This week, President Trump’s behavior shockingly wasn’t the ugliest thing in the country.
- Old Print Article: A robot drill instructor joins the U.S. military (1928).
- A campaign based on insult and bigotry isn’t ruined by insult and bigotry.
- As Paul Krugman reminds, GOP hopefuls were wrong about the economy.
- Sen. Claire McCaskill admits she aided Todd Akin’s Republican campaign.
- In Paul Mason’s utopian vision, governments provide basic income.
- Garry Wills thinks William F. Buckley’s political influence was overstated.
- Peter Georgescu wants to combat wealth inequality to save capitalism.
- In a lively AMA, Jerry Kaplan discusses technological unemployment.
- The future of work will not be decided by technology alone.
- Mariana Mazzucato says Silicon Valley is indebted to the public sector.
- Automation is complicating things for Indian Prime Minister Modi.
- Autonomous cars will likely end the frustrating search for parking spots.
- Gill Pratt of DARPA thinks robotics may soon have a Cambrian moment.
- Ron Rosenbaum writes of E.L. Doctorow’s Singularity fears.
- David Foster Wallace was flawed, but at least he didn’t write Less Than Zero.
- Pico Iyer explains Japanese indifference toward architectural preservation.
- Iyer examines Las Vegas and Pyongyang, two cities rooted in fantasy.
- In 1963, Hugo Gernsback predicted “instant newspapers.”
- Global fertility rates seem to be on a steep decline. The implications are many.
- Frank Gifford’s death reminded of Fred Exley’s connection to him.
- Some transhumanist ideas about prison reform seem criminal.
- U.S. police forces are introducing facial-recognition systems.
- We might be able to limit autonomous weapons, at least for now.
- The water crisis, not terrorism, is likely the biggest threat to global peace.
- Physicist Gerard O’Neill inspired psychedelic space-colony designs.
- Astronauts are growing vegetables in microgravity environments.
- A brief note from 1857 about an overdose.
- A brief note from 1911 about hair tonic.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.