A website exploring the novel's themes of climate change and artificial intelligence
Weaving themes as diverse as oceanography, social divides, artificial intelligence and many others, the genius of Richard Powers is on show again in his latest novel Playground. Powers’ main characters are a Quebecoise marine specialist, a nerdy computer entrepreneur from northside Chicago, his bête noir a literary genius from the southside, and […] Read More
Human progress has largely been achieved during cycles of open societies which institute dramatic and transformative change followed by cycles of closed thinking which stills or even reverses progress. We are currently in an ‘open’ phase which is under threat from forces wanting to return to ‘simpler’ times. That is the well-argued […] Read More
Economist Kenneth Boulding once said that “anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” Despite this warning, the mantra that “growth is good” remains barely questioned today. Christopher Jones’ book The Invention of Infinite Growth provides an insightful review […] Read More
Most older people today are unaware that in their lifetimes the population of the planet has tripled and we have burned nearly 90% of all the fossil fuel ever consumed. Did the population boom cause the explosion in fossil fuel use or the other way around? Author Vaclav Smil gives some clues […] Read More
After organizing a successful meeting between blue urban liberals and red conservative rural folk in 2017, journalist Monica Guzman began to see political polarization in the USA as “the problem that eats other problems, the monster who convinces us that the monsters are us”. She vowed to do something more about it. […] Read More
Why did Homo sapiens triumph over other Homo species? And then how did we become the dominant species on the planet? Academic Hanno Sauer addresses these questions and more in his insightful book “The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality.” One reason for our success is that we, […] Read More
“Always invite AI to the table.” That’s the first rule for living and working with Artificial Intelligence (AI) according to Wharton Business School professor, Ethan Mollick. He argues that workers who figure out how to make AI useful for their jobs will be the most successful. To achieve this means constantly working […] Read More
Henry Lien’s book Spring Summer Asteroid Bird provides an introduction to a common form of Asian storytelling known in the West by its Japanese name kishotenketsu. To understand and appreciate kishotenketsu we need to quickly recap the traditional three-act story structure. In this familiar structure the first act sets up the story […] Read More
In the ongoing buzz following the launch of ChatGPT, people are once again predicting a near-future singularity, when artificial intelligence will match and then exceed human intelligence. Author Erik J. Larson makes a strong case that this is a myth. In his book “The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think […] Read More
“Today…every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness.” John F. Kennedy. In the 1950’s and 1960’s citizens and schoolchildren in the USA practiced atomic bomb drills, and nuclear […] Read More