The insights of those who critique power have been exhausted long ago—while power itself endures. Instead, let’s try on a completely different philosophy of politics.

As Indian Americans continue their socioeconomic ascent, the relevance of caste evaporates. Yet researchers have found evidence this social technology was sustained for thousands of years.

We have to evaluate the perceptions that mint facts and theory, not merely peruse the body of theories handed down to us.

The United States has fulfilled the ancient dream of universal hegemony. This first world government won’t be the last.

Small and peripheral European countries won’t solve their stagnation with open borders and more extractive economics.

Our species must change its values to match the technical capability of our civilization. The time has come to treat aging as the tractable public health issue it is.

New findings and genetic evidence suggest that people came to America more than 30,000 years ago, before the peak of the last ice age.

Educational and military systems can work together to let the most competent people rise to the top of society.

The folk popularity of pirates embarrassed central authorities and gave us show trials, procedural manipulation, and state-run PR campaigns.

Contractualism can’t meet every human need. In order to thrive, we must rebalance.

The artist shares her thoughts on human civilization, the universe, and the dawn of artificial intelligence.

It is impossible to align artificial intelligence because agency is inherently unstable. A post-human world will be less unified than you think.

Alliances of families built the impersonal organizations that now regulate society. Only new alliances can replace them.

The genomics revolution has shown us our barbaric past. It now also forces us to decide our future.

Dreams of aligned AI give up too much agency to the machine, and assume “human values” are more stable than they are.