culture
Is AI art causing future shock or age-old economic anxiety?
The tech isn’t the problem. Our civic failure to grow along with it is.
Solarpunk humanism: How we dream bigger than despair
Solarpunk offers a potent narrative space for imagining secular worlds to come, and how to get there.
Literally building the future: Infrastructure as an act of secular love
When we fix a bridge or give someone better healthcare, we’re saying that this life and this world are worth protecting.
How do we talk about impending doom so that people will listen?
Books like ‘The Ministry for the Future’ offer a useful vocabulary for hashing out solutions to our overheating world.
Reclaiming human agency in how we think about AI
Reading Time: 9 minutes Online panic about AI models like ChatGPT follows a well-travelled path set by impoverished understandings of evolutionary theory. Can we reclaim human agency?
How to spare billionaires from terrorist attack
A radical eco-activist group arises in India after a terrible heat wave kills tens of thousands. The Children of Kali are firm in their declaration to the world: Change with us now, or suffer the wrath of Kali.
What fifty years of struggle can teach us, going forward
Reading Time: 9 minutes The year is 1973. In January, Richard Nixon is sworn in for his second term as president, the US officially withdraws from its conflict in Vietnam, and an investigation into the Watergate break-ins expands from the burglars to the statesmen. In the coming months, Nixon will o
The struggle for a more global response to climate change
Reading Time: 10 minutes On September 9, scientists and other protesters involved in the Extinction Rebellion (XR) launched their latest direct action by marching daily on the Utrechtsebaan, which is part of the A12 highway around the Hague, in the Netherlands. 2,400 protesters out of around 10,000
How do we make protests work for climate change reform?
Reading Time: 10 minutes One frightfully “woke” day in April 1970, some 20 million US citizens across 2,000 colleges and 10,000 grade schools participated in a “teach-in” about environmental crisis and stewardship. Some took part in active demonstrations, cleaning up facets of their communities or m
How do we reckon with ‘Hegemony’ without imposing our own?
Reading Time: 14 minutes I’ll admit, it’s been tough to wrap up this season of Strange New Worlds, knowing that the ongoing writers and actors’ strikes all but guarantee a long delay before Season 3. Season 2 also ends on a cliffhanger, which makes not only the wait but also the write-up a bit more
How what’s ‘Lost in Translation’ can be found again in empathy
Reading Time: 12 minutes What defines a “Trek” story varies between Trekkies, but one abiding feature in many series is the role of trust among crew mates. In a 2019 essay for Uncanny Magazine, Nicasio Andres Reed explored what makes this trust extraordinary. Here’s the way the story often goes, in
Is our well-meaning obsession with purifying terminology getting out of hand?
Reading Time: 5 minutes I hate to admit it—really, really hate to—but I think Florida’s migrant-abusing Gov. Ron DeSantis and hard-right Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson may have a point: the ever-shifting obsession with purifying terminology is getting out of hand in America. Which, condoning Ron’s a