Showing 1 - 10 of 31
Let's just try leaning into your morbid curiosity
Oped, Coltan Scrivner, Published on 30/10/2025
» Film critics Gene Siskel and Johnny Oleksinski have called fans of slasher films like Friday the 13th and Saw "very sick people" and "depraved lunatics who should not be allowed near animals or most other living things". Public outcry around the video game Mortal Kombat in the early 1990s was so extreme that it led to a special US Senate hearing on the topic. Similarly, the recent rise of true crime entertainment has some people wondering if we are becoming desensitised to the horror and seriousness of the events themselves.
Authentic intelligence rises with AI
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 16/05/2025
» As the cognitive power and proliferation of artificial intelligence take the world by storm, the case for authenticity and originality paradoxically becomes more compelling and carries higher premiums. It is now a widely accepted reality that AI is on its way to master human thought processes and proceed beyond them. This means that it will be more difficult for humans to differentiate between what comes from AI and what does not. As such, the time has come after nearly 40 years of being published -- including more than 25 of them with this newspaper -- that this column goes subjective.
Pope Francis the shepherd on the animal kingdom
Oped, Peter Singer, Published on 07/05/2025
» When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, many liberals had high expectations. Would priests be allowed to marry? Or, more radical still, perhaps he would open a path for women to be ordained? There were even some hints that he might recognise same-sex unions.
The 'living happily ever after' rule is for everyone
Oped, Steve Ammidown, Published on 14/02/2025
» The romance genre has a single set-in-stone rule: The main characters of the story will end up happily in a relationship. The HEA (Happily Ever After) or the HFN (Happy for Now) is the expectation of every reader who picks up a romance novel in the same way a mystery reader waits for a big twisty reveal or a fantasy reader anticipates strange and arcane magic.
Australia's big experiment for social media
Oped, Peter Singer, Published on 15/01/2025
» Late last year, Australia's parliament, reacting to concerns about the effect of social media on children's mental health, amended the Online Safety Act to require users to be at least 16 years old to open an account on social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and X. The amendment is expected to come into effect by the end of 2025.
I never panic, but I'm panicking now
Oped, Lydia Polgreen, Published on 23/11/2024
» For over a month now, my mother has been pestering me about her missing passport. It was in her closet, she said, and suddenly it was gone. It was expired, and renewing would be easier if she had the old one. She had no immediate travel plans, just a vague desire to visit Ethiopia, the country where she was born and raised, at some point in the future.
Lost in the middle?
Oped, Postbag, Published on 28/09/2024
» Re: "Thai foreign policy needs new rudder", (Opinion, Sept 27).
Journalists shouldn't be neutral on climate change
Oped, Perry Parks, Published on 30/08/2024
» Last year was the hottest summer on record in the Northern Hemisphere. Earth's ocean surfaces were warmer in the first month of 2024 than any previously recorded January. And by the end of this year, global climate-related deaths since 2000 could exceed 4 million people, according to one estimate.
Making roads healthier for travel
News, Jesus Carlos Soto and Silpa Wairatpanij, Published on 19/08/2024
» The world's cities are growing, and their roadways are becoming overwhelmed. Motor vehicles are the world's leading cause of death for people between the ages of 2 and 29, killing 1.2 million people and injuring up to 50 million annually, according to the World Health Organization's update on Dec 13, 2023.
Covid closure is needed. Congress blew its chance
News, FD Flam, Published on 07/06/2024
» Congress blew its chance on Monday to give Americans some insight into the Covid pandemic that dominated our lives for years. Following a 15-month inquiry, Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic called Anthony Fauci to testify in public at a special hearing, but committee members spent most of the time posturing rather than probing the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.