One of my favorite technology provocateurs, Marc Andreessen, recently contributed to the conversation regarding whether robots will progressively eat all of our jobs. His conclusion: they won’t; but even if they do, it’s not much of a worry. I do share Andreessen’s view that this won’t happen as soon as alarmists might imagine. The sci-fi cultists who believe it’s just around the corner espouse a speculative utopian faith in accelerating, compounding technological singularities that I struggle to take seriously (Google, please forgive me for underestimating your majesty if you do become our government three years from now).

But I suppose…

I know practically nothing about the fine art World, which means that I write about it with little authority but complete impartiality. For those of you who will bite my head off for these thoughts: I invite you to explain to me why I’m wrong. Nothing excites me more than changing my mind, so I look forward to your disabusing or confirmation with equal excitement.

Here’s my experience:

I decided several years ago that I wanted to start refining my visual knowledge and taste. Having gone through a massive transformation as a listener of music since I began making it…

I was so excited to wake up today to my friend Leon Neyfakh’s well-researched summary of the concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI):http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/02/09/should-government-pay-you-alive/aaLVJsUAc5pKh0iYTFrXpI/story.html

This idea, of delivering to every citizen (in a nation or, ultimately, in the World) an unconditioned cash transfer, has a long lineage of supporters spanning the ideological spectrum, from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Milton Friedman. I first encountered the concept when I read Phillippe Van Parijs’s work in a philosophy course during my sophomore year of college, and it struck me for its reasonableness and simplicity. …

I think we need to retire the notion that science is somehow distinguishable from the broader pursuit of truthful knowledge, and that the people who do it are somehow essentially unique. For those of you reading this who are scientists, this might be a puzzling bone to pick but I assure you: the rest of us almost always feel left out of science, and this will continue to be the case unless you work diligently to include us.

The speed with which we move into the future depends on the extension of scientific thinking to the billions of people around…

Jeff Bezos’s unveiling of Amazon’s drone delivery program last night has created tons of social media buzz, exactly as he intended, I’m sure. And this is justified. I think drones are awesome, and make tons of sense for tons of purposes in the future, including delivery. What I do think is totally unlikely, however, is that Amazon will have hordes of drones making deliveries by 2015 as Bezos sort-of suggested. One or two accidents where drones fall out of the sky and hit a baby and the FAA and other regulatory orgs will choke it. So…I think it was a…

I have come to believe that there is a false choice represented in the debate around climate change these days. On the one hand, we are told, we may choose environmental conservation and productive moderation. And on the other, we are told, we may choose social and ecological adaptation along with unfettered development. Either we keep carbon at bay and India and China languish, or we allow the World’s populations to continue pursuing prosperity and bear the consequences of its externalities.

This analysis, obscured itself by the juvenile pre-occupation with the debate concerning the validity of global warming, obscures alternative…