Spinoza: homo homini Deus

Running head : EXPLAINING ANTISOCIAL PUNISHMENT 1 Homo homini lupus ? Explaining antisocial punishment

1 Punishing group members who parasitize their own group’s 2 resources is an almost universal human behavior, as evidenced by 3 multiple cross-cultural and theoretical studies. Recently, researchers in 4 social and behavioral sciences have identified a puzzling phenomenon 5 called “antisocial punishment”: some people are willing to pay a cost to 6 “punish” those who act in ways that benefit the...

Spinoza Today: The Current State of Spinoza Scholarship

Deus EM Machina

Homes, offices and many other environments will be increasingly saturated with connected, computational appliances, forming the “Internet of Things” (IoT). At present, most of these devices rely on mechanical inputs, webpages, or smartphone apps for control. However, as IoT devices proliferate, these existing interaction methods will become increasingly cumbersome. Will future smart-home owners...

Stardrives and Spinoza

There are several senses in which one may speak of limits in relation to Physics. For the purposes of this essay, it is most useful to begin with the technological limitations of practical human activity. In this context, Physics both provides positive and negative information. Physical laws tell us how to achieve some goals, and informs us that others are forever out of reach. An excellent his...

Deus ex Machina

Once there was a time when mainframes walked the earth and reigned supreme over all the land. Lowly users were far too unclean and unschooled to commune with these vastly superior beings made of silicon and software, and so there arose among us a programming priesthood who served as intermediaries between human and machine. Like the monks of old, who studiously labored over the production of el...