Epic Country-Level A/B Test Proves Open Is Better Than Closed (Estonia/Belarus) “As the country put more of its government services online, from incorporating a company (which happens at a world-leading speed, estimated at five minutes) to authenticating electronic signatures, it has seized the opportunity to position itself as a hub for digital government services. To […]

Intelligent machines might want to become biological again “our brains use energy at a rate of about 20 watts. If you wanted to upload yourself intact into a machine using current computing technology, you’d need a power supply roughly the same as that generated by the Three Gorges Dam hydroelectric plant in China, the biggest […]

Inside Jacobin: how a socialist magazine is winning the left’s war of ideas “In this world, if Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard wanted to replicate his beloved “tea, Earl Grey, hot”, he would have to pay the company that has copyrighted the replicator pattern for hot Earl Grey tea. Because of the clarity of language, […]

Trump’s voters aren’t authoritarians, they’re populists “…authoritarians and populists can overlap and share dark tendencies toward nativism, racism and conspiracism. But they do have profoundly different perceptions of authority. Populists see themselves in opposition to elites of all kinds. Authoritarians see themselves as aligned with those in charge. This difference sets the candidates’ supporters apart.”