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Less than half the population in England and Wales now describe themselves as Christians.
Scott Aaronson on AI text and image generators: “Speaking personally, the last time I had a similar feeling was when I was an adolescent in 1993 and I saw this niche new thing called the World Wide Web, and I was like ‘why isn’t everyone using this? why isn’t it changing the world?’ The answer, of course, was that within a couple of years it would.”
Sam Kriss: “[Marvel’s] Wakanda is a little like North Korea: this sealed-off coup-prone hermit kingdom with a big pile of weapons and a chip on its shoulder. It’s also a little like Israel: a small, rich, advanced, and highly militarised state in a geopolitical trouble zone, spying on the Americans whenever it feels the need, repeatedly denounced by the UN, but counting on the assumed support of ‘its’ diaspora if it ever gets into trouble. It’s even a little like Britain, with its armed forces that are simply nowhere near as effective as it seems to believe […]. Most of all, though, the Marvel version is simply America. In the first film the dilemma facing Wakanda is whether it should remain in haughty isolation or ‘involve’ itself in the world for the world’s general betterment. This is not a real question for any country in a globalised age, but the only country where people can even think like this is the United States.”
