Democracies weaken not only for institutional reasons, but also because citizens stop thinking and surrender to impulse.
Tag: humanity
It is easy to feel buried by the avalanche of bad news from around the world. But we have a duty to gratefully enjoy the moments of our lives, come what may.
In a not-so-distant future, Latin Americans will find they too were wealthy like their overbearing northern neighbor, only their “capital” consisted of art, music and resilience, combined in one of their biggest assets home-bred superstar Shakira.
Following the death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition is in a serious crisis, and must look at the fundamental mistakes it’s made the past two years, including calls for destroying the nation and desecrating the flag. It’s not clear what impact the prisoner swap could have, but activist Timofey Martynenko says it’s time to have a pro-Russia, anti-dictator opposition.
Scenes of violence against Syrian refugees are no longer unusual in Turkey, a country marked by rising nationalism amid a deepening economic crisis.
Political battle lines are becoming increasingly entrenched, and opposing views are being pushed towards ever greater extremes. Language has become a battlefield. If morality pushes us apart, and religion does not help in the process, we may find a solution in our sense of humanity, writes German psychiatrist Manfred Lütz in Die Welt.
Francesco Profumo, a former Italian education minister and the current rector of the Open Institute of Technology, explains why artificial intelligence needs a voice like Father Paolo Benanti, the only theologian on the UN Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
The West and its brand of modernity may be waning in favor of an ascendant China, but is it offering anything besides replacing market forces with brute force.
People’s deplorable actions ultimately have more to do with socially induced fears and mistrust than some inherent evil. Fiction and tradition tells us humans are fundamentally wicked, but history says otherwise.
The war in Ukraine has prompted a huge outpouring of compassion across the border in Poland. It is a positive reflection of the human condition, but also a reminder that we should care for others and outsiders even when there’s no nearby conflict.
After COVID-19, similar crises could arise sooner rather than later. Can we really afford — and not just from an economic standpoint — to keep taking the same approach?
Published 300 years ago, Daniel Defoe’s classic story of shipwreck and survival still has much to teach us about human nature and the environment.
Meet the Italians driven by a sense of history and humanity to identify the refugees and migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean.
We have already been revealed, both our leaders and ourselves, by writers of the past.
Big Brother, if and when he arrives, will start out looking small. Take that mundane office badge or key card you use to pass security before entering your office. Rather than having to carry one around, and risk losing it, technological advances make it easy enough these days to get an RFID microchip implanted in […]
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Comfort After Defeat — A Video Quote
Technology is bringing us closer to Artificial Intelligence, which will undeniably wreak havoc with employment for millions worldwide. Smart solutions are needed now.
A century from now, the global population will finally begin to decline. But before that, the world must deal with the waste created by an exploding overpopulation: How do we hold on until then?
Humans aren’t the only living beings able to perceive the emotions of others and respond to them. When it comes to empathy, animals and people are more alike than not.
Modern life, with its rules and material rewards, has robbed people of the most basic sense of happiness. What do we have to lose by ridding ourselves of so many imposed ideas?
He may be a genius, but the legendary physicist is using his renown to hock an outlandish idea that humans must go to space to survive, a notion that only betrays Hawking’s own arrogance.
The last of the past century’s ‘counter-history’ leaders, Mandela represented the ultimate triumph over the destructive powers of the notion of racial superiority.