IDEAS

Unlocking The Mysteries Of Hegel

In both its depth and breadth, Hegel’s philosophy is perhaps rivalled only by that of Aristotle. - Psyche

When Is Stereotyping Useful?

Generalising comes so naturally that few of us are at any risk of undergeneralising, so we give it little thought. The focus on overgeneralising is understandable given its potential costs, such as the child assuming that a dangerous dog is just like the friendly dogs they’ve encountered to date. - Aeon

The Complications Of Proving You’re Human

Now the problem is how to let in the good bots (like the avatar you send to the Gap to buy you a new pair of pants) and keep out the bad bots (like the thief trying to scrape the data of every Gap customer). The rest of us have to be our own bot detectors. - The New Yorker

This AI Moment Could Be Clarifying For How We Think About Culture. Or…

"Our contention is that, if we fail to think through and delimit the role of AI in our lives, we risk undermining the intelligibility of our own guiding cultural concepts, and thus initiating a period in our own society of which it may someday be possible to say that “nothing happened.” - The Point

There’s A Lot Of Sex In This Summer’s Movies

OK, not The Odyssey or Spider-Man, but the other movies. - The Guardian (UK)

Which Is More Tiring: A Christopher Nolan Movie Or The Discourse About A Christopher Nolan Movie?

“Perhaps you didn’t leave The Odyssey wondering what kind of chief executive Odysseus would be. That’s OK — Forbes has you covered.” - The New York Times

The Field Museum Is Now Mixing Pokemon And Fossils

And making money hand over fist, er, phalange over … anyway, the exhibit “is drawing huge crowds by hitching its star to the Poke-verse, using fossil Pokemon to teach about hunting and collecting fossils in the real world.” - NPR

This ‘Chat’ Is Fully Human-Powered, And Now Very Popular

“The experience is just very average — or maybe bad. … It's just me saying, like, ‘I don't know, maybe make a sandwich for yourself’ or whatever.” - San Francisco Chronicle

Prediction Markets Are Wrecking Civil Society

Monetizing the full gamut of reality, platforms have opened Pandora’s box. Basic tenets of liberal society—democratic integrity and respect for human life—are being corroded. Regulators need to step in. - The Walrus

As AI Overwhelms The Web: What Was The Internet?

Despite valiant efforts by activists and reformers, it’s been the dystopians’ world—or at least the realists’—for some time now: an age of techno-feudalism, digital colonialism, the new Jim Code. - Boston Review

What’s Behind Gen Z’s Dark Humor?

In my assessment, Gen Z’s dark and nonsensical humor does not show a lack of moral values, but it’s instead the product of its desire to engage in more authentic conversations about what they believe. - The Conversation

Rise Of The Neo-Luddites

The label of “neo-Luddism” or “digital Luddite” is also being reclaimed by people concerned about labour conditions, society and democracy in an era of AI expansion twinned with personal profit. - The Conversation

The Edinburgh Fringe Is Huge. But Is Success Just Getting Bigger?

Edinburgh has wrestled with for years: what is tourism actually for? If the answer is simply “more visitors, more spending”, the city will keep winning by numbers while residents feel they are losing by experience. - The Conversation

The Difficulties Of An AI For Africa

The difficulties of using AI in Africa are also linguistic. By the summer of 2025, only 42 languages in Africa were supported by an LLM, out of more than 2,000 found in the continent; 98 per cent of African languages have no meaningful AI support at all. - Aeon

Our Complicated Relationship With Boredom

Boredom isn’t merely the result of a boring external environment, as a schoolchild might think, or inadequate mental resources, as my mother suggested. It is either a mysterious nexus of dysfunction or a healthy adaptive function (it’s complicated) that afflicts both individuals and societies at large. - Portico Quarterly

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