Opinion

A collage with a DNA strand, a virus, a tomato, an airplane, an autonomous car, and the text "The Unlimited Horizon 8" on a grid background.

What if humans mastered every aspect of nature?

A bold vision of a 10x better future where humanity has mastered biology, energy, and matter to unlock unprecedented progress.

Two women walk through a dry, withered maize field under a partly cloudy sky.

Technophobia

Technophobia has a body count

Activists push scary headlines about the harm they predict a technology will cause, but ignore the good things we stand to lose without it.

A person wearing gloves holds a sign reading "OUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON SCIENCE" with an image of Earth; several people stand nearby on a sidewalk.

Misinformation

How consensus can undermine science

The main objective of consensus statements appears to be to reduce doubt, which may stifle scientific inquiry.

Aerial view of a large power plant with tall smokestacks near a river at dusk.

Clean Energy

Retired coal plants can aid the energy transition — by going nuclear

Nuclear power is a proven way to decarbonize the grid, and a lot of infrastructure for it already exists at retired coal plants.

Zion Lights

A man in a spacesuit with a red helmet designed by Sora.

OpenAI’s text-to-video AI, Sora, is futurism come to life

Sora will let anyone transform their ideas directly into video and the implications are breathtaking.

Robert Chapman-Smith

A woman wearing a VR headset sitting on a couch.

Why Apple won’t call the Vision Pro “virtual reality”

Apple has forbidden developers from using "VR," "AR," or "MR" to describe their Vision Pro apps. That’s a mistake.

Louis Rosenberg

When the Mac was a “munition”

Macs were once deemed a threat to national security. Will today’s AI rules seem similarly outdated when we look back on them?

Louis Anslow

Michio Kaku makes 3 predictions about the future

Dr. Michio Kaku on what is likely and what is possible provides a stimulating vision of the future.

Scotty Hendricks

What does China’s crypto ban mean for the tech world?

The ban could lead to an exodus of Chinese crypto entrepreneurs and a diffusion of crypto technology in Southeast Asia.

Lily Z. King

Coronavirus

An epidemic of false confidence related to COVID-19

To distinguish between the most optimistic and pessimistic pandemic scenarios, we need to measure how many people have developed an immunity to the virus.

Danny Hillis

Freethink staff picks: Best of 2019

Fear of missing out on some of the year's most loved shows, books, and games? Here's a quick list of what the team at Freethink enjoyed most in 2019.

9 ways the 2010s decade changed the world

From Tinder to CRISPR, these are the top moments, movements, and ideas through which the 2010s decade shaped the world as we know it.

B. David Zarley

Biology

A molecular biologist discusses the morality of gene editing

Molecular biologist Daisy Robinton speaks out on our moral imperative to solve some of humanity's greatest health threats.

Daisy Robinton, Ph.D.

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