To be very, very clear: it is theoretically possible to bring back some (recently) extinct animals. But only theoretically. And what Colossal Biosciences has done is certainly not that. They appear to have done some (legitimately impressive) gene editing work…
Change Is Hard: Designing A Path For Change Is Harder
Even if you ignore the “convincing everyone else to go along with it” part. Which is frankly the hardest bit. The easy part is identifying something you don’t like about the world as it is. And it’s not really that…
Hitting Escape: Like Marriages, Sometimes Countries Need To End
Situations change, people change, governments change; and now the United States is not the country they taught you that it was back in grade school civics. And it needs to just end. To be honest, the U.S. has never actually…
The Un-AI: Generative Systems Can Never Be Reliable
It’s not just that these things aren’t reliable, though that is certainly true. It’s that they cannot ever be reliable. See, generative “AI” systems don’t actually know anything or reason about anything. They produce words (or pictures, or whatever) without…
Due Process: No, I Don’t Trust you Bro
The U.S. has always had a tempestuous relationship with the idea of due process. Obviously, some process requirement is necessary. You can’t actually have a “nation of laws” if the operation of those laws is left entirely up to the…
Look Outward And Up: Some New Role Models For Americans
It has been quite a year already, and it’s only March. We’ve got even more quite-a-year ahead of us. But these problems aren’t limited to the U.S.; most of the globe is seeing similar autocratic movements and uprisings these days.…
Big Sister: Forecast Is Cloudy For Alexa
I’m kind of at a loss today for not-climbing-a-clock-tower style approaches to our current political situation. So let’s talk tech instead. I’ve written before about the privacy issues with voice assistant systems; they’re … not good. I mean, they’re basically…
Left Authoritarianism: Stop Asking For Leaders
Yeah, I agree: Chuck Schumer sux0rs and he totally screwed over the last chance congressional Democrats had to put the brakes on Trump Coup.0’s stripping the federal government for parts. But calling for new leadership is not the way to…
School Yourself: The Means Of Academic Production
I mentioned yesterday that I had some thoughts on folks with PhDs setting up new universities. I do indeed. I’ve been contemplating this for a long time, since U.S. universities started reducing traditional tenure-track positions and replacing them with short-term…
Parallel Organizing: Build Your Own Society
Coming up with a title got that song stuck in my head, so now it can be in yours too. You’re welcome. Now is probably a good time for us all to take a long, hard look at our communities…