archive

The postmodern wink

From The New Atlantis, Ari N. Schulman on why minds are not like computers: Fundamental confusion about artificial intelligence; an excerpt from P. W. Singer's Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (and more from Bookforum); reality and the postmodern wink: James Bowman champions curmudgeonliness as an antidote to cynicism; nations, liberalism, and science: Peter Augustine Lawler on civil theology and civil biology; a review of books on the medical and social questions that mental illness raises; and Wayne Ambler on reform and recalcitrance in Twain’s " Connecticut Yankee". A review of How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment by Michele Lamont. From Australian Review of Public Affairs, what job, which house? Simple solutions to complex problems in Indigenous affairs. Why bluffing about books is a civilised art. A review of Gambling, Freedom and Democracy by Peter J. Adams. Can MySpace get its mojo back? With Facebook soaring, and top talent leaving, News Corp.'s social network needs answers. Rewiring the Brain: Wired goes inside the new science of neuroengineering (and part 2). From Psychiatric Times, is pathological lying a symptom or disease? From Obit, we realize we aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but we adore it, often to a perfectly scandalous degree.