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Journey into a future shaped by creativity, critical thought, and secular habits of mind. Help shape what’s next!
Broken heat records—and the promise of more
Reading Time: 4 minutes Another set of broken heat records has devastating implications—not only for human thriving in the coming years, but also the inability of consequences from past failings to stir global action to some better end.
The present and future potential of psychedelics
Psychedelic-assisted therapy might just be the evolution of medicine.
‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’: How time travel creeps into Trek today
Reading Time: 11 minutes This week’s episode of Strange New Worlds takes us boldly to Canada, but I promise: just because most of the show is set in my birthplace of Toronto, we won’t go off-mission too much to reflect on how it uses the location. I will only say that if you’re buying street meat (v
‘Ad Astra per Aspera’: How we escape from hardship into wonder
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last week, I gave the opening episode of Strange New Worlds (SNW) Season Two a bit of a pass: I called it a “mission statement” more than a typical outing from this version of the Enterprise. The plot and script seemed intent on solidifying character gains from the first sea
Too many people
Wealthy, well-developed nations are nearing ZPG (zero population growth), which makes life better for everyone.
Internet Archive loses to publishers, mediocre tech futures continue
Reading Time: 6 minutes It is the easiest thing in the world to copy and paste digital content. This is why elaborate systems needed to be invented, to push back on the native capabilities of technology. Digital Rights Management (DRM) most often refers to advanced technology that locks in document
Perfect empathy: Deep Space Nine and the most fantastical concept in all of fiction
Reading Time: 5 minutes A series that brought the optimism of Star Trek to the threshold of the 21st century ended with the message that empathy is the solution to all conflict. A generation later, that concept is much harder to accept.
Introducing LA’s newest secular youth group
Reading Time: 4 minutes When I was a teen, there is nothing I would have loved more than to be in a secular youth group. I wasn’t in a religious youth group, but from what I’ve heard, I didn’t miss much besides purity culture, bad Christian rock music, and suppressed teen hormones. But what if there
COVID-19 now haunts flu season: What other long term impacts can we expect?
Reading Time: 11 minutes It’s been a rough few days for anyone following flu season data. While China has eased zero-COVID restrictions in the face of protests, despite currently experiencing a surge in case count (along with Japan), North American hospitals face what the American Medical Associatio
NASA’s Artemis: A big step in sending humans to Mars
Reading Time: 5 minutes When NASA’s ambitious Artemis I project rocket—the agency’s most powerful launch vehicle ever—blasted into space from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on November 16, scarcely more than a century ago automobiles and airplanes were still in their cradles. In a historical blink o
As clean transportation tech moves forward, is the human side ready?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Over the next five years, US public agencies will spend billions to clean up the transportation sector. A large share of that money is earmarked for training blue-collar workers in disadvantaged communities on the specific tasks of sustaining a zero-emission economy. While th
The Svalbard seed vault: A survival bunker for civilization
Reading Time: 5 minutes How could we reengineer civilization to be resilient against catastrophe? A vault of seeds slumbering in Arctic permafrost suggests one way.
