Categories
Future Society

The New Love Triangle: You, AI And Reality

As concerns grow over the risks of social media and technology on young people, a new and largely unregulated digital frontier is emerging: interactions with artificial intelligence. Platforms like Character.AI allow users to create AI-generated characters that seem human, prompting critical questions about how these virtual experiences affect our understanding of reality and relationships.

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Geopolitics Ideas

What The European Phoenix Can Teach The World About Decline — And Rebirth

As the “American Century” and the West’s time at the center of the world draws to an end, Europe — which has died and been reborn many times — may have a new role as the wise teacher of decline, therefore also a teacher of limits and temperance.

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Geopolitics Ideas Israel-Palestine War

“Clash Of Civilizations” Fervor Grips Turkey — A Boost For Islamists

As Israel ramps up its attacks on Gaza, and support from the West continues, ordinary people in Turkey are falling into the trap of seeing the world as an inevitable showdown between East and West.

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Economy Society

How The New World Order Looks In AMLO’s Mexico

Mexico’s socialist president is deluded if he thinks he can turn the clock back and restore his vision of the welfare state.

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In The News

Las Vegas: Mass Shootings And The ‘Terrorism’ Label

The carnage in Las Vegas is evil and tragic, but is it terrorism?

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Geopolitics Ideas Terror in Europe

Enemies Inside And Out, The Double Threat Facing The West

What connects the violence in Barcelona and Charlottesville? Where have Western democracies gone wrong since the turn of the century?

Categories
In The News

Toulouse To Manchester: Our Children’s Blood, Our Own Denial

-OpEd- PARIS — At first, there is that horrific sensation like something pushing on your chest with the tears that swell as we imagine the parents trying to reach their children and nobody answering on the other end of the line where a massacre has been committed. Then, there is the anger that becomes a […]

Categories
In The News

Syria And The Contagion Of Despotism Across The World

-OpEd- BERLIN — The theater of war that is Syria has brought us scenes of a world devoid of rules: children killed by poisonous gas, the bodies of prisoners who were tortured or burned alive and a multitude of national armies and rebel groups that hack each other to pieces. In short, it has brought […]

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blog

The Diving God

Parts of the Mayan city of Tulum, along the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, were dedicated to the worship of the Diving God. He has since given way to more humble beach-going mortals enjoying the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.

Categories
Ideas Terror in Europe

Orientalism Revisited, Warped Views Of East And West Sow Conflict

The discourse of East and West, and specifically Islamic East and Christian West, is flawed and implicitly destined for conflict. A view from Latin America as Paris burns.

Categories
Future Ideas

A.I. And Us: How The Internet Spawned Our Own Worst Enemy

The online world’s big data and nanosecond velocity means we are losing control of the machines we’ve built ourselves. How can we avoid becoming victims of our own intelligence?

Categories
blog

Winding Back Time

Lake Atitlan, in the Guatemalan highlands, is surrounded by villages in which Mayan culture is still prevalent, and traditional dress is still worn. This old woman, winding yarn on her doorstep, is wearing a hat made with a long band of embroidered textile rolled tighlty aound her head. The weavers in the villages nearby produce […]

Categories
Eyes on the U.S. Society

Detroit: A Cautionary Tale For Modern Civilization

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder,” wrote British historian Arnold Toynbee. Lessons from the downfall of the automotive industry’s once-glorious capital.

Categories
Society

Why China’s Landslide Victims Were Cremated By The State

A landslide last month in Zhenxiong County in southwestern China killed 46 villagers. Once the bodies were recovered, the local authority — without any prior agreement from family members — cremated them. This set off a storm of protest from relatives of the deceased, and widespread criticism from the public. Zhenxiong authorities sparked further outrage […]

Categories
Food / Travel

Mayan Prophecies Aside, Guatemala’s Timeless Heritage Will Blow You Away

CHICHICASTENANGO – “What happened to the Mayans? Why did they disappear?” asks a tourist, while the minivan enters the winding streets of Chichicastenango, in Guatemala. The guide, Haroldo, smiles, just as every guide should when asked that question, and answers: “Disappear? Look around you, these are the Mayans, they are here.” This is the first […]

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