by Omega | Aug 26, 2024 | Worldviews
Throughout history many traditions have believed that some fatal flaw in human nature tempts us to pursue powers we don’t know how to handle. The Greek myth of Phaethon told of a boy who discovers that he is the son of Helios, the sun god. Wishing to prove his divine...
by Omega | Aug 26, 2024 | Worldviews
Artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to your iPhone soon and, according to Apple, it’s going to transform the way you use your device. Launching under the brand name “Apple Intelligence” the iPhone maker’s AI tools include a turbocharged version of its voice...
by Omega | Aug 22, 2024 | Pandemics
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed surprise at the conclusion of the 2021 WHO-commissioned mission to Wuhan that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” and may have sought a change in the mission’s report, but he faced...
by Omega | Aug 22, 2024 | Worldviews
Armed conflict, marked by a disregard for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is on the rise, asdiplomatic and political channels to resolve conflict and end fighting are evidently failing. Conflict hasbeen on the rise since about 2012, after a decline in the 1990s...
by Omega | Aug 22, 2024 | Economy
I’ve been arguing in this series of “hegemony notes” that the question of world order in the 20th century, the question of hegemony, is misunderstood if it is seen as part of a deep historical sequence that stretches back to the Middle Ages. Instead, I am arguing that...
by Omega | Aug 22, 2024 | Worldviews
Could AI help you build a competitor to beat TikTok in just a few minutes? Maybe in the next couple of years, according to Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO. My buddy Erik Brynjolfsson invited Schmidt for an intimate discussion at Erik’s Stanford Econ class a few days...
by Omega | Aug 16, 2024 | Pandemics
Humanity has had the tools to diagnose, treat and prevent TB for decades. Because of that, this airborne bacterial respiratory disease, once the cause of about 25 percent of all deaths in the United States, is no longer a widespread threat to public health in wealthy...
by Omega | Aug 16, 2024 | Worldviews
Martin Luther King once called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” That formulation may be controversial, but no one denies that the US is by far the world’s biggest arms dealer, with a 42 percent share of the global arms...
by Omega | Aug 16, 2024 | Pandemics
Facing the threat of global spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged clinicians and the public in the United States to be alert for the virus. The W.H.O.’s designation of a “public health emergency of international concern” is...
by Omega | Aug 16, 2024 | Environment
To help navigate current and future uncertainty and disruptive change, while effectively delivering on its mandate, UNEP has been implementing an institutionalized approach to strategic foresight and horizon scanning with the view to developing an anticipatory and...
