids, realizing that it isn’t exactly making the world a better place, corroding democracy, making people lonelier, meaner, and dumber, he wants to find a … Read more

Why Racism Dooms Societies (Like America) to Decline and Fall I read a tweet this morning, in response to the President’s notorious “shithole” comments, from a die-hard, longtime Republican luminary: “This overt racism degrades our discourse!! It’s a disgrace!!” I laughed, rolled my eyes, and thought, “No, friend. It is covert racism, systematized, structural…

Is Social Media Replacing (Real) Self-Governance? It happens every day. I check my Twitter feed, and it’s an endless, throbbing, pulsing ocean of outrage. “Wow, what a pathetic excuse for a President!” “This is tyranny!” “IMPEACH NOW!!111” I’m sure you know the score. Here’s what occurs to me more and more:“What if even half of … Read more

Why Don’t Americans Understand How Poor Their Lives Are? Whenever I go back and forth between Europe and the States, a curious set of facts strikes me. In London, Paris, Berlin, I hop on the train, head to the cafe — it’s the afternoon, and nobody’s gotten to work until 9am, and even then, maybe … Read more

What a Powerless Society Is and What the World Can Learn Over the last few years, Americans have begun to discuss and debate power ever more passionately and furiously. Not so long ago, those who did would have been mocked and taunted for caring, yet now debates over and critiques of who holds power, why, … Read more

The Rise of the Anti-Revolution All around this troubled globe, we’re seeing the rise of a phenomenon as strange as an ice-storm in a desert: the regressive revolution. We’re used, you and I in the West, and especially in the US, where our creation myth glorifies one triumphantly, to seeing revolutions as the wheel of … Read more

How Economies Commit Suicide, Starring America and Britain as Romeo and Juliet I want to tell you a story of economics, love, and death. Kind of a Romeo and Juliet parable for the modern age, where the protagonist are societies, not people, who made a kind of suicide pact.

The Mad Men Created Consumers. We’ve Created Algorithmic Addicts What have we really built today, with all this technology? At the root, if we go down to the essence of what it is? Every minute, every thirty seconds. Update, political scandal. Update, celebrity gossip. Update, outrage. Update, Black Friday sale starting early. Trigger. Surge. Release. … Read more