why the journey to the stars starts with us
Once in a while, popular science publications will do a story about how one day, humans might just leave the world where their species began for the stars and colonize space in huge generation ships....
View Articlewhen we’re not allowed to fix our problems
Recently, an economic think tank funded by a well known billionaire with liberal leanings and demonized by a cadre of Fox News pundits as the manifestation of either the Illuminati or the Politburo,...
View Articlemaking people buy their right to vote
Over the years, some archconservatives voiced the opinion that people who don’t pay enough taxes or are not property owners probably shouldn’t vote because they have no skin in the game and are more...
View Articlethe rise and fall of the mythical corporation
Over the last month, I wrote a few examples of how corporations acting in their own self-interest can create a whole lot of problems for society at large when politicians basically allow them to buy...
View Articletransforming politics one spaceflight at a time?
Here’s an old idea. Take the world’s politicians and launch them into space, literally. But as tempting as it will be to simply leave them there, the point of this exercise would be for them to see...
View Articlewhy scientists won’t be elected in the u.s.
Not too long ago, there was an interesting blog post over at NYT asking why Americans don’t elect nearly as many scientists as most other advanced countries, preferring lawyers and businesspeople....
View Articlewhy so many said that apollo wasn’t worth it
According to popular legend, Henry Ford once quipped that if he asked his customers what they wanted, they would’ve asked for a faster horse. Nowadays, when companies are all about trying to appear...
View Articlewhy saving on space exploration is a mistake
In case you haven’t read anything about the U.S. national debt lately, it’s now more than $15.5 trillion. Surely, a rather large chorus of Americans says, we can’t afford to explore space or invest in...
View Articleto sate appetites for war, bring back the draft?
One rather popular theory among foreign relations pundits about American attitudes towards war is that we’re ready and willing to fight because more than 99% of us don’t have any skin in the game....
View Articlethe return of the rising red moon scare?
History is not only written by the winners, as the old expression goes, it’s also written to emphasize the good, to brag about accomplishments, and to gloss over the bumps along the way. For example,...
View Articlea terrible reason to oppose life extension
In the transhumanist lexicon, the word bioconservative is used to describe those who argue that humans will need to accept death as an eternal inevitability and experiments meant to extend human life...
View Articlewhen technocrats think they’re better than you
If yours truly is supposedly a wet blanket when it comes to the long awaited and near imminent technocratic utopia of the post-Singularity world, Evgeny Morozov is a torrent from a firehose as he...
View Articlewhat’s holding back modern science and technology
In the interest of full disclosure and not to pull a Lehrer on you, you should know that today’s posts was originally a comment I left on Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog prompted by a discussion about...
View Articlewhy you can’t tax your way to a greener world
Regardless of what the numerous global warming deniers have been spouting in the comments here (they tend to go for the comments as soon as they spot the keywords at which to rage), I’ve always said...
View Articlethe peter principle stacks the deck against science
According to the famous Peter Principle, everyone eventually rises to a level of incompetence in an organization and nowhere does it seem to be more true than in Congress. As pointed out by many...
View Articlethe opening shots in the battle of the hackers
Nowadays, if you hack into a company’s servers, the company might hack you right back. No, it won’t wipe your hard drive or infect you with a virus of course. The goal is to figure out who you are and...
View Articlewhy cyberwarfare won’t have a battle of thermopylae
While reporting about cyberwarfare and information security has been getting better and better as of late, there are still some articles that posit baffling ideas about how to prevent a massive cyber...
View Articlenasa doesn’t care about other planets
Or at least that’s how Kanye West would’ve characterized the reaction of planetary scientists to NASA’s announcement that its next big mission in 2020 would be to send an updated Curiosity twin to...
View Articlethe flawed case for benevolent authoritarianism
New America Foundation’s fellow Charles Kenny recently outlined his case for Big Brother for a group of casual policy wonks and argues that because a lot of biometric and surveillance data could be...
View Articlein defense of (some) technocracy
Generally, political pundits are quick to ridicule technocrats and wonks for assuming that they’ll solve all the world’s problems with spreadsheets and computers, sounding so very dispassionate as...
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