Contributors
How Much Is Your Face Worth?
If someone walked up to me on the street and offered me $5 to take a picture of my face, I’d probably say yes. Wouldn’t you? Google has been doing just this for the past few weeks. Lately, people describe being approached at random to trade their face data for a $5...
Broken Code: The Vandalism of Shalom
Coders play a glorified role in our society. They are makers-of-worlds. To see your code spring to life is a wonderful, exhilarating experience. Coders know what this feels like. This creative power inspires altruism in the hacker ethic. It also contributes to...
Of Internet Trolls and the Tower of Babel
Chloe is training for, arguably, the internet’s most difficult job: full-time content moderator — aka “process executive” — for Facebook (though actually employed by a subcontractor named Cognizant). A key part of the training has involved trying to harden herself...
Facing the Flood of Intelligence
The biblical story of the Fall, when Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden for having made the choice (however persuaded) to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, exposed humanity’s innate hunger for knowledge. Since then humans have been on an...
Playing in the Cybernetic Meadow
“I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky.” — Richard Brautigan In his 1967 poem, “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving...
Sin and the Tragedy of Techno-Utopianism
“It’s never going to go to zero.” So says Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s chief technology officer, in a New York Times interview. “It” is the on-going stream of hate, malicious messaging and bad behavior that Facebook’s platform promulgates. Schroepfer is simply being...