Gideon Lewis-Kraus

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Gideon Lewis-Kraus

The internet—it seemed like such a good idea at the time. Under conditions of informational poverty, our ancestors had no choice but to operate on a need-to-know basis. The absence of pertinent, reliable, and commonly held facts was at first a matter of mere logistics—the stable storage and orderly transfer of knowledge was costly and troublesome, and entropy was free—but, over time, the techniques of civilization afforded us better control over the collection and transmission of data.

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Gideon Lewis-Kraus

Nathan Fielder, like Andy Kaufman before him, makes performance-art comedy that does not only poke fun at the world but experimentally perturbs it, and he plies this trade in the buffer zone between reality and artifice. He presents himself as something of a Kaspar Hauser figure for the age of artificial intelligence, a foundling raised not by wolves but by an advanced and affectless race of extraterrestrial anthropologists. His object is to isolate and mimic the rudiments of human sociability.

1 month ago | wired.jp | Gideon Lewis-Kraus

2014年春、トランスジェンダーでアナーキストのグーグルエンジニアが、米国の衰退を食い止めるための請願をホワイトハウスに提出した。提案された計画は簡潔で、「1. すべての公務員を年金全額支給付きで退職させる。 2. 行政の権限をテック業界に移す。 3.

Feb 24, 2025 | businessandamerica.com | Gideon Lewis-Kraus

“The Population Bomb” transformed regional unease into a global panic. India, in less than two years, subjected millions of citizens to compulsory sterilization. China rolled out a series of initiatives—culminating in the infamous one-child policy—that included punitive fines, obligatory IUD insertions, and unwanted abortions. Ehrlich can hardly be blamed for the most coercive incarnations of population control. He might, however, be accused of impeccable comic timing.

Feb 24, 2025 | newyorker.com | Gideon Lewis-Kraus

“The Population Bomb” transformed regional unease into a global panic. India, in less than two years, subjected millions of citizens to compulsory sterilization. China rolled out a series of initiatives—culminating in the infamous one-child policy—that included punitive fines, obligatory IUD insertions, and unwanted abortions. Ehrlich can hardly be blamed for the most coercive incarnations of population control. He might, however, be accused of impeccable comic timing.