technology 150
Knausgaard’s Literary Response to the Tyranny of Technique
The right kind of literature has the power to make the immediate visible to us once again.
Parenting Across the Digital Generational Divide
One of the most curious things about raising two boys seventeen years apart is the divide I feel in their digital generations.
Old Models
Perhaps the choice not to have a computer is more a choice not to play pretend.
AI is Not Like a Calculator, and Other Conversations Worth Having
We are forgetting about other ways AI may be affecting people close to us, even ourselves.
The Land Ethic for AI
We have long drawn a dividing line between technology and humans, imbuing one with ethical responsibility and treating the other as merely contingent— therefore, technologies are “neutral” and it’s simply…
What Do Clare Morell and Chuck Magill Have in Common?
Chuck dreams of overcoming his allergy so he can reenter normal society. We reject the status quo because we want something better for our kids.
An Economist’s Take on the Age of AI: A Review of Robert Skidelsky’s Mindless
Skidelsky’s expertise is on full display as he tells the story of the impact of machines on the human condition.
The Crisis of the Self in an Age of Solutions
We live under the impression that we can do for the human community and the individual human soul what physicists have done with the atom.
Heroic Romanticism
It's entirely possible that many will give up human relationships, turning instead to the safety and predictability of technology, like an AI companion
1.5 Speed to Nowhere
Over the decades, I suppose I learned a lot from podcasts; plenty of facts and all the “sides” to stories. Very little of those things seem to matter to me…
Local Porch in NOVA: The Tech Exit with Clare Morell
Join Ben Christenson and others for a discussion with Clare Morell.
In Praise of “Old”
Similarly, I believe that most people can tell the difference between ugly and beautiful buildings.
Let us Converse Together (Without Our Phones)
Bilbro’s book is a careful study through profound literary texts about how we live in a world that has no patience for careful study through profound literary texts.
Against Spreadsheet Brain and For Taking Action with Ashley Fitzgerald
There’s a type of guy, sometimes they're Silicon Valley guys, sometimes they're just tech bros, sometimes they're environmentalists who have lost their minds
A Modest Proposal: Classical Schools Should Embrace AI
If classical schools insist on banning AI in all forms, their kids will be left behind.
Life in the Cyborg Age: A Conversation with Josh Pauling
And Robin and I really hope that this book can be part of that movement to help people get outside the Machine, throw sand in its gears, and live as…
Saying No to AI in Education
To rush AI into the classroom or into daily life is to put student well-being at stake. And as Kingsnorth reminds us, refusal to accept certain forms of technology can…
The Student’s Dilemma
The promise of AI is utopian and seems futuristic, but its effects on the educational landscape will make students nostalgic for the pre-ChatGPT days of yore.
Do-able Simplicities: On Letter Writing and Fountain Pens
Holding the letters was a delicate experience, noting the brittle nature of the paper, being careful not to let them tear at the aged folds, and yet the blue ink,…
The Very Online Culture Wars
The Very Online Right might be riding high now, but I anticipate that the election jackpot of the moment will not last and that this victory will soon look more…
Two Cheers for E-Bikes
Automobiles shield you from the outside world, its sounds, its colors. But on my bike, I encounter my environment directly.
The Final Word was Right
If there ever comes a true accounting of the costs we’re racking up for making, using, and discarding our mobile (de)vices, we will be obliged to admit that there has…
Large Language Models and the Final Paragraph
Like the sonnet, the five-paragraph essay traps investment in truth felt in the heart and forged in the mind by means of its life-respecting limitations.
Steel-Manning the Amish: The Wisdom of Communal Discernment
What the Amish understand perhaps more than we do is the necessity of maintaining and protecting domains of embodied human agency in our lives.