This article from Foreign Affairs about the power of narrative in creating, and undermining, societies and governments contains spoilers about the conclusion of HBO's Game of Thrones.
"The eight-year-long cultural phenomenon of HBO’s Game of Thrones culminated on May 18 with the fiery destruction of the Iron Throne and the death of the formerly beloved Queen Daenerys. The show’s final season has produced an explosion of commentary on what it all means. What is the appropriate basis for political authority? Can Daenerys be both a feminist hero and a war criminal? Does might make right? Should it, in a time of war? Among the foreign-policy intelligentsia, and society broadly, interpreting Game of Thrones (and the book series by George R. R. Martin that the show is based on) has become a cottage industry. Every political analyst, historian, or theorist has his or her take on what lessons can be drawn from the story for real-world foreign policy. This enthusiasm tells us something about the show’s political implications: fans and writers argue over Game of Thrones precisely because there is power in interpreting a story to support one’s own arguments about what is right and who gets to choose." www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-05-27/armies-gold-flags-and-stories
0 Comments
"For more than 35 years, satellites circling the Arctic have detected a 'greening' trend in Earth’s northernmost landscapes. Scientists have attributed this verdant flush to more vigorous plant growth and a longer growing season, propelled by higher temperatures that come with climate change. But recently, satellites have been picking up a decline in tundra greenness in some parts of the Arctic. Those areas appear to be 'browning.'" Loss of insulating snow cover, predation by insects that have also expanded their ranges and flourished, and Arctic wildfires all appear to be contributing to this newly observed browning. www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-arctic-browning
This map shows a key word or phrase in each state's motto: lonelyplanetwpnews.imgix.net/2018/12/2-1.jpg
Sometimes the most interesting questions in moral philosophy arise not from teasing apart right vs. wrong but from balancing right vs. right. For example, which is the more important good: privacy or security? People of good conscience may have different opinions on that question, which is at the heart of the use of facial recognition software, for instance (and many science fiction plot lines). Although the use of facial recognition software has proliferated in the U.S. and elsewhere over the last several years, last month San Francisco became the first major city to ban the use of facial recognition software by law enforcement, arguing that privacy from government observation outweighed any security benefits the technology might convey.
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/14/us/facial-recognition-ban-san-francisco.html In this image, the map of the world has been redone as a Voronoi diagram based on distance to the nearest capital. preview.redd.it/k6x3plgwpyz21.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f89a3b8b46990d12038592c7b340955da55e4cfe
|
Blog sharing news about geography, philosophy, world affairs, and outside-the-box learning
Archives
December 2023
Categories
All
|