Tag Archives: Technology and Society

The Muses speak not to spiritless silicon

Posted on November 29, 2025 by smellincoffee

Dear Leon and Charlie, In the story of the creation, God makes the world, and everything in it, in six days. On the seventh day he rests. The day of rest is significant because it suggests that the creation required … Continue reading →

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Against the Machine

Posted on October 27, 2025 by smellincoffee

At some point during college, I tried to work out what an ideal human society might look like. This was back when I still strongly identified with the left,  but my dreams were not of a world state and a … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Society and Culture | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Content & Context

Posted on June 23, 2025 by smellincoffee

Content collects several of Cory Doctorow’s favorite pieces of his written on “technology, creativity, copyright, and the future”, clumping in the mid-2000s. The content is mixed in medium, but united in message: herein are essays, speeches, and interviews that cover … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

The Unsettling of America, audio edition

Posted on January 23, 2025 by smellincoffee

It was twelve years ago that I met a man named Jayber Crow, and met too, his author — Wendell Berry. Berry is one of my very favorite living authors, and would probably still make the list of favorite authors … Continue reading →

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Worth reading: Smash the Technopoly!

Posted on December 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

From “After Babel”, a substack written in part by Jonathan Haidt. This is a guest post from Professor Nicholas Smyth, who teaches a course called “Ethnics and the Internet”. “One thing I’ve been learning is that opposition to smartphones and … Continue reading →

Posted in News and Views | Tagged | 5 Comments

Hello, Everybody!

Posted on November 13, 2024 by smellincoffee

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a host of technologies released that utterly transformed society, and few as dramatic as radio. Hello, Everybody! is an engaging history of the early decades of radio, filled with some dramatic, unbelievable … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Selected quotations from The Anxious Generation

Posted on October 31, 2024 by smellincoffee

Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and—as I will show—unsuitable … Continue reading →

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tl;dr

Posted on October 31, 2024 by smellincoffee

“[In Kurt Vonnegut’s egalitarian dystopia Harrison Bergeron,] anyone with a high IQ is required to wear an earpiece at all times that buzzes loudly every 20 seconds or so with a variety of noises designed to interrupt sustained thinking, thereby … Continue reading →

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Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist

Posted on October 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

Two years ago I read a Wendell Berry collection of essays edited not by Brother Berry himself, but by someone named Paul Kingsnorth. Being the nosy sort that I am, I inquired of Google who Kingsnorth might be, I knew … Continue reading →

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Against the Machine: a weekend of mysticism and wonder

Posted on October 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

This past weekend I had a rare opportunity to meet not two, but three authors, two of whom I’d read previously and one of whom I consider my favorites. Some months ago Rod Dreher, author of The Little Way of … Continue reading →

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