Newton’s third law says that if two bodies at rest act on each other with forces, then those forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. But it occurs to me that there is a kind of analogue of Newton’s third law for technology: if technology acts to simplify some aspect of life, then ... A Newtonian-style third law for technology ..read more

Technology continues to grow stronger, and its force is nearly beyond human control. Moreover, it is becoming more cohesive so that it mimics a living organism with incredibly strong defenses. Even as technology destroys the biosphere, we sit aside and do practically nothing because there are simply very few possibilities left for those who wish ... The erosion of diversity by technology ..read more

Marine biologist Sylvia Earle wrote “The World is Blue”, a beautiful book about the ocean and how it is being threatened by humanity. If you care about the ocean or just want to learn more about it, I’d recommend reading it. But if you asked me which books you should read as an environmentalist, Earle’s ... What to read as an environmentalist ..read more

It’s well known that even slightly elevated CO2 concentrations can impair mental functions. For example, this paper does a pretty good job of summarizing the danger. Here is one of the relevant paragraphs from that source: Systematic relationships were found between most of the cognitive function scores and CO2 concentration, including from 550–945 ppm and ... When will atmospheric CO2 start to impair our mental functions ..read more

If you are grading your students’ essays or homework with ChatGPT, then it is immoral and wrong. It does the students a disservice. Is such a strong statement justified? I think it is. Now of course, you might think that ChatGPT is just a tool and that because it’s so good, a sort of dialectical ... Why grading with ChatGPT is immoral ..read more

De acordo com Martin Heidegger, o desenvolvimento da tecnologia acontece porque nós adotamos uma filosofia de exploração. Em nossas mentes, vemos o planeta e tudo que há nele como um recurso a ser explorado. Mas essa filosofia não é a única filosofia possível. Na verdade, há algumas tribos que entendem o mundo em termos de ... Como tecnologia está revelando nossa filosofia ..read more

Consider an optimal society. If one could measure the health of this society over time, it would fluctuate about the optimum point, somewhat like a sinusoidal curve: This is the graph of sin(x) + 10, and idealized version of this phenomenon. Of course, this is not to imply that the health of society can be ... The Principle of Illusory Improvements ..read more

When we think of rituals, it might be natural to think of ancient tribes and practices related to classic mythologies. However, we also have rituals as well: Christmas, Halloween, etc. all have ritualistic aspects. According to Watson-Jones and Legare, recent research points to rituals having key functions in society: identifying group members, demonstrating commitment to ... Ritualization in global capitalism ..read more

OpenAI’s Sora is a generative video AI tool that people can use to generate video clips based on prompts. Based on the results so far, it can certainly generate semi-realistic looking scenes. And no doubt, we are going to see a lot of short and long films with this sort of content in it. There’s ... Fundamental reason why Sora won’t improve filmmaking ..read more

I recently got an interesting comment on my About Page: Dr. Polak — I agree with your aim – but to blanket all technology with such a abroad brush – especially when there are many technologies that have proven good – invented by people that have views contrary to yours — is just self-serving – ... Are any technologies good? A reply to a comment ..read more