The massive rents to be wrung out of the attention economy have acted as a black hole, pulling nearly every tech startup or utopian innovator into the orbit of surveillance capitalism, addictive algorithms, and a culture of increasingly unproductive device dependence. Wherever AI goes over the longer term, in the near term it has already begun running into the same ruts.
Read MoreFor years, it seemed, digital technology was the ultimate one-way ratchet. There was no going back—only onward and upward (for the optimist), or onward and downward (for the doomer). Not only was digital technology here to stay (where else could it be?), but it seemed destined to inexorably colonize every corner of our lives and our attention, from cradle to grave. The average age of first smartphone fell steadily (it now stands at ten). Smartphones and smartwatches were soon augmented with smart refrigerators and smart homes. If future historians identify an inflection point in the linear growth of digitization, however, they are likely to find it in the year 2023…
Read MoreLiberals like Hollinger may never particularly like the direction in which evangelical Protestantism points, yet they are likely to find intellectually engaged Protestant conservatives easier conversation partners than the Dionysiac ideologues who have increasingly seized control of the progressive Left. Regardless, despite ongoing claims of secularization, the prospects for renewal of American public life, for conservatives as well as for liberals, will continue to depend in large part upon the intellectual health of evangelical Christianity…
Read MoreConservatism today stands at a crossroads. Throughout its long history, conservatism has sought to hold together a commitment to both a substantive vision of the good—family, faith, and nation, a free community of virtue—and to a sustainable means of securing it—the rule of law, limited and accountable government, secure individual rights. At the best of…
Read MoreFor nearly three decades, conservative orthodoxy has summed up its central objective in the mantra “starve the beast.” Although Grover Norquist may have been exaggerating slightly when he said he hoped to make government so small he could “drown it in the bathtub,” his sentiment certainly captures the myopic obsession of the GOP during the…
Read MoreThe 2011 hit series The Newsroom begins with a memorable scene. A panel of pundits is asked by a sorority girl to say “in one sentence or less, why America is the greatest country on earth.” The liberal smugly answers, “Diversity and opportunity.” The conservative, without blinking, responds, “Freedom and freedom.” The second answer speaks…
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