Death in the twentieth century has become a taboo…it has replaced sex as the quintessential forbidden subject. Philippe Ariès The image of death seems to be omnipresent in contemporary Western …
From mutations to “reprogramming”: the breakthrough of genetic engineering
Mutations may occur in all kinds of organisms randomly from the beginning of the world. But designed mutations, the diamond in the crown of biotechnologies in recent decades, quickly became …
constructions of realities.
How easy is it for everyone to create their own reality? However easy it used to be in the past, the possibilities offered by the new technologies of the 4th industrial revolution make it even easier – and more “fun”. As the means change and evolve, the end remains the same; to create and maintain ideologies. Here are two of the many tools that can be used by anyone to create “fake news” and / or “fake faces”.
fuck the algorithm
In mid-August, thousands of high school students rallied in front of the education ministry of Her Majesty’s government. It deserves be considered the second authentic demonstration against the “brave new …
The puppies of Pavlok
Social media is the place par excellence for “shocking” advertisements, let alone in the era of generalized quarantine where online consumers are ready to invest in any product that promises …
dog plus
Augmented-reality glasses for dogs? Yes. The U.S. Army and its research arms are not short on ideas. In their view, dogs with “augmented vision capabilities,” combined with their natural sense …
Labor is the target.
The measures taken (and will be taken) on the occasion of the pandemic have a huge impact on the economy in general and the labor market in particular. Rhetoric has it that in order lives to be saved, the economy must be sacrificed. “Human life above profits!” is the slogan; and concerns about whether states have anti-capitalist tendencies to protect us are manifested in the cafes of the friends of the working class. Unable to find an explanation for the “turn of states against their interests and profits”, they accept this turn as a contradiction and get rid of it; to get confused again afterwards, trying to criticize its management, asking for more protection measures and bonuses.
Neuralink
You may easily be about a century behind. He is certainly not a successful businessman either, but that’s how he is considered (the parallel realities, you see!). He stands very …
The monopoly of truth
It is common in the so-called “scientific circles” that when an opinion has influence over the majority (an influence that is never spontaneous but always constructed within the ‘scientific institutions’) …
The human face-lessness of big data
Do the data have a human face? Only in the minds of their creators. Maybe the expression just wants to highlight the positives discovery and exploitation of this new raw material, of information, have for us humans. Or not; perhaps it’s the crude interpretation that derives from the digitization process itself: that the body is just a volume of information. That relations are a complex of networks and flows; that thoughts are electrical signals. Can anyone disagree with the experts? “Why, all this is scientifically proven!”
Let’s finish with digital immigrants!
Among other things, the provisions made for returning to schools this year include health examinations, “thorough cleaning”, gloves and masks, demarcation of space and time, tele-procedures and tracing protocols. One …