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Killer Robots and Rebel Wieners: Did Hollywood’s Working-Class Revolt Fantasies Fuel Trump’s Rise?
Nov 24, 2016 Class-war fantasies are a hot new genre on the big and small screen. They might be amping up Donald Trump-mania.
Islamic State’s Dangerous Effort to Wipe Out Humanity’s Past
Aug 28, 2015 The militant group's destruction this week of the ruins of a temple in the ancient city of Palmyra is an attempt to reduce history to a mere digital memory, the epistemological equivalent of a LOLCats meme or a Vine prank.
Welcome to Alphaville, Avoid the Ghetto
Jan 13, 2012 The world we see through our smartphones is a curated world, and its horizons are constricting, rather than expanding. The world we see through our smartphones is a curated world, and its horizons are constricting, rather than expanding.
‘This Is What We Do’: Why I Hated Chrysler’s Super Bowl Ad
Feb 10, 2011 The Super Bowl commercial is a shell game. Detroit’s pain isn’t the result of some existential crisis of faith, but a direct consequence of the amoral, profit-seeking behaviors of Chrysler itself.Unlike most of the Super Bowl's 111 million viewers, judging by the effusive tidal wave of tweeted praise that attended its airing, I did not love the new Chrysler ad. In fact, I hated it.
‘Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture’
Aug 28, 2010 From that moment during the Renaissance when someone first decided that a painter was more than just a craftsman with an easel, the whole idea of the Artist-with-a-capital-A has required an entire mythology just to make it seem plausible.The line separating artists from their audience has always been a bit blurry.
E-Speech: The (Uncertain) Future of Free Expression
Oct 29, 2008 As tools like the Web, e-mail, voice over IP, Internet video, mobile phones and peer-to-peer file sharing become increasingly vital to our lives, limitations on speech and threats to our privacy are becoming increasingly important civil rights issues.
Pin the Flag on Liberty
Jul 5, 2008