Nick Bostrom www.nickbostrom.com Journal of Medical Ethics , 2005, Vol. 31, No. 5, pp 273-277 [Also available as pdf , mp3 ] [translations: Chinese , Czech , Dutch , Finnish, French , German , Greek H
W hat would it have been like to live in Babel in the days after its destruction? In the Book of Genesis, we are told that the descendants of Noah built a great city in the land of Shinar. They built
In 1948 German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson that the German people were in a state of "mental instability." If the IMF had been present, it would have concluded
One day in August 2021, Zhao Wei disappeared. For one of China’s best-known actresses to physically vanish from public view would have been enough to cause a stir on its own. But Zhao’s disappearing a
People ask me about processes all the time. Planning processes, performance review processes, OKRs, et cetera. I think it’s because I was once a COO and people have this vision of COOs as process fien
As NATO meets to discuss the tension on the Russian border to Ukraine, and the papers fill with denunciations of Putin’s aggression, I still find it useful to return to the framework I developed in Cr
The following essay originally appeared in print in Palladium 04. To receive original content in future print editions, subscribe here . I quit my engineering job in 2014. I was good at it and it was
(This piece is my year in review; here’s my letter from 2020 ) I’ve by now lived in each of China’s main megaregions. It is time to make assessments. Everything that can go wrong in urban design has g
It’s like a riddle, but the answer isn’t funny: Q: What’s worse than a virus leaking from a lab , disrupting the life of everyone on the planet, and causing the deaths of millions (equivalent to 39 Hi
One more step Please complete the security check to access Why do I have to complete a CAPTCHA? Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What c
The Inner Ring By C. S. Lewis* May I read you a few lines from Tolstoy’s War and Peace ? When Boris entered the room, Prince Andrey was listening to an old general, wearing his decorations, who was re
Ellsworth Ausby, Hey, That Nice, Uh!, 1970. Courtesy Eric Firestone Gallery We talk for hours, over many months and across two continents. He is in the throes of a turbulent summer, first due to a soc
The Geneva Freeport, which may be the world’s most valuable storage facility, consists of seven beige warehouses and a large grain silo in La Praille, an industrial zone a short tram ride from the cit
In 2006, i was 50 —and I was falling apart. Until then, I had always known exactly who I was: an exceptionally fortunate and happy woman, full of irrational exuberance and everyday joy. I knew who I w
Over 15 years ago, I took my first device-free, silent, solitude experience. 15 years and 100s of “solos” later, I can say the following with confidence: If I could give any bit of advice to my younge
I’m in Seattle through the end of September and would love to meet up with y'all (especially those of you working in energy, synthetic biology, or robotics). Decarbonization Emitting CO2 is bad and a
I had the pleasure of stumbling upon the work of Michael Crow, Arizona State University’s president, earlier this year, and I so enjoyed his thoughts on knowledge production that I immediately wondere
Photo Credit It’s long past graduation season, but we recently learned that George Saunders delivered the convocation speech at Syracuse University for the class of 2013, and George was kind enough to
The von Neumann Essays This story is also available on Kindle ! “Most mathematicians prove what they can, von Neumann proves what he wants” It is indeed supremely difficult to effectively refute the c
Adjust Share E XT. 8TH STREET—LATE AFTERNOON (C. 1959). CAMERA IN NONSTOP MOTION is on the shoulder of a young man, late teens, intently walking west on a busy Greenwich Village thoroughfare. Under on
This is my super secret proprietary no-nonsense guide on how to interview engineers. Another guide? Yes, because today's interviews are filled with posturing, political correctness, and small socially
When I begun my journey with Gibbon I knew two things: that he was one of the great stylists of the English language, and that he had a silly monocausal theory blaming Christianity for the fall of the
Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks (Melissa Golden, Redux) For the record, here is University of Pennsylvania’s Baccalaureate Address by David Brooks, an author and New York Times colu
On a summer day in the San Joaquin Valley, 101 in the shade, I merge onto Highway 99 past downtown Fresno and steer through the vibrations of heat. I’m headed to the valley’s deep south, to a little f
In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Alt
In a corner of Panorama Bar, the upstairs venue of the Berlin night club Berghain, there is a large, unlit photograph of the back of a throat—one of three photos by the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans
WHEN DOES EDUCATION STOP? by James Michener, 1962 During the summer vacationa fine-looking young man, who was majoring in literature at a topuniversity, asked for an interview, and before we had talke
Submit a letter: Email us letters@nybooks.com Books drawn on for this article: Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream by Suzanne Mettler Basic Books,
Illustration by Jaime Hernandez A long time has passed since I started running on an everyday basis. Specifically, it was the fall of 1982. I was thirty-three then. Not long before that, I was the own
AT THE CORNER of 8th and Market in San Francisco, by a shuttered subway escalator outside a Burger King, an unusual soundtrack plays. A beige speaker, mounted atop a tall window, blasts Baroque harpsi
Save video History of technology Master cartography and mythical creatures – the world according to the Catalan Atlas 8 minutes Save video Mood and emotion A century of letters captures the emotions o
A merica is in the grips of a speculative frenzy. Investment bankers, private investment firms, and even a few dozen recently graduated MBAs labelling themselves “searchers” are calling, emailing, win
Be the first employee at the next Airbnb, Stripe, or Coinbase. Apply to top YC startups with a single profile and connect directly with founders through YC’s Work at a Startup. Vanta Software Engineer
During a trip to Tokyo last week, I made a little pilgrimage to the city’s Tama cemetery to pay my respects to an old acquaintance who died recently. Outside Japanese financial circles, the name Katsu
The University of Göttingen, in Germany, owns one of the world’s rarest books: an intact Gutenberg Bible. When Gerhard Steidl, a printer and publisher of photography books, was growing up in Göttingen
Constantin Alajalov, cover for The Saturday Evening Post, February 12, 1949 Most nights, before I go to bed, I sneak into the room where my infant son sleeps, steal across the floor, and kill the wire
"Ettore Sottsass: Work in Progress," photo by Luca Fregoso When I was very small, a little boy of five or six years old, I was certainly no infant prodigy, but I did do drawings with houses, with vase
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 Let’s don’t be alarmist. The most important week in American financial history since the Great Depression began at 8 A.M . on a Friday in the middle of September last year. I have
The Money Management Gospel of Yale’s Endowment Guru Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. A portrait of Mr. Swensen at
Audio brought to you by Curio , a Lapham’s Quarterly partner H artwick College didn’t really mean to annihilate the U.S. economy. A small liberal-arts school in the Catskills, Hartwick is the kind of