Research

Explore our collection of articles on the leading megatrends in technology, politics, and society.

Filter: Society

16

min

The quitters of open societies

What happens when we no longer play a common game

5

min

Perspectives on the post-truth era

The 'enshittification' of society

11

min

Forget about the (human) parents

Meet the cyborgs

12

min

The enhanced human: stronger, better, happier

Why we might all become centaurs according to transhumanists

10

min

The deficient animal: artificial by nature

And why the idea of helpful AI agents might be a misleading, anthropocentric notion

9

min

Genuine writing in the digital age

An inconvenient effort worth pursuing

5

min

Magic in metamodern times

To be(lieve) or not to be(lieve), that is the question

19

min

Why we should embrace the void

The psychoanalysis of 'Love, Death & Robots'

11

min

Post-growth: the dawn of a new era

What will the upcoming paradigm shift entail?

8

min

We are the products of technological mediation

What the metaphor of the 'medium' can teach us about AI

12

min

When images matter more than reality

A reflection on Vilém Flusser's philosophy of photography in the age of social media

13

min

The day the artificial became intelligent (is yet to come)

When we started to call intelligence a machine and the machine intelligent

5

min

Knit’s Island and the future of the metaverse

An immersive and fascinating documentary about life in a virtual world

10

min

The robots among us

About today’s master-slave dynamics with humanoids and chatbots

10

min

The age of the machine: emancipation or alienation of the human?

Understanding the role of machines in society

6

min

The enduring tool metaphor in AI discourse

About technology as a mere instrument to achieve human goals

16

min

Degrowth will make us happier

Understanding wellbeing beyond economic growth

10

min

How collective behavior change can foster a sustainable future

A dive into the heart of the degrowth movement

4

min

What would it take for us to believe in aliens?

Believing the unbelievable in times of disinformation and deepfakes

12

min

Another piece on Barbenheimer

On the cultural significance of summer blockbusters Barbie and Oppenheimer

2

min

Will generative AI bring the productivity increases we need?

Information technology and the lack of corresponding increases in productivity

15

min

Are we heading towards post-human intelligence?

Rethinking being human in a more-than-human world

5

min

Beyond planetary boundaries: towards Earth systems justice

Linking new developments in Earth systems research to the Deep Transitions Framework

7

min

FreedomLab Selects: Rinus van de Velde — The Armchair Voyager

Vivian Elion analyses the surrealistic exhibition of Rinus van de Velde through the lens of metamodernism.

16

min

Romantic robots: a new love paradigm

Will our society's progressive values lead us to embrace a new romantic paradigm?

15

min

Health is the luxury to fall sick and recover

Towards an enriched concept of the normal and the pathological

13

min

ChatGPT and the place of the human being in an automated society

An unconventional reflection on Hannah Arendt’s philosophy

2

min

Urban greening should focus on equity, not nature

The external valuation of nature in city planning could withhold green areas from becoming accessible to all

11

min

Pills, pills, pills

Sebastiaan Crul discusses the inevitability of techno-fixes in a world haunted by crises

3

min

The case for climate radicalism

The impacts of climate change are increasingly being felt all across the globe.

What would a sufficiently sustainable ordinary life look like?

On realizing we are not alone

We need more downward mobility

Will a post-corona era arrive in the coming years?

Vaccine diplomacy

How do we distil a good narrative from 2020?

The Retroscope 2020

Disinformation and the false believe we are autonomous in our search for knowledge

Human death as a boost for the use of ecological materials

QAnon and knowledge