All Essays

Essays and commentary on the ideas shaping our world.

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Technology

A Technological Environment

A social media platform might be more similar in kind, at least in analogy, to a theater. There is an audience (the “user”), a creator (writer, director, set designer, actors), and a platform (the stage, the theater). Without any of these components, the theater, or the social media platform, ceases to exist meaningfully.

James HartreeJune 13, 202611 min read

Technology

Digital Artifacts and the Collapse of the Arendtian Public Realm

In an increasingly digitized society, digital artifacts are progressively replacing non-digital mediums across many aspects of man’s life. In a literal sense, digital artifacts are more permanent, everlasting, and durable than their non-digital counterparts.

Bryan DawsonMay 4, 202612 min read

Digital Artifacts and the Collapse of the Arendtian Public Realm

Technology

The Privatization of the U.S. Government

The interface between citizen and government is changing. It is going high gloss, well engineered, aesthetic — the government is getting a private sector skin. TurboTax and MVD Express turn governmental functions into consumer experiences. It should be no surprise that using TurboTax is more efficient than filing a 1040 Tax Form with a black pen, and sending it off in a letter carried by a pigeon.

James HartreeApril 19, 20268 min read

The Privatization of the U.S. Government

Technology

Technological Niche Construction

We must cobble together some sort of picture of what technology is and what it is doing, how it relates to us and us to it; and we all know by now that it will not slow down to help us out.

Benjamin ScottApril 19, 202619 min read

Technology

A First-Century Slave Teaches Me How to Write

It took about 33 years for me to recover from my first professional success, and I owed it all to a first-century slave who never wrote down a single word in his life.

Shannon ChamberlainApril 18, 202618 min read

A First-Century Slave Teaches Me How to Write

Technology

The Demigod Gap: Coexisting with Post-humans

“Esteemed guests, welcome! We will shortly begin our ascent. Please sit comfortably and enjoy this once-in-a-timeline opportunity to bear witness to Earth’s largest mountain. If perchance some mountain goats appear on our radar, we will call your attention to this exquisite, yet sadly dwindling breed. Monoculars are at the front. Enjoy the view!” Craig sat in the middle of the coach.

Elliot B GaramondApril 18, 20268 min read

The Demigod Gap: Coexisting with Post-humans

Technology

Who The Machine Says You Are

On how AI inherited rhetoric’s most dangerous art, and what it means for all of us. It would be convenient to treat all this as a matter of merely theoretical interest, a clever transposition of ancient categories onto modern technology, the sort of thing one publishes and then talks about at conferences.

Kem-Laurin LubinApril 18, 202613 min read

Technology

I Met A Genie

The genie was so very tempting. I was so fatigued by going through the motions of work. Especially writing- writing emails, connecting with people and understanding what they need, what they care about, and what moral boundaries they draw. Writing documents - figuring out what I want myself, how it breaks down into a set of steps, and then having to communicate it in a way that other people understand.

Elliot B GaramondApril 18, 202611 min read