is a thing that was recently brought to my attention via a YouTube, Breaking Points, podcast. The podcast is the brainstorm of Krystal Ball, long one of my favorite political and cultural commentators. Krystal and I share a birthday, though we're 33 years apart in age. She first caught my eye back in 2007 on the run-up … Continue reading The Male Loneliness Epidemic
Category: Technology
Silicon Snake Oil: The Road to Hell
This ain't no technological breakdown, oh no, this is the road to hell. This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway, oh no, this is the road to hell. Chris Rea (1999). So it is. As Astronomer Clifford Stoll foresaw in his 1995 book, Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, about computers and civilization, … Continue reading Silicon Snake Oil: The Road to Hell
ChatGPT: Smash or Pass?
ChatGPT is a computer program(s) at the current apex of artificial intelligence. There are several versions. I heard of it four weeks ago and decided to check it out. They are Large Language Models that can read the entire Internet in seconds and answer questions or "prompts". In addition, you can have conversations with the … Continue reading ChatGPT: Smash or Pass?
Men Without Work
is a book by Nicholas Eberstadt, an American political economist, written in 2016 and updated in 2022. I haven't read the books but have listened to him talk about them on YouTube podcasts. The premise is that the documented 7.2 million men, aged 21 to 54, that have quit the workforce is a problem. For … Continue reading Men Without Work