David Boles: Human Meme

A persistent gap between public imagination and technical reality defines the common understanding of artificial intelligence. The popular discourse, shaped by a century of fiction, centers on the fear of emergent machine consciousness, while the more urgent, tangible story is about how today’s powerful, non-sentient tools are actively beginning to restructure our world. The central misunderstanding is not that AI is unimportant, but that its immediate impact is philosophical rather than what it truly is: a practical, economic, and social force compelling a fundamental human reorganization.

The old archivist, Dr. Aris Thorne, felt a jolt of audacious heresy as he slid the glossy print into the maw of the machine. It was a photograph that had become a part of the national bloodstream, an image of pure, unthinking ecstasy at the end of a long and brutal war. He had chosen Alfred Eisenstaedt's "V-J Day in Times Square" for its raw, kinetic power, a sailor dipping a nurse in a spontaneous, jubilant kiss, a sliver of peace captured forever. The AI, which he had nicknamed ‘Clio’ after the muse of history, whirred to life. Its function was...

In the sprawling, often-anonymous landscape of the internet, a persistent shadow lurks, eager to sow discord and inflict reputational harm: the online troll. These digital phantoms, armed with keyboards and a seemingly endless supply of vitriol, can target individuals, products, and companies with a barrage of harassing reviews, leaving a trail of distress and frustration. Understanding how to contend with this modern-day menace requires a multi-faceted approach, one that sinks into the psychology of the troll, outlines a strategic response plan, and ultimately, empowers us to fortify our online presence against such attacks. It is a battle fought not with...

It's a wonderfully curious thing, isn't it, how two little words like "less" and "fewer" can stir up so much conversation and, at times, even a little bit of friendly debate? It’s a perfect example of how our language is a living, breathing entity, constantly shaped by how we, its speakers, choose to use it. Let's take a warm and friendly stroll through the landscape of these two words and see what we can discover together. 

So, after all this time, have we ever actually found evidence of alien life on Earth? It's a question that gets to the heart of our place in the universe. For more than fifty years, we’ve been looking, and despite some tantalizing clues, the answer is still no. We don’t have a single piece of reproducible evidence. What we have is a fascinating story of discovery and disappointment, a lesson in how science separates a true signal from wishful thinking.

The cosmos harbors many mysteries, but few capture our imagination as completely as black holes, regions of spacetime where gravity so dominates that nothing, not even light, can escape once it crosses a critical boundary. They represent the ultimate triumph of gravity over every known counter-force. When matter is compressed into an extremely small volume, general relativity predicts spacetime curvature so severe that it creates what looks, to outside observers, like a “hole” in the fabric of reality. (The geometric picture is subtler, but the metaphor is serviceable.)

Nowhere was the tension between local and standard time more vivid than in Indiana. Before 2006, the state was a confusing patchwork of time observance. Some counties followed Daylight Saving, while others steadfastly refused. Some aligned with Chicago on Central Time, others with Ohio on Eastern Time. Locals became "time-bilingual." A dentist in Jasper might advertise appointments at 9 a.m. "slow," knowing that patients driving from Louisville, already on "fast" time, would show up at what their own clocks read as 10 a.m. The question, "Your time or my time?" became as essential as a zip code. The situation bred both...

The phrase “if the center holds” has its conceptual roots in the broader cultural and literary assertion that social, political, or ideological cohesion can be sustained only so long as the core remains intact. This phrase is often considered a response to William Butler Yeats’s famous lines from his poem “The Second Coming,” in which he prophesies that “the centre cannot hold,” implying an irreversible spiritual or cultural unraveling. The contradictory statement “if the center holds” presupposes that even in moments of uncertainty or crisis, there remains a stable pivot, a moral or structural nexus, that prevents total collapse. 

The legal systems of this era struggled to adapt to these new realities. The Restored Justice Protocols of 2900 allowed victims of crimes to be restored from backup, effectively undoing the crime itself. But this raised questions: if the harm could be undone, had a crime occurred? The infamous Paradox Trials of 2923-2947 attempted to prosecute crimes that had been "uncom­mitted" through temporal manipulation. The final verdict, delivered by the Quantum Supreme Court, declared that justice itself had become a form of deus ex machina; an external imposition of order on a reality that no longer recognized linear causality. The c...

The first forgotten truth emerges from the medieval understanding of time as a living, breathing entity rather than a mere mechanical measurement. Before the proliferation of mechanical clocks in the fourteenth century, communities understood time through the rhythms of nature, prayer bells, and seasonal cycles. This organic temporal awareness created a psychological resilience that we've lost in our nanosecond-obsessed age. Medieval chroniclers spoke of "thick time" – moments that expanded during contemplation, compressed during joy, and flowed like water through daily life. Recovering this elastic relationship with time would immediately address our epidemic of anxiety and burnout. When we cease treating ti...

The human yearning to create intelligence beyond our own biological constraints stretches back to antiquity, manifesting not as "artificial intelligence" but through divine automata, mystical golems, and mechanical servants. The ancient Greeks spoke of Talos, the bronze giant who protected Crete, while Jewish mysticism produced the golem of Prague, animated by sacred words. Medieval Islamic scholars designed intricate water clocks and mechanical musicians, calling them "al-jazari" - the skillful ones. These weren't mere toys but embodiments of humanity's deepest aspiration: to breathe life into the inanimate, to create minds from matter. They were referred to as "animated beings," "enchanted servants,"...

Yes, we are each other: The Us of Us. To deny this truth is to court disaster. When we forget that we are each other’s possibilities, we begin to retreat. Into silos. Into tribes. Into fear. We stop looking for kinship and start demanding conformity. We begin to believe the lie of the self-made person; the myth that what we’ve done, we did alone. That we owe nothing to no one. That is not independence. That is isolation. That is a world without bridges. And a world without bridges will only ever be full of walls. When you deny...

We begin with a silence, the kind that rings heavy in the ears of the alone. This is the quiet place many young men now occupy—a self-imposed solitude, carved out not of preference, but of defeat. The dating app didn’t swipe back. The college classroom became a battleground of ideas they couldn’t win. The workplace offered no solace. And so they withdraw—not only from dating, but from the belief that women are allies in life. They begin to bond instead with other wounded men in digital caves, places where contempt is currency and mockery of women is misid...

The fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century was not merely the collapse of a political order or the ruin of marble monuments. It was the slow eclipse of an entire world – a complex tapestry of cultural practices, technical know-how, intellectual traditions, and spiritual paradigms – many of which vanished forever. Historians often highlight the sack of cities and the demise of imperial authority, yet beyond the smoking ruins lies an even greater tragedy: the loss of ways of life and thought that had no true successor. Reconstructing these forgotten dimensions of Roman civilization requires equal parts scholarship and...

When a society starts to devalue education, the consequences quickly ripple through every aspect of civic, cultural, and economic life. Education is much more than a process of transferring facts; it is the crucible in which critical thinking, moral reasoning, civic responsibility, and creative innovation are forged. The deliberate or inadvertent devaluation of education leads to a dramatic diminishment in collective wisdom, eroding the very foundation upon which a healthy society stands. 

First, let’s be honest: calling something “precious” can sometimes act as a velvet rope, a cordon sanitaire that says, “This is off-limits. This is untouchable and apart.” Think of the grandmother’s china locked in a cabinet—too precious to use, too dear to risk. It preserves a memory, but it can also freeze it, holding it out of the flow of everyday living. You can’t dish up takeout pizza on those plates; you just stare at them gathering dust. That’s the peril of the precious: sometimes, it sterilizes, it sanctifies—and inadvertently, it excludes.

Let's talk about something that might have happened to you, or someone you know: going to the doctor and getting a blood pressure reading that seems way too high. But what if that number isn't the real story? What if it's just a temporary thing that happens when you're in a medical setting? We're going to talk about "White Coat Hypertension," and why, even though some doctors might not think it's a big deal, it's actually a real thing we should be paying attention to.

Yes, that infamous -- Roman dodecahedron. So? What was it? A tool? A weapon? A religious artifact? A toy? A candleholder? A multi-purpose cosmic Swiss Army knife for the ancient world? Nobody knows. And that, my friends, is what makes it so deliciously fascinating.

Across the gnawing of human civilization, a subtle yet persistent blindness emerges — one not simply defined by wars, environmental neglect, or productivity cycles, but deeper flaws rooted in the human condition itself. One such blind spot is humanity's relentless misunderstanding of freedom. Freedom, often worshiped as the highest virtue and tirelessly pursued through revolutions and struggles, has repeatedly been misconstrued as mere absence of constraint rather than proactive alignment with genuine purpose and inner fulfillment. Consider the French Revolution, where liberté became the battle cry, yet the subsequent chaotic implosion via the Reign of Terror and Napoleonic wars underscored that fre...

When we speak of wonders, we often conjure images of iconic structures like the Great Pyramid or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But obscured by the passage of time and the focus on well-trodden historical paths lie numerous marvels that were equally – if not more – fascinating, yet are far less known today. These "forgotten" sites offer unique insights into human ingenuity, societal structures, and the complex relationship between civilizations and their environments.

Long before modern cities and towns covered Nebraska's landscape, the land held secrets of communities that finessed their environments with skill, creativity, and resilience. While Nebraska might not have boasted ancient metropolises like those found in Mexico or Illinois, it quietly housed sophisticated village societies whose existence we can glimpse today through scattered remains and archaeological clues. These settlements offer a rare insight into a human story where innovation and adaptation were key to survival on the open prairie.

From the highest crest of an ancient mountain stood a stone—a towering monument sculpted by the gentle and patient artistry of the universe itself. Here, under skies older than thought, the stone first awoke, catching the first rays of the sun, feeling the cool breath of passing clouds, hearing whispers of winds from distant lands. It began its life indifferent to time, proud and immovable, bearing witness as empires rose and empires fell, as forests flourished and oceans receded.

Henry VIII’s marital saga was as much a tale of personal ambition and passion as it was one of statecraft and religious upheaval. From the outset of his reign, Henry was fixated on securing a male heir—a goal driven by both the turbulent precedents of medieval succession and the very real fear of dynastic collapse. His own father, Henry VII, had claimed the throne through force rather than clear hereditary right, and Henry knew that a secure male successor was essential to solidify the Tudor legacy and avoid further civil strife.

The concept of social safety nets affects every single one of us, whether we realize it or not. These programs and policies—Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food assistance—represent more than bureaucratic systems. They embody a fundamental question about who we are as a society. I want to make my position clear: these safety nets aren't optional luxuries—they're essential infrastructure for a functioning, humane society. Let me take you on a think through history, across cultures, and into possible futures to explain why.

How do we punish those who break the rules? Over the past thousand years, we’ve moved from brutal public executions and torture to sophisticated legal codes and debates over rehabilitation. And if we take a look at where we’re heading in the next millennium, the future of justice could be something completely beyond our imagination. 

Regret, in its multifaceted complexity, is an embedded facet of the human condition—a reflective, often painful acknowledgement of choices that have led us astray from our idealized paths. It emerges from the interplay of memory, expectation, and self-assessment, functioning as both a mirror and a guide. The emotion of regret is not simply a byproduct of decision-making but a cognitive mechanism designed to heighten our awareness of moral and practical missteps, thereby enriching our capacity for future growth. 

The late nineteenth century marked a pivotal shift in how “the uncanny” was understood in art and literature, though the roots of eerie resemblance and disquieting near-human forms reach back further. By the 1870s, a transitional period was well underway in Europe, shaped by industrialization and the popularization of automata exhibitions. The public fascination with life-sized clockwork dolls that blinked their eyes or played musical instruments set the stage for the eerie feeling that occurs when something appears human but clearly lacks a human essence. Even before Sigmund Freud offered his famous essay “Das Unheimliche” in 1919, there were tantalizing experiments and anxi...

The most curious unrealized secret of the known world is that humanity’s survival hinges not on technological advancement or resource extraction but on our collective ability to transcend the illusion of separateness. We exist in a hyperconnected biophysical system where every action cascades through ecological, social, and economic networks, yet we behave as if individual or national interests can be pursued in isolation. 

Throughout history and into our contemporary world, the invocation of divinity in everyday life—particularly in non-religious arenas such as sports and politics—highlights the deeply rooted cultural inclination to attribute human successes or failures to supernatural favor. When a professional athlete declares that a victory occurred because “God was on our side,” it potentially diminishes both the skill and the diligence that contributed to the win. 

Suspension of disbelief, as it is often understood today, traces its formal articulation to the English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who coined the phrase “willing suspension of disbelief” in 1817 in his critical work “Biographia Literaria.” Coleridge proposed that readers and audiences consciously set aside the knowledge that what they are witnessing is artificial in order to be moved, entertained, or enlightened by the piece of art before them. 

In the mid-to-late 18th century, as portrait painters struggled to preserve their art form against the sudden intrusion of photographic technology, one can imagine the rumblings across the parlors, salons, and academies of Europe and America. Painters, who had long been accustomed to controlling the manner, mood, and meaning of a subject’s likeness through the deliberate strokes of their brushes, saw photography as not just a mechanical rival, but a dull and unfeeling intruder onto a sacred terrain they had cultivated for centuries.

Passive social murder is the quiet, systemic practice of allowing people to die through inaction and neglect. This idea traces back to the nineteenth century, to minds like Friedrich Engels, who accused the capitalist systems of his era of knowing full well that certain conditions would lead the poor to early graves. It is the kind of death that does not come from a gunshot, but from the heavy, silent weight of a society that structures itself so that some lives are nurtured, while others are left to waste away.

A hitherto unacknowledged connection that threads through the entirety of philosophical writing—across centuries, cultures, and varying schools of thought—is humanity’s unending effort to sublimate existential terror into a coherent narrative that makes mortal life intelligible, permissible, and meaningful. From the careful syllogisms of medieval Scholastics to the bold manifestos of twentieth-century existentialists, philosophers have not merely flirted with the interplay of reason, emotion, and metaphysical longing; they have continually sought to transfigure our instinctive dread of finitude and futility into something purposeful and noble. The binding force here is not merely the quest for truth or the applic...

Medical AI is not just a technological leap; it’s a cultural shift. When machines analyze our health, we enter a world where the expertise of algorithms supplements—and sometimes challenges—the wisdom of clinicians. This isn’t about replacing the human touch but redefining it. The real story of Medical AI is how it pushes us to rethink the relationship between technology, health, and humanity.

The case of Amanda Knox is a modern legal and cultural Rorschach test—sprawling, messy, and deeply personal for anyone who dares to examine it. At its core, it is a story of a young woman, a brutal murder, and an Italian justice system unprepared for the scrutiny and chaos that would follow. Knox's story is not just about guilt or innocence; it’s about how we, as humans, construct narratives in the absence of clear facts, how media amplifies those narratives, and how justice can falter under pressure. To unpack it fully, we must walk through the tragedy, the tria...

In a quaint little home nestled among the cobbled streets of an English village, two British Shorthair kittens, Lotty and Percy, spent their days exploring every nook and cranny. Lotty, a plump and cheerful blue kitten, followed his sister Percy wherever she went, his little paws thumping softly on the floorboards. Percy, a lilac-colored marvel, was the clever one—quick as a flash, with a mind as sharp as her tiny claws.

Imagine, for a moment, the United States without its Department of Education—a federal entity established in 1979 to oversee and coordinate national education policies. This department, though often a target in political debates, plays a pivotal role in shaping the educational landscape of the nation. Its elimination would not merely be a bureaucratic adjustment; it would trigger scary and far-reaching consequences across the educational spectrum. 

Disappointment is the uninvited guest at the table of life. It sits heavy in our hearts, clutches our dreams, and whispers doubts that gnaw at the edges of hope. Yet, disappointment is not a dead end; it’s a waypoint, a necessary stop on the task of human growth. To be disappointed is to be alive, to care deeply about outcomes, to have risked enough to feel the sting of falling short. And while the pangs of disappointment may seem like the final word, they are often just the prelude to resilience.

Living in the future now—it’s a fascinating idea, isn’t it? We’re talking about those people who seem to exist just a step ahead of us, those who already walk roads we haven’t even built yet. While we’re here, comfortably or uncomfortably immersed in today, they’re already finding ways through tomorrow. These people aren’t necessarily the kind of visionaries we always hear about: CEOs, inventors, or creative masterminds, though many of them do fall into those categories. No, these are people who fundamentally live a little differently, whose minds work in a slightly faster rhythm, w...