Now online: Eric Loefflad (University of Kent) reviews "Catastrophic Technology in Cold War Political Thought (@edinburghup.bsky.social, 2024) by @carolineashcroft.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Fantastic conference in the gorgeous town of Freiburg yesterday - thank you @martinbaesler.bsky.social for the invitation to come and speak!

Long been of the opinion that child development is a missing piece in creating a machine that can truly think. (Maybe the only way to replicate a human mind is replicate how human minds are made.) More thought-through analysis here 👇 luciantruscott.substack.com/p/why-artifi...

"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil." - Hannah Arendt

"I like to dream about a people who have the wits and the strength of character to choose what they like and want from complex technology, and just leave what they don't need aside - instead of letting everything become a need and then an obligation and then a mess..." - Ursula K. Le Guin

...Musk might go/be sacrificed before too long (after declaring victory/bogus figures about fraud eliminated, of course)... ...but we might still be stuck with a unitary executive, with far too much power concentrated in the president's hands:...

I'll be speaking (online) about technology and nature at the LUPS Research Institute for Politics and Government this Wednesday at 1pm UK time. Please do join! ripg.uni-nke.hu/hirek/2025/0...

I wrote about technology, catastrophe and the risks of techno-optimism: iai.tv/articles/tec...

Two salaried 4-year PhD positions open at the Department of History of Science and Ideas in Uppsala, one in idéhistoria (intellectual/cultural history, broadly speaking), the other in history of science: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/... www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

📚 New on the blog! From nuclear war to climate breakdown, how do we make sense of the catastrophic potential of technology? @carolineashcroft.bsky.social explores perspectives on the place of technology in the end of the world. Read now 👉 edin.ac/4h0Hi65

For people who need villains to wear shirts saying “I’m the villain,” here you go.

I wrote about Catastrophic Technology for the page 99 test: page99test.blogspot.com/2024/12/caro...

Just out: my latest for the ICRC Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog, in which I highlight some persistent tensions that complicate the notion of 'Responsible AI' for the military domain. #civmilsky #milsky blogs.icrc.org/law-and-poli...

Very pleased and excited that Catastrophic Technology is NOW OUT! (And just in time for Christmas 😉) edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-catastr...

"In 1977, Ivan Illich, an Austrian-born philosopher, vagabond priest, and ruthless critic of metastatic bureaucracies, declared that we had entered 'the age of Disabling Professions.'" Interesting to see Illich appear again in the news! www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Very pleased to have a new paper out in Journal of the Philosophy of History (open access!) on Foucault and Arendt on technology and history. brill.com/view/journal...