3 October 2023 Why Machines Will Never Rule the World A book review about imminent, world-dooming, Skynet-and-Matrix-manifesting artificial intelligence. Science, Technology
30 August 2023 A Reminder That Europe Is Poor Arguments about the U.S. versus Europe are almost always confused because they miss a basic fact. Economics, Culture, Government
17 August 2021 Who Is the People? Pt. 2 A short voyage through Arrow's impossibility theorem, and what it means for self-government. Government, Culture, Technology
8 June 2021 Who Is the People? Pt. 1 We're used to lies in politics, but nonsense is another matter, and perhaps the worst gob of nonsense today is our set of beliefs surrounding the People. Government, Culture, Technology
22 March 2021 Long Live Peer Review Professionals need standards, and for Science the most important standard of all is Peer Review. Science
22 February 2021 Level 5 Society Over 200 years of meteoric technological progress seem to have given way to stagnation. Might energy play a part in the story? Technology, Culture, Government
12 February 2021 From the Springfield Lyceum to Birmingham Jail In one of his first published speeches, America's indispensable man warned us about the "mobocratic spirit." Government, Culture
10 February 2021 The Best High School in America You probably haven't heard of America's best public high school, named after the father of information theory. Education, Government
3 February 2021 If 'Did Not Vote' Were a Candidate How would the electoral map look if we measured non-voters as well? And what does it mean for democracy? Government, Culture
25 January 2021 Principia Fiscalis Victor Hugo once wrote that fashions have done more harm than revolutions. In public matters today, nothing is so fashionable as ignoring fiscal policy. Economics, Government
28 December 2020 Fourth Do No Harm The Hippocratic oath is one of the oldest codes of professional ethics, and one of its central principles is non-maleficence: first do no harm. But non-maleficence carries a cost. Medicine, Government
21 December 2020 Science, Heuretica, and Funding the Public Good If you speak to anyone involved in publicly funded research (except a university provost) you will hear a ready opinion on its dysfunction. Science, Government, Technology