The education system as we know it is only about 200 years old. Before that, formal education was mostly reserved for the elite. But as industrialization changed the way we …
Cold Fusion
For some, it represents the ultimate energy solution: a cheap energy source without environmental implications. The final (and, above all, practical) form of such a nuclear process does not appear …
reality in decline (and in sales)
In every historical era, there is a core set of ideas through which a society understands itself and which outline its worldview. Ideas that in other times would seem bizarre …
the racist origins of the American high-tech industry
How the tools built for the U.S. census fueled the Nazi genocide, concentration camps, and state racism—and helped launch the digital age. On a frozen December day in 1896, an …
What did you say?
Does language have socio-political dimensions? Even when we are dealing with technical terms of a science? From the perspective of contemporary linguistics of structuralist inspiration, such questions seem non-sensical. What …
singularity: technological fetishism and political economy in the 21st century
The concept of the “singularity” refers to the moment when technological evolution will result in producing an artificial super-intelligence, which will bring about unimaginable changes in human civilization. Some futurologists, …
how they imagined – and designed – the internet during the cold war era
The most widespread version of the story about the origins of the internet refers to Arpanet: in order to ensure the operation of the communications network even in the event …
for the (completely anarchic) structure of the internet
«The issue is not that laws do not have power, but that the nation-state does not have power. It is not possible to regulate the internet.» Date: mid-1990s, when the …
Fake AI
Artificial intelligence is supposedly making leaps and is expected to be one of the key technological directions of the fourth industrial revolution. It is also assumed that it will mechanize …
script and language management technologies
Gregorian calendar omissions 1789, 1871, 1917. Milestone points in the political history of Europe marked by three numbers. Three numbers that automatically refer to and are now identified with a …
about paradigm shift… again
Saying that capitalist relations of production and consumption are dominant, essentially across the entire planet by now, constitutes a truism. This is an obvious observation, at least for those who …
The uncivilized
The artifact “Plimpton 322” (photograph), for 80 years in the collections of Columbia University, is at least 3,700 years old. It comes from Mesopotamia, from the territory of ancient (and …