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"We're traumatizing people to create the illusion of machine intelligence.”—Adio Dinika
09/12/2024

"We're traumatizing people to create the illusion of machine intelligence.”

—Adio Dinika

Behind AI’s rapid advance and our sanitized feeds, an invisible global workforce endures unimaginable trauma.

California’s recent reforms were meant to limit the influence of special interests in elections. But they may have actua...
08/12/2024

California’s recent reforms were meant to limit the influence of special interests in elections.

But they may have actually enabled such interests to use ballot measures as bargaining chips with the Legislature, Mark Baldassare & Cheryl Katz report.

One of the state’s biggest tools to curb special interests has instead further empowered them. Here’s how the people can reclaim it.

When it comes to the climate crisis, the rhetoric of hope has failed, Pamela Swanigan, inaugural winner of the Berggruen...
07/12/2024

When it comes to the climate crisis, the rhetoric of hope has failed, Pamela Swanigan, inaugural winner of the Berggruen Institute Prize Essay Competition, argues.

It’s time to move toward a rhetoric of heroism & courage, even in the face of defeat.

For humanity’s fight against climate change to gain real momentum, we need to find the selfless courage that comes when our time is inevitably nigh.

Artists from all around the world created stunning visuals for Noema this year. Check out our favorites ⬇️
05/12/2024

Artists from all around the world created stunning visuals for Noema this year. Check out our favorites ⬇️

Here’s our favorite artwork from the past year.

“The blinding pace of multipronged infrastructure development has sought to transform Guizhou’s image into a peculiar, o...
04/12/2024

“The blinding pace of multipronged infrastructure development has sought to transform Guizhou’s image into a peculiar, oriental Switzerland, at once idyllic, tourist-friendly, & techno-economically advanced: the very image of ‘high-quality development.’”

—Gary Zhexi Zhang

As China enters a new economic and geopolitical era, integrating marginal provinces into its national project is a test of the state’s ability to empower and cohere.

We’re excited to announce our favorite pieces from 2024! Exploring ideas from why we should rewild the internet to the m...
03/12/2024

We’re excited to announce our favorite pieces from 2024!

Exploring ideas from why we should rewild the internet to the many possibilities of lucid dreaming to why AI might help rebuild the middle class, this list has plenty of great year-end reading.

Our best longform journalism and essays from 2024.

AI developers should pay for the damage they cause & the risks they generate, Gabriel Weil argues.
02/12/2024

AI developers should pay for the damage they cause & the risks they generate, Gabriel Weil argues.

AI developers should pay for what they screw up.

“Hybridization of life with technology is scary when you can't quite lose the unspoken belief that current humans are so...
01/12/2024

“Hybridization of life with technology is scary when you can't quite lose the unspoken belief that current humans are somehow an ideal, crafted, chosen form.”

—Michael Levin

Our fear of AI’s potential is emblematic of humanity’s larger difficulty recognizing intelligence in unfamiliar guises.

“It is indeed remarkable that an argument between astronomers over celestial motions would help reorder the political re...
30/11/2024

“It is indeed remarkable that an argument between astronomers over celestial motions would help reorder the political realities of a continent (& subsequently much of the world).

That, however, is the power of planets in the human imagination.”

—Adam Frank

Astrobiology is rewiring our understanding of the intimate connection between life and planets as they appear in the universe.

“City living is all about embracing diversity & doing the most with whatever sliver of space you can carve out. Perhaps ...
27/11/2024

“City living is all about embracing diversity & doing the most with whatever sliver of space you can carve out. Perhaps conservation efforts in urban spaces should adopt a similar scrappy mindset.”

—Joanna Thompson

Making space for environmental conservation in our densest concrete jungles.

"By fleeing from a complicated, decadent, urban, enlightened Europe, Russia is delivering itself into the jaws of a more...
25/11/2024

"By fleeing from a complicated, decadent, urban, enlightened Europe, Russia is delivering itself into the jaws of a more sophisticated machine than 21st-century Europe could ever hope to be.”

—Jacob Dreyer

China’s efforts to decarbonize are upending a world economy dependent on the petrodollar and, in the process, restructuring the U.S.-led world.

“It's like being forced to drink poison every day, knowing it's killing you, but you can't stop because it's your job."—...
24/11/2024

“It's like being forced to drink poison every day, knowing it's killing you, but you can't stop because it's your job."

—Former content moderator Kings to Adio Dinika

Behind AI’s rapid advance and our sanitized feeds, an invisible global workforce endures unimaginable trauma.

“In the late afternoon, thunderstorms began to develop, moving east toward Melbourne. As soon as they passed over the ci...
23/11/2024

“In the late afternoon, thunderstorms began to develop, moving east toward Melbourne. As soon as they passed over the city of roughly 4 million people, many began struggling to breathe.”

—Monica Evans

Climate change used to feel abstract — until its storms began to choke me.

A great gift for the smarty pants who has it all, now 20% off 🎁:
22/11/2024

A great gift for the smarty pants who has it all, now 20% off 🎁:

Noema is a magazine exploring the transformations sweeping our world. We publish essays, reporting, interviews, videos and art on the overlapping realms of philosophy, governance, geopolitics, economics, technology and culture. In doing so, our unique approach is to get out of the usual lanes and cr...

“The problem in a two-party system is that the rancor & partisan passions of electoral campaigns push voters into zero-s...
22/11/2024

“The problem in a two-party system is that the rancor & partisan passions of electoral campaigns push voters into zero-sum camps. In reality, people’s views are nuanced.”

—Nathan Gardels

Deliberative citizens’ assemblies can reach outside the like-minded bubble.

“Gardens are often presented metaphorically as theaters where the gardener acts as a combined writer, director & set des...
21/11/2024

“Gardens are often presented metaphorically as theaters where the gardener acts as a combined writer, director & set designer. Couldn't they also be open, improvisational stages, where wild & transitory inhabitants become part of the production team?”

—Richard Mabey

The poet R.S. Thomas once described gardens as a “gesture against the wild,” a rebuke to the “ungovernable sea of grass.” It sounds like a metaphor for the whole human project on planet Earth. I’m...

LA's oil drillers "tout the ‘environmental benefits’ of ‘our locally produced oil’ — a product I’ve yet to see for sale ...
20/11/2024

LA's oil drillers "tout the ‘environmental benefits’ of ‘our locally produced oil’ — a product I’ve yet to see for sale at the farmers’ market — since it doesn’t need to be imported.

In a twisted way, the argument holds some truth.”

—Jonathan Blake

I never knew I lived in an oil town until I went looking for the concealed infrastructure of fossil fuel production. What’s also becoming visible is a new architecture of planetary sapience that’s enabling and hastening the green transition.

“Evidence shows human brains today are smaller than those of our ancestors,” Thomas Moynihan writes.Could this be becaus...
19/11/2024

“Evidence shows human brains today are smaller than those of our ancestors,” Thomas Moynihan writes.

Could this be because we are developing characteristics of a collective intelligence?

From superorganisms to superintelligences, how studying crabs could reveal that we are unintentionally building an artificial world brain.

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