Apple’s 2015 decision to allow ad-blocking apps on the iOS App Store sparked a larger debate — ‘a kind of war’, in the words of one developer. At issue were the ethics and practices of both advertisers and ad-blockers. For some participants, the stakes were, and remain, high: the future prospects of the advertising-supported web, and therefore our established systems for producing, paying for, and circulating journalism
Most people care about the welfare of future generations. Parents want their children and grandchildren to live good lives. A British poll found that 64% of citizens think that the needs of future generations should take priority in the division of resources. But political and economic decisions do not reflect this concern. The reluctance of governments to adopt effective policies for mitigating climate change is the most obvious example of a failure to prevent harm to future people
Suppose that nothing much is done to prevent global warming and that the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continues to increase. In 2070, according to the Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the average temperature in Australia will have increased as much as 6 degrees centigrade. Australia will be drier, although floods and cyclones will occur more frequently
National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) are seen as an integral part of the protection of human rights in the 21st century. These institutions play a remarkably unique role within human rights frameworks, both globally and within individual states. Yet the importance and effectiveness of NHRIs are closely linked to how independent they are from states, in both form and practice. This chapter considers the role of NHRIs and their effectiveness in maintaining independence
Thirty-three years ago, when I joined the news room of the London Sunday Times, its editor, Harry Evans, gave me ‘Editing and Design’ a five-volume manual of English typography and layout
There is a saying that you can never dip your toe into the same river twice. The same applies to the brain because at a quite fundamental level it is continuously changing. Indeed, it is somewhat incredible that throughout our lives we are able to maintain a more-or-less unified concept of who we are given there is little constancy of substance to anchor this most basic of notions
It is important that we look after ourselves throughout life to live the healthiest life we can. Yet the reality is life demands often mean we cannot prioritise our own health enough. Between work and family we often don’t have the time to think much about our health until around midlife, which is the life stage when most of us have a few key realisations
In the course of a generation, the information available to families regarding the health and future of their unborn children has been transformed. In the era of our parents and grandparents, even the number of babies to be born was a mystery. Following delivery of the first baby, careful checking for the appearance of another head or foot was routine. The arrival of the second twin made for a crowded bassinet in the back seat of the car on the way home, as well as hasty modifications to the cot, sleeping arrangements and siblings’ expectations
And then, that must be space. Because we call it space, or landscape, or terrain. Or at the weedy worst a plain potential for development: right-angles on an undulant soft ground
How will Artificial Intelligence change war? Hollywood has it wrong. It won’t be Terminator, robots with sentience, that transform warfare. It will be much simpler technologies that are, depending on your perspective, at best or at worst less than a decade away. Indeed, it is stupid AI that I fear. We will soon be giving machines that are not sufficiently capable the right to make life or death decisions