An AI rejects him for life insurance, Mitch wonders if he can escape his fate

A thought-provoking, experimental animation on what it means for a supposedly ‘objective’ AI to predict an early death | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Virtual ancient Rome: walking from the Colosseum to the Forum

Take a guided stroll around a digitally reconstructed ancient Rome in the 4th century CE, from the Colosseum to the Forum - by Aeon Video Watch at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

What is a law of nature?

Laws of nature are impossible to break, and nearly as difficult to define. Just what kind of necessity do they possess? - by Marc Lange Read at Aeon | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

My God, it’s full of stars

A poetic ode to Hubble celebrates humanity’s yearning to know the cosmos, and a daughter’s love for her scientist-father | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Modular cognition

Powerful tricks from computer science and cybernetics show how evolution ‘hacked’ its way to intelligence from the bottom up | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The Black cop: a villain, a victim and a hero

From a victim of the police to its officer: what happened when a gay Black man joined a racist, homophobic institution | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Views from everywhere

Academic philosophy can indeed make sense of our interdependent world. But only if it transforms by becoming truly diverse | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Brainwashing is a red flag for technotherapy

The Cold War roots of psychiatric brainwashing are a warning for users of wellness apps and future therapy innovations | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The parentified child

When parents cast a child into the role of mediator, friend and carer, the wounds are profound. But recovery is possible | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The infamous overpopulation bet

How a $1,000 scholarly bet between a biologist and an economist shifted the way the world understood population growth | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Dashing to nowhere

D H Lawrence’s restless travels in Sardinia were a quest for self-knowledge. The real island slipped beneath his notice | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

‘Perfection is for the gods,’ and this sculptor gets to a thousandth of an inch

A meditative window into the world of the sculptor Mark Firth whose life is dedicated to creating precision in metal forms | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Precision as a state of mind

A meditative window into the world of the sculptor Mark Firth whose life is dedicated to creating precision in metal forms | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

We must not own animals

We will never truly advance our ethical relationship with other animals until we stop treating them as chattels for use | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

We must not own animals

We will never truly advance our ethical relationship with other animals until we stop treating them as chattels for use | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The many disguises of Australian walking sticks

The evolutionary benefits of an undercover life: meet the stick insect that disguises itself as a seed, an ant and a leaf | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The many disguises of Australian walking sticks

The evolutionary benefits of an undercover life: meet the stick insect that disguises itself as a seed, an ant and a leaf | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The turbulent brain

Energy flow between brain and environment drives the non-equilibrium that sustains life. Could turbulence help us thrive? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The happiest guy in the world

Meet the world’s only full-time cruiser, ‘Super Mario’ Salcedo, who has spent more than two decades living on cruise ships | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Contaminated kinship

If your hometown were beset with toxic dust, like Australia’s Broken Hill, would you feel any less connected to it? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The Power of Water

Far more potent than oil or gold, water is a stream of geopolitical force that runs deep, feeding crops and building nations | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Souvenir souvenir

His grandfather’s role in the Algerian War of Independence is a mystery that sets Bastien’s imagination in search of the truth | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Inside ambiguity

We are suspended between the inescapable facts of our lives and what we do to contest them, nowhere more than in prison | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The Bombay highway code

‘Horn OK please’: a postcard from Mumbai, a city of 20 million, where there’s poetry in simply getting from A to B | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The love story story

Neither psychology nor anthropology fully understand love: only history sees that it’s all about the time and the telling | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

High crimes and cabals

The official definition of corruption – the abuse of public office for private gain – does little to capture the reality | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The gallery that destroys all shame

A radical sex-ed class, aimed at normalising the vulva, reveals what many must learn and unlearn in order to love their bodies | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Blackfella boxes

From kinship systems to environmental lore, Indigenous philosophy could help reprogram the cultural code of AI | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Bertrand’s Paradox

The principle of indifference has an unresolved paradox at its core that goes right to the heart of scientific objectivity | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Bertrand’s paradox

The principle of indifference has an unresolved paradox at its core that goes right to the heart of scientific objectivity | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The power of water

Far more potent than oil or gold, water is a stream of geopolitical force that runs deep, feeding crops and building nations | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Deal breakers

‘Please act normal and wash your armpit’: dating pet peeves that 20something art students won’t overlook (but will animate) | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Why won’t we talk about the tradeoffs of the lockdown?

A bioethicist at the heart of the Italian coronavirus crisis asks: why won’t we talk about the tradeoffs of the lockdown? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Fringe Theories Stack

Believe in the Loch Ness monster and you’re more likely to believe the Apollo missions were fake. How do weird beliefs work? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The Dropout: A History

The dropout was not just a hippy-trippy hedonist but a paranoid soul, who feared brainwashing and societal control | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

History from Below (2021)

What shaped the thought of E P Thompson, the great historian of ordinary working people and champion of their significance? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Jeff Tollaksen: quantum mechanics experiments

A professor of physics explains how mind-bending quantum experiments are blurring the line between past, present and future | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Fringe theories stack

Believe in the Loch Ness monster and you’re more likely to believe the Apollo missions were fake. How do weird beliefs work? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Museum, 1972

A historic peek behind the scenes at museums in New York, Harvard and Washington shows what it takes to bring exhibits to life | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Nefertiti’s bust

How did this ancient and enigmatic sculpture of a beautiful Egyptian queen end up as fortune’s hostage in Germany? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The chimney swift

A harrowing, hand-drawn animation exploring the perilous life of a child chimney sweep in 19th-century London | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

How to restore a savanna

Massive tree-planting programmes have come to substitute for the tradeoffs and complexity of restoring real ecosystems | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists

Incentives, rewards, bonuses and bonding experiences – Roman slaveowners were the first management theorists | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The Philosopher’s Zombie

The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The philosopher’s zombie

The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

Forever

A thought-provoking, experimental animation on what it means for a supposedly ‘objective’ AI to predict an early death | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

The dropout: a history

The dropout was not just a hippy-trippy hedonist but a paranoid soul, who feared brainwashing and societal control | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago

When will economists embrace the quantum revolution?

Financial markets are entangled and uncertain. When will economists let go of physics envy to embrace the quantum revolution? | Continue reading


@aeon.co | 2 years ago