critiquing ideology
As evidenced in my recent Apeirogon post An Era of Mass Automation, there is strong reason to believe that automation will displace a large section of the global workforce in the next two decades. The unprecedented nature of this challenge requires an acute political response. In this column I consider proposals from the modern left in dealing with […]
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The wealth disparity of the world we live in today is unlike any recorded in living memory. The centralisation of wealth has seen global society fractured, and the widening of political fault lines. The result is a struggle between those with a monopoly on wealth, and those without access to its rewards; but it is […]
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I have been lucky enough in recent weeks to attend a number of events organised or supported by the British left-wing political organisation Momentum, and see for myself the political gusto of the Corybnite movement. It is a zeitgeist to behold. Aaron White recently authored a column detailing the unique aesthetics of Momentum’s The World Transformed (TWT) conference […]
Read More…A report from Price Waterhouse and Coopers (PWC) divides the impact of modern technology on the labour market into three distinct temporal sections. Firstly, the Algorithmic Wave, between our current moment and the ‘early 2020s’. This will see the ‘automation of simple computational tasks’ and will mainly impact ‘data-driven sectors such as financial services’ . […]
Read More…In 2003 Nick Bostrom published a thought-provoking paper in Philosophical Quarterly entitled ‘Are you living in a computer simulation?’ The premise of the paper was that any one of the following statements must be correct. 1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage. 2) any posthuman civilisation is extremely unlikely […]
Read More…As the rate of return on capital increases at a faster rate than income, inequality increases. This leads to centralisation of wealth and comparative diminution in the financial power of the consumer. We are seeing this take place today, as small businesses are ripped off the high-street by multi-national corporations. As these corporations expand, they […]
Read More…People often use the word ‘mad’ or ‘crazy’ to denigrate an individual. This is most often done in defence of the status quo. You are often considered mad simply if you are abnormal. A mad person may be someone who threatens the comfort zone of others. Someone who makes the majority question a facet of […]
Read More…“We need a shift to a new system that will allow us to meet the basic needs of every human on the planet, that will live within planetary means, that will be fairer, and that will be focused as its key goal not on growth per se, but on maximising human well-being. History tells us […]
Read More…The word ‘utopia’ traces its origins to the title of a book written by Thomas More in 1515. At the time, a new elite was amassing wealth by enclosing common lands and Utopia was written as a damning critique. It attacked the practice of hanging thieves and denounced the king for ruling over a nation of […]
Read More…Poppy Crum’s talk from April of this year discusses in 12 short minutes the possibilities inherent in a technology that can read and understand our ‘chemical signatures’; our biological tells. It is rare in life for humans to fully or efficiently convey their feelings and emotions to one another. Often because they may not understand […]
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The Junction 