Why Machines Will Never Rule the World

A book review about imminent, world-dooming, Skynet-and-Matrix-manifesting artificial intelligence.

A Reminder That Europe Is Poor

Arguments about the U.S. versus Europe are almost always confused because they miss a basic fact.

The Martians and Their Schooling

What makes a super-genius?

Who Is the People? Pt. 2

A short voyage through Arrow's impossibility theorem, and what it means for self-government.

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.

Long Live Peer Review

Professionals need standards, and for Science the most important standard of all is Peer Review.

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?

From the Springfield Lyceum to Birmingham Jail

In one of his first published speeches, America's indispensable man warned us about the "mobocratic spirit."

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.