Tag: technology - Nowtopian

“Things Are in the Saddle, and Ride Mankind”

So said Ralph Waldo Emerson in the middle of the nineteenth century. As we proceed into the glowering gloom of the coming years, I always find it helpful—if not refreshing exactly—to place things in historic context. But also to recognize that there have been deep systemic paradigm shifts again and again—and those shifts don’t come […]

War Is the Air We Breathe

I’m sitting in an old 1830s farmhouse near the border between New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It’s over 90° and quite humid, as it has been since I arrived five days ago. It seems the heat wave will only intensify in the next days. I spent a lot of time here in the 1980s and early […]

Silicon Valley: A Living History

Googlers Against Genocide, several dozen of whom were fired recently after some inspiring protests mounted in and against their venal employer.

Malcolm Harris’s remarkable book, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism and the World, is not only one of the best histories of California anyone has written, he’s also a fantastic writer. […]