Although only a few decades have really passed, I remember those now prehistoric and obsolete times when I first saw a color television, used a photocopier, enjoyed a hologram, and held a cell phone in my hand (which was the size and the weight of a brick).
But none of those advances, which at the …
I remember reading some time ago the story about Dolly Parton entering one day a Dolly Parton look-alike contest. She lost. In fact, they told her that she didn't imitate Dolly Parton well enough and gave the award to a man dressed like her. That story illustrates a key element of our times: we pref…
South Korean philosopher Byun-Chul Han affirms that we live in a time in which we exploit ourselves and, moreover, we do it with pleasure. Therefore, we live continuously stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. A recent study, prepared by Hapi.com, adds details to that observation.
According to tha…
News about the new future breaks so fast that it feels like you're speeding through one sci-fi movie after another. But it is neither a movie nor fiction, rather it is a new reality that we still do not fully see or understand, but that already affects us.
For example, Australian soldiers can alr…
I recently needed the services of an electrician and when I called him, he told me he would come the next day at 10 am. More than half an hour later, the man called me saying that during all this time he had been standing in front of my house and that he had knocked on the door and rang the bell, bu…
A little over a decade ago, in the context of a philosophy class focused on technological change, I indicated to my students that quantum computing would arrive in a short time and, with its arrival, would cause a revolution in our lives. I remember the incident from the reaction of the students: th…
A professor I once met in college repeated quite often that order is just the chaos we are used to. In other words, what we consider "normal" is "normal" only because we see it that way or accept it, although it may not be something so "normal" or "ordered" for other people.
For example, I rememb…
Recent scientific reports are interesting and at the same time truly alarming because, although they seem to be taken from a science fiction movie, they are real situations that blur the boundaries between reality and illusion or fantasy
For example, the wildly successful artificial intelligence …
On social networks I recently found (and without looking for it) a post that included a phrase about friendship, attributing it to Aristotle. The point is that Aristotle never said that phrase. To my astonishment, the next message was a phrase attributed to a well-known singer. Underneath the phrase…
When Philo Farnsworth invented television at the turn of the last century, he did so with the goal of educating those who couldn't attend classes in person, not broadcasting soap operas. And when Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, his purpose was to share stories and photos with family and friends, n…
For a long time, scientists sought to find the “secret” that allows the cement used by the Romans 2,000 years ago to be more effective and durable than modern cement. And only now, it seems, have researchers from the United States, Italy and Switzerland found the answer, but they found it in the lea…
I (Francisco) asked the now well-known AI ChatGPT one question: What is the future? This was the answer:
The future is an exciting and mysterious time that is filled with endless possibilities. As we look ahead, we can only imagine what new technologies, advancements, and discoveries will arise a…
Not all methods of conveying ideas are suitable for conveying the same level of ideas. Certain ideas, certain conversations, and certain topics require a certain depth of language that precisely allows sharing “deep” ideas (not to be confused with “academic” ideas), that is, that which is the source…
In everything we do and what we create, whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether it is something good or bad, something sublime or something detestable, in all our works we are indelibly there, with our faces there engravings and stampings, sometimes hidden and sometimes in plain…
The well-known author Herbert George (H.G.) Wells once wrote (I can’t remember where) that we, in our time, are closer to the caveman than to the real human being. That phrase came to mind when reading a thought recently expressed by the neuroscientist Anders Sandberg, who maintains that we are only…
Many years ago, I learned that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, because in hate there is still a (negative and destructive) relationship between the people involved, while in indifference there is no longer any relationship. For this reason, among the daily expressions there is th…
I recently read a scientific report about a small bird, only five months old, that flew non-stop from Alaska to Tasmania (South Australia), that is, about 13,000 kilometers that the bird traveled in about 13 days. According to scientists, this is the longest distance ever recorded traveled by a bird…
Over the past three and a half decades I have devoted countless hours to one of the most enjoyable tasks one can engage in: storytelling. In fact, I have had the privilege of writing thousands and thousands of stories for local, national, and international news outlets every day. But everything come…
I recently had to change one of the outlets in my basement, a quick and easy task that I had done many times before. I removed the old plug and put in the new one, paying attention to see that each wire was in the correct connection. However, to my astonishment and annoyance, there was no electricit…
More than a decade ago, when my daughter was beginning her studies in art history at a renowned university, one day she explained to me that her professors, when they taught about certain works, never did so based on copies, reproductions, or photographs, but only in the originals. That way, knowled…
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