Donald Trump’s ascendancy in politics is certainly disruptive. It probably wouldn’t be happening if large numbers of well-paying middle class jobs hadn’t been outsourced in recent years, either permanently lost or replaced by minimum wage jobs. The people to whom this has happened understandably feel frustrated and scared. What nobody has put together, at least […]
One of the earliest books that could be called utopian was Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward. It described a future scientific society, devoid of competition, in which everything was run scientifically. It was all to be rational and orderly. As a 16 year old, I was captivated by his vision. I later realized, with hindsight, that […]
Every great civilization has its high points and its low points. Often, it’s difficult to see the low points of one’s own society from within it. One popular pastime among Americans is to compare it to Rome. Such people often opine that American will soon go the way of the Roman Empire. The Romans were […]
Like many of us, I’ve had a lot of pain in my life. It’s part of living. (As I’ve written on Quora, fears about robots suffering are unfounded.) Recently, I delivered a speech entitled “The Gift Box of Pain”. A realization has been dawning in me that some of the greatest gifts of my life […]
