A Question of Melatonin, Vitamin D, and Ariane Purity
Ten thousand years ago, Europeans had dark skin and blue eyes. Modern genetics has debunked the myth of Aryan purity: pale skin is merely a simple metabolic expedient for synthesizing vitamin D.
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The stress test of certainties (and the art of having your ideas demolished)
I have an uncomfortable, almost obsessive habit. I take a belief of mine—one I consider solid, well-formed, almost definitive—I place it on the workbench and start hitting it with a ten-pound sledgehammer. No holds barred. I dismantle it screw by screw, pour the solvent of doubt over it, smash it to pieces…
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Assholes always float. Archimedes applied to politics.
7:01 AM. The moka pot has just drawn its last raspy breath, the cup steams on the table, and the radio begins spewing its daily dose of low-frequency poison. The morning news. Fifteen minutes of pure noise disguised as civil debate. The voices of anyone with a microphone within reach: majority, opposition, center,…
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Apocalypse 2030: If Artificial Intelligence Kills Us, We've Only Helped It
This morning, a cup of hot black coffee in hand and the usual feed spewing yet another gospel of terror. The Silicon Valley gurus and a handful of scientists with high-profile professorships have dropped the bombshell: by 2030, there's a 20% probability that Artificial Intelligence will wipe the human race off the face of the earth. 20%….
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From Ramesses II to the New Pharaohs: 3,000 Years Without Changing a Thing
I have a terrible doubt. Are we really the most evolved species on the planet, or are we just primates with a fiber optic subscription and a desperate desire to be fooled? Take three minutes. Take a deep breath and come with me on a journey into the past. The year was 1274 BC. Orontes Valley, Syria. Battle of…
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Those who don't want to do anything (while we dismantle their future)
Scroll through your feed. Three seconds on a video of kittens, two on a clumsy dance generated by yet another algorithm hungry for cheap dopamine. Then, as punctual as a tax bill on August 15th, there it is: the archaeologist's comment about "things were better back then," strictly from the couch, with a secure profile and halting grammar. "Young people today no longer have…
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Facebook & Co.: towards the end of the social Wild West?
For over twenty years, we've been sold on the fairy tale of the global village. We were told that the internet would be the perfect place to exchange enlightened opinions, cultivate relationships, and share snippets of life. We woke up with hypertrophic thumbs, the attention span of goldfish, and a subtle tachycardia at every phantom notification. We believed…
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Men of yesteryear: nostalgia for what, exactly?
I was listening to a popular podcast, one of those well-made ones: smart people, pace, observations that occasionally make you pause while you're doing something else. At a certain point, one of the hosts—a person I respect for her intelligence and acumen—said a phrase as old as my grandmother's cream-colored refrigerator: "There's no…
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Dancing the Apocalypse (With the Air Conditioner on Full blast)
You're sweating over the umpteenth track of your epic five-act concerto. Your brain is smoking, Logic Pro is crunching data, and you're trying to fit the elegance of a string quartet into a wall of power death metal sound without it sounding like a car crash. You want to take the time to craft the perfect piece. You want to create beauty. And...
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The Bully can't be defeated with a fist (but sometimes it would be so satisfying...)
There's a specific moment when civilization stops working. It comes when you realize that dialogue is a performance, words bouncing off a rubber wall, and on the other end there's someone smiling because they know perfectly well there's nothing you can do about it. In that moment, anywhere in the world...
