ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

IDEAS

Why ‘Cyrano’ Is So Infinitely Adaptable

Why, it's about unrequited love, of course. The newest version shows that "singing can make a character (and an actor) more vulnerable, tapping into an openness and emotion that beautifully suits this particular story of romantic longing." - The New York Times

Why Do Some Teams Inspire While Others Sap Energy?

Why might a person let her team down in one situation but give it her all in a different one? Sometimes, as in the first scenario, teamwork is demotivating. In fact, in German, ‘team’ is an acronym for Toll, ein anderer macht’s, meaning ‘Great, someone else does it.’ - Psyche

The Role Of Fiction When “Facts” Don’t Mean Anything

The gap between the experiences of ordinary citizens and the perspectives of politicians and journalists widened throughout the long years of crisis. One damaging consequence is that many more people today are willing to suspend their disbelief in the malign fictions of far-right demagogues, podcasters and YouTubers. - London Review of Books

Facebook Says It Will Build A Universal Translator

“The ability to communicate with anyone in any language — that’s a superpower people have dreamed of forever, and AI is going to deliver that in our lifetimes.” - Protocol

Why More Cities Are Dismantling Rather Than Demolishing

Deconstruction, city officials say, is a green alternative to demolition, sending up to 85 percent less material to landfills. Building materials and construction account for just under 10 percent of the world’s energy-related global carbon emissions. - Wired

Understanding The Evolutions Of Traditions

Although small modifications do not undo a tradition, small changes can aggregate into significant deviations. For example, if someone is tall, then if they were a half a millimeter shorter, they would still be tall. A minor change is minor. But these small changes can aggregate. - 3 Quarks Daily

Could Our Conscious Minds Exist In Virtual Worlds?

Once one has been presented with the hypothesis that we could exist as the conscious beings we are in a purely fabricated world of experiences, or even that we already may exist in such a world, one is presented also with a certain set of obvious issues to consider. - The New Atlantis

On The Frontlines Of The Battle For Our Attention

The reality is we simply don’t have the long-term studies that tell us whether our collective attention span has actually shrunk. What we do know from our study is that people overestimate some of the problems. - The Conversation

The Hidden Text That Makes The Internet Somewhat Accessible

"In an image-saturated world — over 63 million were uploaded to Instagram alone in a single day in February, according to Internet Live Stats — it can be difficult for people who are blind or have low vision to fully experience the web." - The New York Times

Building Communities People Really Want

Talk less; play more. When people used their hands to build a model Los Angeles, they made "bioswales, pedestrian zones, unearthing creeks long covered over by asphalt, storage sheds and bathing facilities for homeless people, more light rail, lower curbs, urban farms." - Fast Company

The Uncanny Valley Has Turned Into The Trustworthy Town Square

It's a bit alarming. "Farid and Nightingale asked participants to look at a selection of them and sort them into real and fake. Participants were correct less than half the time, with an average accuracy of 48.2%." And even with training, the percentage doesn't move much. - Fast Company

Ultimate Brag In Social Media: “I Can’t Stop Thinking About…”

If one person shouts that she can’t stop thinking about something, the natural response is not to join in her particular obsession but to yelp that you, too, have something that you are obsessed with. An unspoken competition takes place to see who can profess their passion. - The New Yorker

Claim: NFTs Are Nothing But A Scam

I think people accurately recognize that just by watching people get involved in crypto. You watch an artist who starts selling NFTs, and over the course of months, their artwork itself shifts and it starts becoming more and more about crypto itself. - Salon

The Cultural Framework For Artificial Intelligence: Can Indigenous Frameworks Help?

Such cultural programming is often invisible, unquestioned, limiting and even dangerous when applied carelessly beyond its community of origin. That’s why ethical frameworks for AI are being hastily commissioned around the globe right now, drawing upon as many different perspectives as possible. - Aeon

Corruption On A Grand Scale (And Explaining Inequities)

Like a Tammany Hall-type of administrative corruption but on a national or even international scale, key actors representing political regimes and multinational corporations conspire to change the rules to protect special interests with the most wealth in financial as well as symbolic terms. - Aeon

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');