How Online Mobs Act Like Flocks Of Birds
By Renée DiResta in Noema: You’ve probably seen it: a flock of starlings pulsing in the evening sky, swirling this way and that, feinting right, veering left. The flock gets
An Environmental Arms Race Might Further Encourage an Actual Arms Race
What if the 10 countries that grow 69% of the world’s wheat collaborated to impose floors and ceilings on this vital cereal? As the climate warms, the lessons of sanctions and
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Xi’s Intensive Meetings With World Leaders at G20 Summit in Bali
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with a number of foreign leaders – including some from US allies and major developing economies – on the first day of the G20 Leaders’
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Hyperintelligence: Art, AI, and the Limits of Cognition
by Jochen Szangolies: On May 11, 1997, chess computer Deep Blue dealt then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov a decisive defeat, marking the first time a computer system was able to
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May 9, 2018 جھٹکے پہ جھٹکا
ارشاد سلیم، کراچی کئی مرتبہ اسرار کرنے کے بعد میں نے فیصلہ کیا کہ میں 9 مئی 2018 کو فیریئر حال میں ہونے والے مشاورتی کانفرنس میں شرکت کروں گا
AI uses artificial sleep to learn new task without forgetting the last
Many AIs can only become good at one task, forgetting everything they know if they learn another. A form of artificial sleep could help stop this from happening Jeremy Hsu
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The Puzzle of Working Class Politics Around the World
by Pranab Bardhan: The recent spectacular rise of extreme right-wing parties in Italy and Sweden and the squeaking narrow victory of Lula in Brazil have revived the puzzle that in
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Moderation Is Different From Censorship
Scott Alexander in Astral Codex Ten: This is a point I keep seeing people miss in the debate about social media. Moderation is the normal business activity of ensuring that your
Are Trees Talking Underground? For Scientists, It’s in Dispute.
From Ted Lasso to TED Talks, the theory of the “wood-wide web” is everywhere, and some scientists argue that it is overblown and unproven. However, because the wood-wide net has
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How Killing Sparrows Led to Great Famines in China (VIDEO)
In 1958, Mao Zedong ordered all the sparrows to be killed because they ate too much grain… Read more here. Honorary contributors to DesPardes: Adil Khan, Ajaz Ahmed, Anwar Abbas,
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Why Aesthetic Value Should Take Priority Over Moral Value
Aesthetic value is a catch-all term that encompasses the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the dramatic, the comic, the cute, the kitsch, the uncanny, and many other related concepts. It
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Rana Begum’s Public Artwork: Interplay of light, form, nature, architecture
The ambitious, site-specific installations No.1187 Mesh and No. 1193 Mesh by Rana Begum (born 1977 in Sylhet, Bangladesh), commissioned by the Moody Center for the Arts, push the material and
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