Why Do Tech Companies Want to Read Our Minds? (Brain-computer interfaces, surgical implants and the end of privacy)
We are free to think whatever we want. From a young age, we are told that no one else can know what we are thinking. Someone can study our actions, our facial expressions and our body language, but they can never know for sure what we are thinking. Our thoughts are private and secure, and ...
How Australia Became a Conservative Nation
The year is 2014 and Tony Abbott, the Australian Prime Minister, announces a series of cuts to public spending across healthcare, education and unemployment benefits. Modeled off of the austerity programs sweeping Europe at the time, the cuts aimed to balance the federal budget and privatize public services. The UK, Greece, Spain and Portugal have all adopted ...
4 Ways to Innovate: Lessons from the Global Scholars Symposium
In June 2019, Rhodes House hosted the Global Scholars Symposium. The theme was Cultivating Innovation. Over the two-day event, speakers from all over the world talked about different ways to innovate. I left the event with a newfound appreciation for innovators, and several take-home messages. According to the dictionary, to innovate is to “make changes in ...
There is a Logical Fallacy at the Heart of the Case Method
This post was originally from the Oxford Political Review here. Since the late 1800s, the best law schools in common law countries have taught law by way of the case method. Invented by Professor Christopher Columbus at Harvard Law School, the case method is based on the idea that law can be understood by reading ...
Fireworks Fly at Jeff Koons Event: Should An Artist Credit Their Assistants?
Fireworks flew in question time yesterday at an event celebrating the internationally acclaimed artist Jeff Koons. Visiting Oxford to promote his exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Koons was questioned by the Emeritus Professor of Art History Martin Kemp, before receiving mostly hostile questions from the live audience. Koons is best known for his reproduction of ...
Can Bernie Sanders become the President of the United States?
In a years' time, several books will come out chronicling the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, asking several key questions: what went right, what went wrong, what policy succeeded and what failed? Among the core contenders, Bernie Sanders stands out as someone who is at once authentic and passionate about his beliefs. A cursory glance at ...
United Kingdom Considers New Laws: Age Restrictions for Facebook Likes, Snapstreaks
The recent call for age restrictions on likes and streaks on Facebook and Snapchat is long overdue, but does not go far enough. People of all ages should be protected from the psychological damage caused by likes, streaks and other online ‘reward’ mechanisms used by giant social media companies to make us all addicts. Likes, ...
Automation and the Classic Political Response – Retrain Workers – Inadequate
When the threat of automation is raised, politicians tend to respond with banal platitudes about retraining workers. "We need to train people for the jobs of the future," they'll say. When asked what those jobs will be, they inevitably say: coding. But what if there are no jobs? And what if we can't all be ...
How to Successfully Launch a Kickstarter Campaign: Tips, Tricks, Lessons Learned
In 2019, I successfully completed a Kickstarter campaign for the PC video game, The Cinema Rosa. You can take a look at the final campaign here. Our game is now available on Steam here. The campaign to fund The Cinema Rosa was not easy. We failed twice before launching a successful third campaign (third time's ...
Law Schools: Alternative Assessments & Teaching Methods for a Liberal Arts Education
In this article, I argue that alternative assessments should be used in law schools to re-orientate student learning towards a broader, liberal arts education in law. Students should be given new assessments that challenge them to think for themselves about the origin of law, the purpose of law and the effect of law on society. ...
