Spring has arrived. And this week, we were overwhelmed by the high quality of contributions made by the Parlia community.
If you’re wondering where to begin with our maps, or looking for inspiration for your own cartography, here’s our pick of the best this week…
Why do we fetishize serial killers?
The casting of Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron as sadistic serial killer Ted Bundy was, for some, the final nail in the coffin. And yet, it was just the latest iteration in the gruesome tradition of fetishising serial killers. Consensus may agree that these bloodthirsty figures cause undue harm, pain and distress, but cultural representations have long portrayed these criminals as misunderstood. Why?
What do we know about Sigmund Freud’s theories?
From the sapphic to the suffering, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s controversial readings on the human mind have endured since his death in 1939. But was Freud a fraudulent charlatan? A hirsuite phoney, whose theories on incestuous stirrings and loony lesbians were robbed from his contemporaries? Or, was he the genius practitioner who invented psychoanalysis and pioneered understanding of the human subconscious?
The benefits of bitcoin are manifold: free from corruption; democratic; impossible to counterfeit; transferred across international borders with the click of a button. However, it is also transient, challenged by the rise of competitor cryptocurrencies and without an intrinsic value to anchor it, could devastate economies in a moment. Is bitcoin the future?
Will AI lead to the end of humankind?
How far is too far? How smart is too smart? Is the building of artificial intelligence a suicidal approach to technology? How dangerous is the threat posed by artificial intelligence: might it lead to the end of humankind? Or, are those irrational anxieties when consciousness cannot be programmed?
Lockdown might feel like a glimpse into captivity, but the reality of zoos is very different. Like their now-illegal forebear, the traveling animal circus, zoos sell animals as entertainment for profit, and keep them in artificial environments starkly different to a natural habitat. Yet, zoos are also a rich source of education, research and conservation opportunities for endangered species. And perhaps it’s a stretch to liken protected species to the can-canning bears of yesteryear.