Under the northwest leg of the Eiffel Tower tower is a bust of engineer Gustave Eiffel. Portraits of outstanding individuals are usually not made until they are old or even from memory after they are dead. As a result, those of us in later generations have a harder time grasping how those individuals were in […]
Gustave Eiffel and portrayals of great humans Read More »
The techno-pessimists are wrong about our jobs and careers and the impact of robotics. The Robots Will Free Us is Episode 47 in my Open College with Dr. Stephen Hicks podcast series. “There’s a perennial divide between the technological optimists and the technological pessimists. We see that playing out right now among those assessing the
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I was happy to be invited to participate in this panel organized by the Foundation for Economic Education. My remarks focused on how Covid-19 has made philosophers of us — as we were confronted with the immediacy of life and death, the importance of work and leisure, how much control we have control over our
Fear of Technology? FEE panel on Covid-19 and Technology Read More »
Hager’s The Alchemy of Air (Broadway, 2009) is a gripping read. You might think a story about chemistry and chemical engineering — fixed nitrogen, hydrogen, and ammonia — would be a snooze, but you might be wrong. Subtitle: A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery that Fed the World and Fueled the
Thomas Hager’s *The Alchemy of Air* Read More »
A new generation of sex robots is upon us, and the joking has begun. I don’t need one, says a wife, since my husband is already robotic in bed. Ha ha. Sure, a husband replies, but you should see my wife in inaction. (No thanks, I think to myself.) The next generation of sex robots promises
Sex with Robots? The Ethics [Good Life series] Read More »
[This is a Spanish translation of my “Sex with Robots? The Ethics”, first published in English at EveryJoe.] Se está viniendo una nueva generación de robots sexuales, y las bromas ya han comenzado. “Yo no necesito uno…” — dice una mujer casada — “mi marido ya es suficientemente robótico en la cama.” Ja ja. “Seguro…”
Sexo con Robots? La Ética [Spanish translation] Read More »
Well worth reading: “I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option
Environmentalist Mark Lynas’s lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 2013 Read More »