Over the past few years, we have witnessed a profound divergence between the heights of our scientific capabilities and the depths of our political failures. Sciences’ emphasis on discovery and collaboration has the power to unite people in the quest for …
There is a general assumption that companies will relocate if governments try to regulate them in pursuit of profit. This has been much of the drive to outsource manufacturing to the global south. Martin Wolf argues that while this may be the case for …
It is vital to preserve the right for individuals to have control over their online experiences. A way to ensure that peoples choices and preferences are respected by technology platforms is advocating end-to-end principles. This would represent a return …
From ChatGPT to Replika, AI is being touted as a tool to solve the loneliness epidemic. But is this just a false marketing promise, or perhaps something more sinister. In these habitually lonely times wanting someone to talk to, even if they’re just an AI …
The Last of Us is set in a dystopian apocalypse in which a brain controlling fungus has dominated the world. Such a world is reminiscent of the political idea of the State of Nature. However, the Last of Us is more overtly Hobbesian than that. The show…
Happiness has been declining precipitously in the West for 30 years, despite better access to healthcare and education and decreases in poverty and violence. Groundbreaking Stanford psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation, Anna Lembke, provides a fresh …
Despite claims that readers would turn away from post-apocalyptic fiction during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, the genre has continued to thrive. The popularity of post-apocalyptic narratives raises questions about why people are fascinated by …
The shock collapse of Silicon Valley Bank has erupted in a volley of finger pointing at central banks, regulators, venture capitalists and governments. However, this is only part of the story. Until we understand the cyclical nature of financial crises, …
Have we been making progress over history? Or is the world made of a fundamental essence that never changes? What is the meaning of time? And the timeless? Schopenhauer and Hegel famously did not get along. But their feud was philosophical, as well as …
Science is undeniably great as a predictive tool. But it’s also full of idealizations – false claims in the form of simplification, exaggeration, and outright distortion. That would seem to rule out scientific realism, the idea that science manages to …
Everyone seems to think Nietzsche fits with their political agenda. Contemporary right-wing figures like Jordan Peterson and Dinesh D’Souza see in Nietzsche the great diagnostician of the decadence that would follow the death of God, and use his insights …
The topic of colour gives rise to numerous philosophical, aesthetic and psychological questions. In this interview with leading art historian and BAFTA nominated broadcaster, Dr James Fox, we explore the fascinating story of colour, and the profound impact …
With the rapid development of chatbots and other AI systems, questions about whether they will ever gain true understanding, become conscious, or even develop a feeling agency have become more pressing. When it comes to making sense of these qualities in …
Two weeks ago Eduourd Machery argued against the idea that common sense is a good guide to reality. Common sense relies on intuition; and intuitions are unreliable, vary greatly across cultures and are sensitive to seemingly irrelevant factors such as the …
The Left cannot be both Nationalist and Socialist at the same time. And yet national identity is a large part of liberation movements from the SNP to the FLN. There is an apparent contradiction in terms, if the Left wants to grip nationalism. In this …
The evidence is that Dark Energy is responsible for the rate of expansion of the universe. The name makes it sound like a spooky force, but, in fact, it’s the cosmological constant, Λ, that Einstein added to his theory of gravity back in 1917. Einstein …
From a global conflict to a growingly dishonest political culture to the rise of Big Pharma; it’s fair to say that we live in troubling times. But for George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, these issues were foreseeable. In this article, Dr Emrah Atasoy compares …
According to the idea of the block universe, the passage of time is an illusion. The past, present and future all coexist, along with space, in one big frozen block in which nothing ever happens. But the emergence of life and the existence of genuine …
‘If Christianity is the truth, then all the philosophy written about it is false’ This pronouncement has not served to endear Wittgenstein to many philosophers of religion or militant atheists seeking to debunk religious belief. The former think that …
The notion of the Russian soul - this ineffable essence that defines the Russian people - has its origin in figures like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Turgenev. Despite this literary pedigree, these days it’s animated in the speeches of Vladimir Putin, stoking …
