Toward an Encyclopedia Apocalyptica
To a post-apocalyptic population, merely explaining scientific and technological facts about our situation won't help. We'll need a guidebook.
01 Aug 2016
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Must We Sacrifice the Beasts at the Altars of Our Fierce Gods?
Like the Aztecs before us, and despite the sheen of humane treatment, zoos continue to be sites of ritual animal sacrifice.
28 Jun 2016
Consider the Troll
The pressing question isn't so much what a troll is and how he came to be, but what to do when confronted with a troll.
25 May 2016
We Have Never Been Human
Within our bodies, single-celled organisms outnumber cells that we identify as human DNA ten to one. We're merely a colony within a colony within a colony.
26 Apr 2016
A Brief Lesson on Poetry for Physicists
Praise for Carlo Rovelli's international bestseller Seven Brief Lessons on Physics has been near universal. Can the reviewers all be wrong? Yes, they can.
04 Apr 2016
E.T. Was Gay
Steven Spielberg's most child-friendly blockbuster primed a generation to be more accepting of homosexuality.
17 Feb 2016
I Was So Bored Watching 'Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens'
Star Wars is the latest exemplar of a genre that's accelerating toward its own creative exhaustion. That genre, of course, is the Hollywood tent-pole.
20 Jan 2016
Where Is the Truth in Our Romance of Popular Physics?
If all the truth of physics is in the math, what kind of storytelling are we lay persons getting when we read popular accounts of physics that are completely stripped of it?
10 Jan 2016
How Ethical Are Ad Blockers?
For many netizens, a free Internet would be the apogee of its early techno-utopian vision. Yet the "free internet" rallying cry is one of the latest, greatest manifestations of consumerism.
22 Nov 2015
The Empire of Scientism Strikes Back
Despite what Steven Pinker has claimed in his epic debate with Leon Wieseltier in The New Republic, science is less Theory of Everything and more Harper's "Findings".
01 Nov 2015
'No God But Funny' and 'Earth Angel' Are Preaching to the Choir
It's challenging enough to write good comedy. It's nearly impossible to do so burdened with an agenda, even one as innocuous as featuring a "likeable atheist" as the protagonist.
30 Sep 2015
A Public Service Announcement From Your Future AI Overlords
Perhaps what worries Stephen Hawking and his fear mongering colleagues is not some hostile Other like Agent Smith from The Matrix, but the more pedestrian Other that is other people.
02 Aug 2015
What's So Funny About Atheism?
Since New Atheists have done a stand-up job of elucidating the illusions of religious belief, why not point out some of the logical absurdities of atheism?
25 Jun 2015
Someone Else's South America: Louis C. K. Considers Life on Other Planets
Louie knows that if we do, ever, really encounter aliens, they're sure as hell not going to bend over backwards to accommodate our point of view.
03 Jun 2015
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