Learning All Around Us For a long time, I’ve been thinking about ritual. Whether it is kneeling before entering a pew or pointing to the sky when we run a yellow light, ritual stands as... Read More

Most all designs and objects, tools and physical items that are made are tagged with a serial number or barcode to show their origin and maker or to describe their function. We use this technology... Read More

The quest for truth and meaning has propelled my journey, my improbable journey from religion to ethical humanism. I am a first-generation humanist. My parents were born into a traditional religious setting, but later embraced... Read More

When Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution, he could not have envisioned the potential game-changing role technology could play in human evolution. Yet, 166 years and four revolutions later, his theory of evolution tells... Read More

Once upon a time, in 1981, America decided to run an experiment on itself. Not a scientific experiment with controls and ethics committees, but the other kind, the kind where a nation trusts a story... Read More

Keep your superintelligence. The real danger is quieter: a kind of polished thoughtlessness, the production of outputs that feel increasingly less owned. I don’t fear a machine that can outthink me; I worry about a... Read More

Something I’ve seen emerge - particularly since Trump was elected to a second term - is a form of civic participation I would best describe as sticker discourse. In Chicago, the city I live in,... Read More