Dropdown Menu Diplomacy
The new nation of South Sudan has been recognized by most of the international community, but there is one great power that denies it this status: Facebook. The social media site — population 900...
View ArticleWen Jiabao at Auschwitz
China’s Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, visited the former German extermination camp at Auschwitz, Poland, last week. In his remarks, he suggested that “The tragedy of Auschwitz, is the tragedy of the...
View ArticleUnderwater Drone Swarms
s the future part owner of $347 billion in nuclear missile submarines, I had to wonder about the implications of this little autonomous underwater drone a science expo last week. The scientist who used...
View ArticleMy 5-Year-Old Spots ‘Big Brother’ in Action
Whom to ask when you want to know if electronic records are being subtly altered? A five-year-old, evidently. My son is in the dinosaur phase, and watches paleontology shows religiously, so we get...
View ArticleCrowdsourced, Gamified Human Rights Violations
Evgeny Morozov tweeted this yesterday: “Prediction: The social web ends once gamification meets genocide.” Gamification would seemingly be a tool to encourage the “crowd” to participate in genocide,...
View ArticleThe Future of Human Rights
I have an article on the future of human rights in the current issue of The Futurist magazine. (Download the article in PDF — courtesy of the World Future Society, www.wfs.org.) The thesis of the...
View ArticleHow Americans See the Future of Foreign Policy
Earlier this year the polling firm YouGov undertook a survey for Professor Benjamin Valentina at Dartmouth. The results offer some insights into how Americans view our country’s future interactions...
View ArticleEmergent Machine Morality
Gary Marcus has a fascinating piece in the New Yorker about AI and morality. This passage in particular caught my eye: What we really want are machines that can go a step further, endowed not only with...
View ArticleWhy Armed Drones Won’t Be Banned
As drones have become the most prominent weapon in the US arsenal, scrutiny of their use has grown. People note the hundreds of civilian casualties they have caused, and are concerned by the secrecy of...
View ArticleOn the Demographic Death of Countries
Writing at A Fistful of Euros, Edward Hugh suggests that some countries may die demographically, losing population so severely that they are no longer sustainable as politico-economic entities: It...
View Article
