The optimism of the coming Space Age 2 – with its tourism, mineral mining, colonization and endless derivative benefits – may be short-lived if we kill ourselves faster back on Earth from the carbon cost of accelerating such an era. The footprint of a routine space launch is around 100 times larger than a long […]
In the coming decades, we’ll likely see unprecedented private space technology and exploration. This may hasten and help the overall development of the space industry and travel in several specific ways, but not necessarily in ways that help us. We need to keep making the case for a “socialized” space – a space commons where […]
There are tons of games, gaming guilds, companies and collectives that fall into this category, and I may get roasted for not including even most of them. But the goal of this post is not a comprehensive list; rather, I want to give a very brief overview for those who may not be aware of […]
Technology is typically weird or uncanny; but weird tech goes a step beyond. Weird tech reveals something unexpected about designers’ perceptions of our needs. It surprises us with its audacity and innovation. It might make us crack a smile, say “WTF?” or shake our heads in disbelief. An automated teller machine isn’t weird tech, even […]
The premise seems uncannily realistic: cosmonaut gets sick in space, too sick for re-entry, so the only option (other than to let them die) is to operate on them in space. But until now, all movies and teleplays with scenes taking place “in space” have had a kind of subtle flatness to them, certainly not […]
In The Walking Dead — the comic book series created by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore and Charlie Adlard and, later, the TV series developed by Frank Darabont — groups of characters, both organized and not, wander through the near-future zombie apocalypse. They fight (and many are killed by) “walkers” or the animated dead; as the […]
Earth is (obviously) not the only planet; there are many both out there in real space and in the space described in speculative literature. And, in many ways, they’re as weird in reality as they are in science fiction. The first story we know of involving (or at least self-consciously involving) travel from earth to […]
Way back in 1893, President Grover Cleveland told Congress that we should pursue international agreements even if they are not enforceable in the same ways national or local laws are. “The law of nations,” Cleveland said, “is founded upon reason and justice . . . that obedience to its commands practically depends upon good faith […]
“Not that the vision is a new one. John Maynard Keynes’s famous essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” imagines a world with far less work and far more leisure; Shulamith Firestone wrote about “cybernetic communism.” Yet the most complete picture of FALC or FALGSC might come not from radical leftists or academic economists, but from […]
Musicians have long known the benefits of music cooperatives. In 2013 in the United Kingdom, as streaming services were making musicians’ income increasingly precarious, “the Musicians’ Union joined Co-operatives UK, the national trade body that supports co-ops across the country.” Similar efforts have been underway in many other countries, including the United States. Particularly over […]