L.M. Sacasas
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A newsletter about technology, culture., and the good life. The general idea is to think well about the meaning of technology and how it structures our experience while also conveying some sense of how we might better order our relationship to technology.
Read MoreBy Wade Lee Hudson
In her April 14, 2023 interview on the Ezra Klein Show, Danielle Allen (whose new book is Justice by Means of Democracy) addresses how society might use modern technology to develop and strengthen “deliberative democracy structures that we have not yet set up.” Klein calls voting “a pretty thin level of participation” and envisions methods to enable people to “really be part of steering the ship of state.”
Klein argues, “You could have things like citizens assemblies and meetings, and in other ways, you could have a thicker kind of participation and advisory role for the public than you currently do.” Modern deliberative digital tools can enhance democracy, which Allen defines as “equal empowerment across a body of free and equal citizens.” She believes, “One of the greatest values of democracy is that together we can be much smarter than we can be as individuals.”
Read MoreBy John Sanger
Before the Industrial Age reached its zenith, it exerted one more impact on rural America; loss of transportation options. Fifty years ago there was bus, plane and rail service from regional centers and even many small towns throughout the country, today almost all of that has disappeared. Only the automobile remains and it is subject to the vagaries of weather and other interruptions. For a rural based teleworker that needs to have time-dependent, reliable and fast access to their employer, this poses another challenge to the decision to move to a rural community and to help rebuild their demographics. The Smart Region.US concept selects Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) to fill this void.
Read More…AT A BASIC LEVEL, the goal of A.I. and Faith and like-minded groups I came across in Toronto, San Francisco, London and elsewhere is to inject a kind of humility and historicity into an industry that has often rejected them both. Their mission is admittedly also one of self-preservation, to make sure that the global religions remain culturally relevant, that the texts and teachings of the last several centuries are not discarded wholesale as the world is remade. It is also a deeply humanistic project, an effort to bring different kinds of knowledge — not only faith-based, but also the literary, classical and oral traditions — to bear upon what might very well be the most important technological transformation of our time.
Read MoreIs technopessimism our new future?
By Thomas B. Edsall
A decade ago, the consensus was that the digital revolution would give effective voice to millions of previously unheard citizens. Now, in the aftermath of the Trump presidency, the consensus has shifted to anxiety that online behemoths like Twitter, Google, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook have created a crisis of knowledge — confounding what is true and what is untrue — eroding the foundations of democracy.
These worries have intensified in response to the violence of Jan. 6, and the widespread acceptance among Republican voters of the conspicuously false claim that Democrats stole the election.
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