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Research Paper Warns That There’s a Massive Experiment at Work to Geoengineer the Earth’s Climate
The idea of manually tampering with our atmosphere to combat climate change, such as by seeding clouds with reflective particles to dim the Sun, remains extremely controversial. These acts of geoengineering could deliver us from climate doom, the thinking goes, or backfire spectacularly in ways we never anticipated — which is why scientists are proceeding…
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The Real Lesson of Elon Musk’s Outrage at Christopher Nolan
A beautiful movie star is cast in a beloved story. The character is fictional—she isn’t even fully human. Nonetheless, activists and purists insist that the actor is the wrong race. I’m speaking of Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell, the 2017 film adaptation of a popular Japanese manga series. Critics accused the movie’s creators…
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Climate change’s worst-case scenario is officially canceled
You’ve probably never heard of the term “RCP 8.5” — the highest-emission scenario used by climate scientists to project the planet’s future. But if you’ve read about climate change, you’ve seen the numbers and nightmarish outcomes it produced: 4°C of warming by 2100, sometimes 5°C, sea level rising multiple feet, parts of the planet too…
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Trump admin doubles down after getting busted for defending child sex offender and J6er
The Trump administration went on the defensive Friday night after getting exposed for scrubbing online Justice Department (DOJ) records of those convicted of violent crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including one Texas man who was later convicted of online solicitation of a minor. In June of 2024, the Biden administration’s DOJ published…
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There’s Never Been a Better Time to Study Computer Science
It’s a weird time to be studying computer science. Recent grads have a higher unemployment rate than those in just about every other major—yes, even philosophy. The internet is littered with rants from newly minted programmers who can’t find work. On one such YouTube video, the top comment reads: “Your first mistake is not being…
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Trump’s betrayal was the ‘tipping point’ that led to the GOP revolt: WSJ
In a deep dive on Donald Trump’s “bad week” that prompted a massive Republican Party revolt against the president who is used to having his way, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the outburst against the president’s proposed “slush fund” was a direct result of their existing discontent with his GOP primary meddling. According…
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Albany saved some of its ugliest budget poison for last
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature’s leaders saved the worst for last: The final bits of their budget deals include some truly ugly idiocy. Beyond the budget’s obscene $268.5 billion bottom line is election-year pandering to special interests and ideological extremes, all at the public’s expense. In a fit of moral preening, the state’s Democratic…
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College Should Be Way More Fun
One afternoon last fall, a class full of Amherst seniors forgot I was there. In the 19th-century octagonal room where I taught my course on fiction, they were deep in an argument about the tempestuous ending of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw—about whether the ghosts haunting two children in a gothic country house…
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Why College Students Are Booing AI
College students have been booing commencement speakers who dare to mention artificial intelligence. The boos were heard at the University of Central Florida, when Gloria Caulfield, a real-estate executive, called AI “the next Industrial Revolution.” And at the University of Arizona, when former Google CEO Eric Schmidt mentioned “the architects of artificial intelligence,” last year’s…
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Peter Thiel Working on Floating Data Centers in the Ocean
If you’re a tech billionaire, the last thing you want right now is a bunch of local yokels vetoing the data centers you’re trying to build in their backyards. Data centers are vital for fueling the growth of AI, which is pretty much the only thing saving the US economy — and therefore your tens…