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On taxing robots.
Automation is making the world worse, but the real problem is financial inequality, not robots.
a tax on wealth, automation, charity, cost of pollution, dishwashers, economic proposal, economic recovery, economic stimulus, Eduardo Porter, Eduardo Porter editorial, employer cartel, end of Great Depression, inequality, intentional inefficiency, low salary, low unemployment, negative externalities, New York Times editorial, parenting, politics, recession, robot tax, robotics, robots, robots taking jobs, shared costs, small town recovery plan, stagnant wages, tax wealth, taxing automation, taxing robots, the economics of automation, the politics of automation, tragedy of the commons, unemployment, wealth begets wealth, wealth tax, welfare, which jobs can be replaced by machines, why aren’t wages rising, work requirements, World War II
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On ‘The Ravanayan’ and women traveling alone.
It’s bad enough that our thousands-year-old myths feature women attacked for traveling alone … why are we still letting this happen today?
A. K. Ramanujan, comic books, comic review, comics, did Shoorpanakha deserve to be punished, did Shurpanakha deserve to be punished, fate, fear curtails liberty, female desire in the Ramayana, freedom to travel, gender violence, gendered violence, graphic novel, graphic novel review, graphic novels, Holy Cow, Holy Cow comics, Indian mythology, Mohanty and Goel, monkey battle, mythological violence, mythology, oppression, oppression of women, Rama, Ramanujan, Ramayana comic, Ramayana variants, rape culture, Ravana, Ravanayan review, retellings of the Ramayana, review of the Ravanayan, Sexism, sexual impropriety, Shoorpanakha, Shoorpanakha mutilated, Shurpanakha, Three Hundred Ramayanas, toxic masculinity, Vijayendra Mohanty, violence, violence against women as terrorism, violence against women in the Ramayana, violence against women to instill fear, Vivek Goel, why was Shoorpanakha attacked, why was Shurpanakha attacked, women traveling, women traveling alone
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On perspective.
If we didn’t believe that the passage of time allows us to make a better world, then why would we try?
Book of Shem, Christianity, climate change, climate destabilization, club-winged manakins, cycles of time, cyclical time, David Kishik, death, direction of time, entropy, ents, evolution, evolutionary pressure, extinction, fall of man, global warming, good stewards of the Earth, hebrew, Hinduism, human evolution, improvement, Judaism, male nipples, manakins, mythology, optimism, originalism, perspective, progress, religion, Sapiens, the myth of progress, time, time’s arrow, tree communication, tree people, treents, trees, why do men have nipples, why does time move forward, Yuval Noah Harari
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On the value of religious misinterpretation.
We’re liable to misinterpret old stories when we look at them with modern eyes … but it’s worth knowing what myths might mean in a better world.
Abraham, anachronism, anachronistic crtique, Ants Among Elephants, Bible, can God save us, caste, caste system, Christ, Christian theology, colonialism, conquest, covenant, creation in Genesis, dalit, David Kishik, DK, Dravidar Kazhagam, forgiveness, forgiving god, Genesis, God, God saw that it was good, God’s insecurity, Goldman, grammar, hebrew, Hinduism, human sacrifice, human sacrifice for good harvest, imperialism, incarceration, incarceration crisis, incarceration in the U.S., incarceration in the United States, jail, Jesus, Jesus’s sacrifice, Job, John-Michael Bloomquist, mass incarceration, merciful god, mercy, Noah, Old Testament, oppression, poetry, poetry in jail, rainbow, Rama, Rama threatening ocean, Ravana, Ravana worship, religion, Rudyard Kipling, sacrifice, sacrifice of Jesus, suffering, Sujatha Gidla, Tamil, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, textual analysis, The Book of Shem, The Flood, The Iliad, The Prodigal’s Return, theology, Translation, untouchable, why did Christ have to die, why did Jesus suffer, why does Rama threaten the ocean, why is God jealous, Yahweh
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On suboptimal optimization.
If you’re hoping that self-driving cars will prevent traffic jams, think again. They might be designed to make traffic worse.
Adam Millard-Ball, AI, artificial intelligence, atomic weapons, automation, capitalism, carbon costs, carbon emissions, carbon emissions from driving, carbon tax, climate change, cost benefit analysis, cost to park, did Heisenberg know linear algebra, driving, economics, finite, finite mathematics, general education requirements, global warming, graffiti that confuses self-driving cars, Heisenberg, Heisenberg and linear algebra, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, intentionally causing traffic jams, linear algebra, linear optimization, math, math panic, matrices, matrix, maximizing utility, minimizing costs, negative externalities, nuclear weapons, parking, parking fees, parking in cities, philosophy, pollution, pollution is free, pricing carbon, pricing externalities, public utility, quantum mechanics, robot cars, robot drivers, self-driving car, self-driving cars causing traffic jams, taxing carbon, taxing emissions, taxing pollution, teaching math, traffic, traffic laws, traffic patterns, trolley problem, university degree, university policies, university policy, usage fees, Werner Heisenberg, why didn’t Germany have atomic weapons, why is it free to pollute, why isn’t pollution taxed
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On two degrees and the worst year (yet) to be alive.
We’re hoping to limit climate change to two degrees … but even two degrees could turn our world into a terrible place to live.
536, 536 A.D., archaeology, atmospheric science, borrow Earth from our children, borrow the land from our children, carbon, carbon cycle, carbon economy, carbon emissions, carbon neutral, carbon tax, climate change, climate cycle, climate instability, crops, Dark Ages, Facebook, famine, feedback loop, food crops, forests, global warming, great depletion, greenhouse gases, heat sink, inherit the Earth, loss of fecundity, melting ice caps, Michael McCormick, most privileged generation, moving south for the winter, science, server farms, trains, trees, two degrees, two degrees Celsius, Venus, Venus was habitable, violence, volcano, weather, Wendell Berry, worst year to be alive
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On resurrection.
We are unlikely to live again … but religions themselves get resurrected all the time. As you might expect, the religions that rise from the grave sometimes come back as shambling monstrosities.
Achilles, ancient European myths, Anthony Appiah, Asatru, astrophysics, Birka warrior, Boltzmann brain, Celtic mythology, Celtic religion, Christianity, Daoism, druid, druids, female viking, female viking warrior, female warrior, forgotten faiths, Greek mythology, Ian Johnson, Icelandic poetry, In Search of the True Dao, life after death, lost faiths, Louis Komjathy, milk, mythology, neopaganism, New York Review, Norse mythology, Odin, Odin’s gift, odinism, Odinist revival, Odysseus in the underworld, pagan, pagan revival, paganism, physics, poetry, prejudice, pseudoscience, rebirth, rediscovering lost faiths, rediscovering lost religions, rediscovering Norse faiths, reincarnation, resurrection, Roman propaganda, Sexism, space dust, The Lies that Bind, The Odyssey, the old beliefs, Viking myths, Viking religion, viking revival, viking warrior women, viking women, white supremacists, white supremacy, Wicca, witchcraft, world mythology, world religions
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On kind, environmentalist, and vegan books for kids.
A few gorgeous picture books perfect for vegan children … and other kids, too.
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On storytelling in games.
Of course games can be art! There are certain stories, like tales of moral complicity, that games tell better than any other form of media.
45, Abu Ghraib, atrocities, board game design, board games, Bruce Weigl, computer games, console games, Donald Trump, experiental art, fascism, fighting fascism, following orders, game design, games as art, Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto as art, GTA, Life on Mars, Marco Arnaudo, marcowargamer, Milgram Experiment, moral complicity, moral depravity, moral failure, multimedia art, narrative potential of games, politics, PotUS, psychology, psychology experiments, psychology experiments as role-playing games, Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, role playing, RPG, second person novels, Secret Hitler, Stanford Prison Experiment, storytelling in games, Storytelling in the Modern Board Game, The Soldier’s Brief Epistle, torture, torture in Grand Theft Auto, Tracy K Smith, Tracy Smith, Trump, war crimes
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On attentiveness and names.
Some kids are exceptionally attentive to their environment … but we tell them they have an attention deficit.
abuse, ADD, adderall, addiction, ADHD, amphetamine, attention deficit, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, chemical dependence, chemistry, childhood abuse, childhood development, childhood trauma, crystal meth, crystal structure, deficit, developmental biology, dirty drop, dirty urine, disease names, diversity, doctors, drug chemistry, drug test, drug testing, evolution, Fruitless, Fruity, gene names, genetics, hedgehog, human evolution, hyperawareness, hypervigilance, incarceration, jail, jail poetry, mass incarceration, medicine, methamphetamine, names, naming genes, neurodiversity, parole, Percy Jackson, pharmacology, poetry in jail, probation, protein structure, reading, self-medication, sensitivity, sensitivity to environment, SHH, Sonic Hedgehog, Sonic Hedgehog mutation, stimulants, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, The Lightning Thief, trauma, urine screen, War on Drugs
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Frank Brown Cloud 