A journal defending science and technology for, not on, human beings| The New Atlantis
A reply to Katherine Boyle's “The Great Tech–Family Alliance”| The New Atlantis
The disconnect between what technologists say they are doing and the effects on society of what they in fact do has long been a rich source of fodder for social observers and technology critics. Katherine Boyle’s recent remarks on the family and technology offer yet another example of the practice. In her efforts to craft a narrative of technology as potential handmaiden to the American family, she begins by contrasting the family with the state. This is an artful dodge, as her invocation o...| The New Atlantis
A reply to Katherine Boyle's “The Great Tech–Family Alliance”| The New Atlantis
On February 24, The New Atlantis co-hosted the event “Dignity and Dynamism: The Future of Conservative Technology Policy” at the American Enterprise Institute. In the event’s keynote address, Katherine Boyle, a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and cofounder of its American Dynamism practice, made the case for a new alliance between the tech industry and the family against the overweening power of the state: We are now living through a generational politica...| The New Atlantis
A reply to Katherine Boyle's “The Great Tech–Family Alliance”| The New Atlantis
North America's electrical system is a miracle, but also kind of a mess. Blackout is always closer than you think.| The New Atlantis
Charles C. Mann is a science journalist and the author of the bestsellers 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005) and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), as well as The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018).| The New Atlantis
Why the future needs more people willing to be duped| The New Atlantis
We know how to produce clean water. Why don't we have enough of it?| The New Atlantis
Fertilization, irrigation, genetics: the three practices that let us feed the whole world for the first time in history| The New Atlantis
A series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life — and what happens if we don’t maintain them| The New Atlantis
Introducing “How the System Works,” a series on the hidden mechanisms that support modern life| The New Atlantis
Debates over science and technology are too often confined to narrow questions. We offer our readers a space in which they can think directly about fundamental questions of morality and meaning.| The New Atlantis
She looked her age — 27, startlingly close to my own age. Did we share acquaintances or friends of friends? She fixed her hair in a ponytail and wore jeans and a collared shirt with a sweater, a preppy and youthful fashion statement consistent with her budding career as an architect. Polite but slightly withdrawn she looked uncomfortable, out of place. And indeed she was. No one had ever been sick in her immediate family. The hospital felt strange. She exercised daily and strictly adhered t...| The New Atlantis
Neil Postman was right. So what?| The New Atlantis
Alan Jacobs offers an aphoristic critique of social media, commentary, and our credulity before algorithms| The New Atlantis
How online life breaks the old political order| The New Atlantis
Social media is a throwback, combining the worst of prior eras of communication.| The New Atlantis
Tara Isabella Burton on Silicon Valley’s Endarkenment| The New Atlantis
Erik P. Hoel on how today’s novelists cope with their HBO anxiety| The New Atlantis
Silicon Valley will only be strengthened by its present scandals unless we ask deeper questions, writes L. M. Sacasas| The New Atlantis
Documents show how MAID helps the poor and disabled to a “beautiful” death| The New Atlantis
Dispatches from a medical mission| The New Atlantis
Her oncologist sent her in to the emergency room. The diagnosis was metastatic gallbladder cancer aggressively invading her liver, resulting in liver failure. I went down to the emergency room to see her. She only spoke Bengali, so every conversation required a phone interpreter. As I walked up to the patient’s bed I immediately noticed her jaundiced skin. Bilirubin, or breakdown products of red blood cells, above a certain level causes a yellowing of the eyes, the gums, and the skin where ...| The New Atlantis
In war, those with their lives yet to be lived are also those most urgently needed to fight. It is one of the tragic ironies of conflict. In the U.S. Civil War, the average soldier was 26 and approximately 620,000 soldiers died. In World War I, over 2 million German soldiers died, and 40 percent of German combatants were between 21 and 25 years old. In the Vietnam War, 58,193 American servicemen died — approximately 24 percent of those killed were 20, and roughly 17 percent of those kille...| The New Atlantis
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, hospital administrators behaved as cautiously as possible to avoid transmission and dissemination of the virus. They strictly limited or eliminated hospital visitors. This was one of the most devastating policies enacted by healthcare institutions. As a consequence, not only were patients left without family at their bedside to advocate for them, but they were, alas, left without family at bedside to say goodbye to them as they passed. Families neede...| The New Atlantis
The effervescent rays of sunshine spread their warmth across my back as I walk along Omaha Beach in Normandy. French children kick around a soccer ball, shouting and giggling across a fifty-yard stretch of sand. A tranquil ocean extends into the horizon, effortlessly mingling with the sky making it impossible to tell where one starts and the other ends. Looking out across the serene water, I imagine June 6, 1944 and the chaos that once enveloped these beaches. The young American soldiers land...| The New Atlantis
“I just want to run this case by you,” the emergency room doctor at the other hospital told me on the phone. We frequently get these calls from other hospitals. Smaller emergency rooms with fewer resources often don’t know what to do in complex situations. After all, scientific literature in medical subspecialties changes rapidly and for a non-specialist these cases offer difficult conundrums. Moreover, smaller institutions don’t have access to specialists around the clock. Consequent...| The New Atlantis
From 1665 to 1666, the Great Plague spread through London. Caused by a bacteria transmitted by the bite of a rat flea, it killed nearly a quarter of London’s population in the span of 18 months. Such a deadly conflagration must have seemed strange and terrifying to its victims; there was no germ theory to explain its spread, and the bacteria wasn’t even discovered until the late 19th century. Lack of understanding must have greatly amplified the terror caused by the symptoms: fevers,...| The New Atlantis
We admitted the patient to our service from the emergency room to treat her for thrombocytopenia (an abnormally low platelet count) and spontaneous bruising. The patient, in her fifties, was otherwise healthy. True, she had been treated for stomach cancer nearly seven years ago, but it was in remission and had been for a while. She had no issues eating or drinking, no problems going to the bathroom, no blood in her stool, no vomiting, no bloating, no severe acid reflux. In other words, she ha...| The New Atlantis
I remember my first encounter with great literature. Before bedtime, my father would read Great Expectations to me, using different voices for different characters. I remember Pip and Miss Havisham, though I don’t think I fully understood Miss Havisham’s peremptory and eery commandment to Pip to love Stella. I remember the stygian scene with the convict in the graveyard. I also remember reading Sherlock Holmes under my covers, enamored with his brilliance and the game that was afoot. I re...| The New Atlantis
Nicholas Carr on bringing America's spirit of the common good to online governance| The New Atlantis
