Noema Magazine
@noemamag.com
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Longform journalism exploring fresh ideas. Pitch us:
[email protected]
pinned post!
Settle in with some fantastic reading 📚
www.noemamag.com/noemas-top-1...
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Noema’s Top 10 Reads Of 2025 | NOEMA
Our best longform journalism and essays from 2025.
https://www.noemamag.com/noemas-top-10-reads-of-2025/
about 2 months ago
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“Chemical systems that do not meet our criteria for what it means to be ‘alive’ exhibit a surprising array of behaviors we usually only attribute to things we think of as living.” —
@ConorFeehly.bsky.social
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The Surprisingly Lifelike Behavior Of Mindless Material | NOEMA
New ways of studying the origin of life are leading to a better understanding of consciousness and the mind.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-surprisingly-lifelike-behavior-of-mindless-material/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
1 day ago
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“Think of satellites, soil probes, buoys & bioacoustics as ‘nerve endings’ that take in information, the ‘reflexes’ are machine forecasts that fire on patterns at speed, & the ‘cortex’ is human intuition, integrating senses to understand what matters & why.” —Rimma Boshernitsan
#planetary
#ai
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Our Emerging Planetary Nervous System | NOEMA
We need a new kind of wisdom for our planetary age, one that synchronizes the signals, rhythms and boundaries of our natural world across domains.
https://www.noemamag.com/our-emerging-planetary-nervous-system/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
2 days ago
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Our gravest AI risk isn't runaway superintelligence but our cultural readiness to surrender collective judgment to algorithmic systems, Andrew Sorota argues.
www.noemamag.com/rescuing-dem...
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Rescuing Democracy From The Quiet Rule Of AI | NOEMA
Our gravest AI risk isn’t runaway superintelligence but our cultural readiness to surrender collective judgment to algorithmic systems.
https://www.noemamag.com/rescuing-democracy-from-the-quiet-rule-of-ai/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
3 days ago
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We are starting to witness tantalizing glimpses of the net good that can be achieved via genetic editing. How far will we allow it to go? Aryn Baker explores.
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Editing Nature To Fix Our Failures | NOEMA
Gene editing may enable us to prevent a species from ever becoming extinct in the first place. But should we?
https://www.noemamag.com/editing-nature-to-fix-our-failures/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
4 days ago
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Europe needs to stop pretending it's a neutral market in a world where digital infrastructure is geopolitical,
@francescabria.bsky.social
writes. It should act like what it is: a political project with a democratic mission.
www.noemamag.com/reclaiming-e...
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Reclaiming Europe’s Digital Sovereignty | NOEMA
Europe can accept permanent technological dependency, or it can build democratic digital systems rooted in climate commitments, labor protections and social diversity.
https://www.noemamag.com/reclaiming-europes-digital-sovereignty/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
5 days ago
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Noema Magazine
s. e. smith
6 days ago
Lush multimedia feature on yak herding, preserving ways of life, and a future on climate change.
@noemamag.com
always has such fantastic work.
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The Last Yak Herder Of Ladakh | NOEMA
As glaciers melt and traditions fade, one man’s journey across Ladakh’s sacred pastures is a living archive of a disappearing way of life.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-yak-herder-of-ladakh/
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“I never imagined that America would reach a point where our constitutional protections are teetering because the latest innovations in technology are converging with demagogic politics to corrode the institutional checks & balances by which republics endure.” —Editor-In-Chief Nathan Gardels
#ice
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Where There Is Connectivity There Is Surveillance | NOEMA
The immigration crackdown in the U.S. opens the gates to a monitory state just as Covid tracing did in China.
https://www.noemamag.com/where-there-is-connectivity-there-is-surveillance/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
6 days ago
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Noema Magazine
The Syllabus
6 days ago
Global climate efforts are failing because they do not tackle the power imbalance between fossil and green asset owners. This piece unpacks how fossil fuel elites exploit weak global rules to protect profits, stalling decarbonization. By
@greenprofgreen.bsky.social
in
@noemamag.com
buff.ly/vmfb9sx
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It’s Time To Target The Political Power Of Polluters | NOEMA
We won’t make progress on decarbonization until we rein in the power of fossil fuel asset owners and invest in green assets. Tax and investment policy can help.
https://www.noemamag.com/its-time-to-target-the-political-power-of-polluters
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Nils Gilman
7 days ago
As Oliver Wendell Holmes said of William James: "turning the lights down low so as to give miracle a chance...."
add a skeleton here at some point
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“Without the cultivated, meaning-laden, embodied intuition of the human scientist who is instinctively driven to ask questions about the nature of the world, AI systems remain rudderless when they enter the realms of uncertainty.” —
@conorfeehly.bsky.social
#ai
#science
#scientificdiscoveries
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Why Human Intuition Is Still Science’s Greatest Tool In The Age Of AI | NOEMA
Our sense for aesthetics, meaning and embodiment give us a vital advantage over our technological creations.
https://www.noemamag.com/why-human-intuition-is-still-sciences-greatest-tool-in-the-age-of-ai/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
7 days ago
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“Emmanuel Macron, J.D. Vance & Berlin artist collectives may seem like unlikely allies, but they all agree that Europe’s ‘regulate first, build later (maybe)’ approach to AI is not working.” —Benjamin Bratton
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Is European AI A Lost Cause? Not Necessarily. | NOEMA
If Europe wants to build a new AI Stack it should stop listening to critics who claim to lead the way but only offer resistance.
https://www.noemamag.com/is-european-ai-a-lost-cause-not-necessarily/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
8 days ago
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“This is a slow erasure, a death without spectacle: ‘We are disappearing without being noticed,’” Thinlay Nurboo, a yak herder, told us.” —Sajad Hameed & Rehan Qayoom Mir
#climatechange
#india
#pastoralism
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The Last Yak Herder Of Ladakh | NOEMA
As glaciers melt and traditions fade, one man’s journey across Ladakh’s sacred pastures is a living archive of a disappearing way of life.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-yak-herder-of-ladakh/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
9 days ago
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“The integration of AI into education is no longer hypothetical — it is well underway.” Let’s use it to shape students for the better, Greg Easley argues.
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Reimagining School In The Age Of AI | NOEMA
With thoughtful design, AI systems could move American classrooms beyond rigid curricula toward adaptive programs that respond to individual learners.
https://www.noemamag.com/reimagining-school-in-the-age-of-ai/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
10 days ago
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“Instead of offering easy answers, thinking historically provides the intellectual equipment to engage with hard questions, a skill indispensable for navigating a future that will surely be as unpredictable as the past.” —Francis Gavin
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The Lost Art Of Thinking Historically | NOEMA
To understand the world today, we must see it as actors of the past did: through a foggy windshield, not a rearview mirror, facing a future of radical uncertainty.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-lost-art-of-thinking-historically/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
11 days ago
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What do computer science, quantum physics & Hindu tradition have in common? It’s more than you might think, Swami Sarvapriyananda,
@blaiseaguera.bsky.social
& Carlo Rovelli write.
www.noemamag.com/consciousnes...
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Consciousness Across Three Worldviews | NOEMA
Central concepts in three different domains — Hindu tradition, computer science and quantum physics — find analogies and reflect one another.
https://www.noemamag.com/consciousness-across-three-worldviews/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
12 days ago
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“When inequality is too vast to last, it doesn’t. The skyrocketing valuations of Big Tech & the staggering concentration of wealth accruing to its titans only presage a revolt against the depredations of disparity.” —Nathan Gardels
#inequality
#wealthgap
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Extreme Inequality Presages The Revolt Against It | NOEMA
Even the Davos elites are reading the tea leaves.
https://www.noemamag.com/extreme-inequality-presages-the-revolt-against-it/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
13 days ago
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“Exposure to nature can lower our blood pressure, slash the risk of diabetes, improve our mental health & treat ADHD in a way that’s similar to a dose of Ritalin,”
@olliemilman.bsky.social
writes. What could it do on a larger scale for society as a whole?
#nature
#society
#wellness
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Society Needs A Doctor’s Prescription For Nature | NOEMA
Long treated as a backdrop to human life, the trees, babbling streams and rolling hills of the natural world could actually help repair society’s fraying social fabric.
https://www.noemamag.com/society-needs-a-doctors-prescription-for-nature/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
14 days ago
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Noema Magazine
Jessica Green
16 days ago
My latest on Existential Politics and climate change in
@noemamag.com
. Climate policy should focus on dollars, not tons of emissions!
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It’s Time To Target The Political Power Of Polluters | NOEMA
We won’t make progress on decarbonization until we rein in the power of fossil fuel asset owners and invest in green assets. Tax and investment policy can help.
https://www.noemamag.com/its-time-to-target-the-political-power-of-polluters/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
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“Science & advocacy awakened people to the threat of fossil-fuel-driven environmental catastrophe...”
@bentleyallan.bsky.social
writes. “Yet it was naive to believe that this alone could transform a global energy system forged over centuries by war & empire."
www.noemamag.com/the-new-geop...
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The New Geopolitics Of The Green Transition | NOEMA
The only path forward for tackling the climate crisis hinges on cooperative industrial strategies to coordinate clean energy investment and infrastructure development.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-new-geopolitics-of-the-green-transition/
15 days ago
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“Roughly two-thirds of global emissions between 1854 & 2010 are linked to just 90 firms. And for decades, these firms have been obstructing progress on climate change to protect their bottom lines & to avoid the potential total devaluation of their assets.” —
@greenprofgreen.bsky.social
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It’s Time To Target The Political Power Of Polluters | NOEMA
We won’t make progress on decarbonization until we rein in the power of fossil fuel asset owners and invest in green assets. Tax and investment policy can help.
https://www.noemamag.com/its-time-to-target-the-political-power-of-polluters/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
16 days ago
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“Might embodied AIs, combined with living systems, become meaning-makers with agency?” —Natalie Lawrence
#intelligence
#consciousness
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What Counts As A Mind? | NOEMA
From chatbots to climbing beans, new research challenges our deepest assumptions about intelligence and consciousness.
https://www.noemamag.com/what-counts-as-a-mind/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
21 days ago
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Noema Magazine
Pittsburgh Review of Books
21 days ago
"How close are we now to lucrative evangelical expressionism?" What we're reading this week: pieces from
@vanmusicmag.bsky.social
@noemamag.com
@aeon.co
@theatlantic.com
@artforum.com
@nplusonemag.com
@newrepublic.com
@thebaffler.com
@intelligencer.com
@nytimes.com
pghrev.com/what-were-re...
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What We're Reading the Fifth Week of January 2026 - Pittsburgh Review of Books
A roundup of what the Pittsburgh Review of Book’s class is reading the fifth week of January 2026:
https://pghrev.com/what-were-reading-the-fifth-week-of-january-2026/
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Francois Lachance
22 days ago
"The successor to mass social media is [...] emerging not as a single platform, but as a scattering of alleyways, salons, encrypted lounges and federated town squares — those little gardens."
add a skeleton here at some point
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Neuroscientist
@anilseth.bsky.social
's new essay in Noema is a rigorous & compelling challenge to the notion that complex computation like AI can give rise to consciousness, Nathan Gardels writes.
#consciousness
#ai
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Only What Is Alive Can Be Conscious | NOEMA
Artificial intelligence doesn’t meet the test.
https://www.noemamag.com/only-what-is-alive-can-be-conscious/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
22 days ago
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Jack El-Hai
22 days ago
"Find yourself in another world." Today's article pick from Damn History, a free newsletter for readers/writers of
#popularhistory
. Congrats to writer
@christianelliott.me
&
@noemamag.com
! Read/subscribe to Damn History:
damn-history-16d93f.beehiiv.com/subscribe
www.noemamag.com/where-the-pr...
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Where The Prairie Still Remains | NOEMA
Are pioneer cemeteries key to the Iowa prairie’s revival, or its final resting place?
https://www.noemamag.com/where-the-prairie-still-remains/?src=longreads
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“The last days of social media might be the first days of something more human: a web that remembers why we came online in the first place — not to be harvested but to be heard, not to go viral but to find our people, not to scroll but to connect.” —
@jamesosullivan.bsky.social
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The Last Days Of Social Media | NOEMA
Social media promised connection, but it has delivered exhaustion.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
22 days ago
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Tami Abdollah
23 days ago
"The tech industry’s whiz kids once promised convenience at your fingertips. Now they’re embracing the military-industrial complex to defend the West." —
@tfa.ng
in
@noemamag.com
www.noemamag.com/silicon-vall...
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Silicon Valley Goes To War | NOEMA
The tech industry’s whiz kids once promised convenience at your fingertips. Now they’re embracing the military-industrial complex to defend the West.
https://www.noemamag.com/silicon-valley-goes-to-war/
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The tech industry’s whiz kids once promised convenience at your fingertips. Now they’re embracing the military-industrial complex to defend the West,
@tfa.ng
writes.
#defensetech
#siliconvalley
#defense
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Silicon Valley Goes To War | NOEMA
The tech industry’s whiz kids once promised convenience at your fingertips. Now they’re embracing the military-industrial complex to defend the West.
https://www.noemamag.com/silicon-valley-goes-to-war/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
23 days ago
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Noema Magazine
The Syllabus
24 days ago
From the iconic "Earthrise" photo to the shifting hues of oceans, Earth's colors have long shaped our political imagination. This essay argues: color is not mere decoration but a mirror of human impact—and an invitation to act. By
@frederic-hanusch.bsky.social
in
@noemamag.com
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The Politics Of Planetary Color | NOEMA
Color once taught us to see and value our planet. It now records how we are altering it.
https://buff.ly/vz2cYoP
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Melissa Sevigny
27 days ago
So glad sometime finally told this story. I learned about pioneer cemeteries holding the last remnants of tallgrass prairie when I lived in Iowa. Christian Elliott in
@noemamag.com
does justice to a complex story about loss, restoration, and a clash between culture and nature.
#scicomm
#Writing
add a skeleton here at some point
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“When we mediate our forms of worship through the architecture of algorithms, we are inviting another god into the room.” —
@johnwlast.bsky.social
www.noemamag.com/the-vanishin...
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The Vanishing Art Of Building Sacred Spaces | NOEMA
In the age of the algorithm, the West has lost its philosophy of spiritual architecture, and with it the language of holy enchantment.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-vanishing-art-of-building-sacred-spaces/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
24 days ago
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“Sovereignty is the power to decide what appears to machines — &, through them, to the humans & institutions that depend on their judgments.” —
@digitaldang.bsky.social
www.noemamag.com/a-third-path...
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A Third Path For AI Beyond The US-China Binary | NOEMA
What if the future of AI isn’t defined by Washington or Beijing, but by improvisation elsewhere?
https://www.noemamag.com/a-third-path-for-ai-beyond-the-us-china-binary/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
25 days ago
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“Efforts to combat misinformation have largely left us defensive, reacting to strategies & narratives used by those who spread it.” —
@zevesanderson.com
& Scott Babwah Brennen
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We Failed The Misinformation Fight. Now What? | NOEMA
Defending democracy in the digital age will require moving beyond the focus of fighting online misinformation.
https://www.noemamag.com/we-failed-the-misinformation-fight-now-what/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
26 days ago
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“In the most powerful speech in Davos this week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney laid out a forward-looking vision for those who must operate in the breach.” —Nathan Gardels
#carney
#davos
#worldorder
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The Middle Powers Step Up | NOEMA
Can the “countries in between” forge a counterweight to the dominant spheres of influence?
https://www.noemamag.com/the-middle-powers-step-up/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
27 days ago
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Arthur Van Siclen
27 days ago
“…sustaining the shared information commons” Compelling essay by Hamilton Mann for
@noemamag.com
www.noemamag.com/the-ai-power...
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The AI-Powered Web Is Eating Itself | NOEMA
Without a framework of “Artificial Integrity,” AI search platforms risk collapsing the information commons that made the web possible.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-ai-powered-web-is-eating-itself/
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“Until recently, an implicit social contract governed the web: Creators produced content, search engines distributed it, & in return, user traffic flowed back to the creators’ websites that sustained the system.” But not anymore,
@hamiltonmann.bsky.social
writes:
www.noemamag.com/the-ai-power...
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28 days ago
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Noema Magazine
Oxford Internet Institute
28 days ago
NEW: The OII's DPhil student Ben Bariach writes for Noema Magazine on world models, epistemology and society, previewing his ongoing research on the philosophy and governance of frontier AI at Oxford.
www.noemamag.com/when-ai-huma...
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When AI & Human Worlds Collide | NOEMA
Can we imagine a future where synthetic AI worlds shape ours?
https://www.noemamag.com/when-ai-human-worlds-collide/?utm_source=noemalinkedin&utm_medium=noemasocial
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A future filled with many AI personas — from the bad boy to the brown-noser — isn’t a mistake; it’s the best way to work with the technology, Phil Nolan argues.
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Embracing A World Of Many AI Personalities | NOEMA
A future filled with many AI personas — from the bad boy to the brown-noser — isn’t a mistake; it’s the best way to work with the technology.
https://www.noemamag.com/embracing-a-world-of-many-ai-personalities/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
29 days ago
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“World-model-powered AI could one day mediate how people perceive, move through & make decisions within their everyday environments.” —Ben Bariach
#ai
#worldmodels
#aiagents
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When AI & Human Worlds Collide | NOEMA
Can we imagine a future where synthetic AI worlds shape ours?
https://www.noemamag.com/when-ai-human-worlds-collide/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
s. e. smith
about 1 month ago
Love
@noemamag.com
for always having provocative reads; this one on the color of Earth and its political implications is a fascinating piece from
@frederic-hanusch.bsky.social
.
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The Politics Of Planetary Color | NOEMA
Color once taught us to see and value our planet. It now records how we are altering it.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-politics-of-planetary-color/
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“People in Isan, Thailand’s northeastern province, consume bugs the way Americans eat potato chips.” —Rebecca Root
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Would You Eat This Bug To Save The World? | NOEMA
Insects could play a key role in the future of the human diet with their high nutritional value and low environmental footprint, especially compared to meat.
https://www.noemamag.com/would-you-eat-this-bug-to-save-the-world/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
about 1 month ago
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“As AI-generated posts continue to overwhelm Facebook, Instagram & TikTok, it’s unclear to what degree actual human communication will persist on these platforms, & what those remnants will look like.” —
@mikesmariani.bsky.social
www.noemamag.com/how-we-becam...
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How We Became Captives Of Social Media | NOEMA
Today’s social media has shifted from social networking platforms to AI-enhanced conveyor belts of vapid entertainment. Is there any escape?
https://www.noemamag.com/how-we-became-captives-of-social-media/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
about 1 month ago
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“Caring about diversity in the current era lays the groundwork for the continued survival of our own species in the long term, no matter what the future holds.” —
@rdword.bsky.social
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The Future Of Space Is More Than Human | NOEMA
The time has come to expand our visions of life beyond Earth.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-future-of-space-is-more-than-human/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
about 1 month ago
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“When looking to the future of the labor market in an AI economy, we can’t talk about ‘job loss vs. gains’ in any general sense. The key issue is not the quantity of jobs, but the value of labor.” —Nathan Gardels
#ai
#futureofwork
#economy
#aijobs
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How The ‘AI Job Shock’ Will Differ From The ‘China Trade Shock’ | NOEMA
What matters in the AI economy is the applicable value of labor.
https://www.noemamag.com/how-the-ai-job-shock-will-differ-from-the-china-trade-shock/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
about 1 month ago
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5
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Longreads
about 1 month ago
This week's Top 5
#longreads
: • ICE fighter,
@spiegel.de
• Tectonic researcher,
@highcountrynews.org
• Prairie preserver,
@noemamag.com
• Regal grandmother, Southlands (
@boyceupholt.bsky.social
) • Wild timekeeper,
@emergencemagazine.bsky.social
longreads.com/2026/01/16/t...
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week - Longreads
In this edition: ICE fighter, tectonic researcher, prairie preserver, regal grandmother, wild timekeeper.
https://longreads.com/2026/01/16/top-5-longreads-593/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Longreads
about 1 month ago
"Only in the last 200 years did farmers transform these acres into neat cornfields." —Christian Elliott for
@noemamag.com
www.noemamag.com/where-the-pr...
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Where The Prairie Still Remains | NOEMA
Are pioneer cemeteries key to the Iowa prairie’s revival, or its final resting place?
https://www.noemamag.com/where-the-prairie-still-remains/?src=longreads
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“Most often, color slips into planetary politics quietly, as the mood of a map, the warning of a dashboard, the tint of a season, the hue of a banner.” —
@frederic-hanusch.bsky.social
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The Politics Of Planetary Color | NOEMA
Color once taught us to see and value our planet. It now records how we are altering it.
https://www.noemamag.com/the-politics-of-planetary-color/?utm_source=noemabluesky&utm_medium=noemasocial
about 1 month ago
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Curious Jon
about 1 month ago
Must-read article on the folly of conflating computational intelligence with human consciousness, and why the way our brains actually work makes this mistake so seductive.
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Marco Rogers
about 1 month ago
Whew. Listen.
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Noema Magazine
Dr Abeba Birhane
about 1 month ago
can't wait to read this
add a skeleton here at some point
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