The limits of expertise

This piece first appeared in Quillette. “People are sick of experts.” These infamous and much-derided words uttered by UK Conservative parliamentarian Michael Gove express a sentiment with which we are now probably all familiar. It has come to represent a sign of the times—either an indictment or a celebration (depending on one’s political point of […]

Is the internet complete?

This piece first appeared in Quillette. In 2013, a debate was held between friends Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen, the thrust of which was to determine whether we are living through an innovation golden age, or whether innovation was in fact stalling. Thiel, of course, played the innovation sceptic, and it is interesting now with […]

Have we passed peak innovation?

Why do we laugh at old representations of the future? You know the kind – the Jetsons, flying cars, the “power laces” in Back to the Future 2. Many of their predictions now seem either patently absurd, or as far away as they ever have been. Either way the real 2018 bears little resemblance to […]