Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Two technology balancing acts

information technology
d3sign/Getty Images

Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework" (Springer, 2014), has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.

The internet and social media have provided organizations and people with a great many windows on the world compared to the three major television stations of the 1950s.

There have been positive and negative implications of this information technology development. On the positive side, everyone is a publisher and an advocate. You do not have to be NBC to reach 3 million or even 30 million people with a story. You might be a celebrity or an environmental advocate who reaches 50 million or even 500 million people with a tweet. Citizens have more power as a result of having a laptop or smartphone at their fingertips.

Moreover, everyone can access news, stories and blogs that are of interest to them. The information technology smorgasbord, like humility according (to T.S. Eliot), is endless. Information technology has also led to the development of countless new forms of medical technology, defense technology and consumer goods.

On the negative side, the internet and social media frequently spread lies and false statements. They enable authors to fabricate claims and stories with digital tricks. Hacking and other forms of cybercrime are everywhere. Moreover, experts have observed that citizens can easily channel information that only represents one point of view. This leads to political polarization and can foment prejudice and hostility along racial, gender, sexual identity and religious lines.

The internet and social media have been blamed for helping to create a red coat/blue coat war in which there are very few centrists in our government. And while there are more centrists amongst citizens themselves, they lack representation in Washington.


We continue to live with this chaos – boundless freedom, endless capacity to learn, clear tendencies for rigidity, intolerance, polarization and even violence.

Is there a way out? No, there is no way out.

Information technology, like industrialization, is at once a blessing and a curse. The industrial revolution changed the world. It accelerated the development of capitalism and gave birth to new forms of transportation, communication, food production, medicine and consumer goods. It also led to poverty, exploitation, alienation, pollution and class war.

We have not resolved the inherent tension within 19th century industrialization, and thus we should not expect to resolve the inherent tension within late 20th century information technology either.

But what can we do?

Perhaps the main thing we can do is recognize that information technology, like industrial technology, is inherently conflicted. Indeed, there have been two IT revolutions, not one: first industrial and then information technology. Nuclear technology has the same tension. IT1 and IT2 are neither inherently good nor inherently harmful.

This recognition must be made more explicit in our politics. We need a Congress and a president, and state governments, that accept the tension and work weekly to balance it, recognizing that it is impossible to overcome it. Several things that could be done include: establish a congressional oversight committee and a presidential commission to devise metrics to measure and track the two IT tensions. The media can also create scorecards.

Various newspapers and media oversight websites have "fact check" services. There could be a monthly scorecard on the "technology balancing acts." What is to be avoided at all costs is dismissing or oversimplifying the two IT tensions.

Wisdom involves accepting the tension but working constantly to balance the values of efficiency, economic growth, freedom, equality, safety and stability that are at stake in our country and civilization itself.

Read More

Tariff ‘Mission Accomplished’ Hype Is Just That

In an aerial view, a container ship arrives at the Port of Oakland on Aug. 1, 2025, in Oakland, California.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/TNS

Tariff ‘Mission Accomplished’ Hype Is Just That

On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush announced, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” He was standing below a giant banner that read, “Mission Accomplished.” At the risk of inviting charges of understatement, subsequent events didn’t cooperate. But it took a while for that to be widely accepted.

We’re in a similar place when it comes to President Trump’s experiment with a new global trading order.

Keep ReadingShow less
Back to School Shopping? Expect Higher Prices, “Invisible” to the Consumer

AI-driven "surveillance pricing" hides the price increases from stressed-out parents.

Getty Images, Isabel Pavia

Back to School Shopping? Expect Higher Prices, “Invisible” to the Consumer

For families with school children, the summer is coming to a close, and it’s time to start thinking about—school shopping! New clothes, shoes, daypacks, and school supplies are topmost of mind, making sure your little Einsteins and Rembrandts are ready to take on the new school year.

But this year, it’s coming with a twist—not only are prices higher in the stores and online, but the price increases are seemingly “invisible” due to deceptive uses of new technologies and what is known as “surveillance pricing.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Celebrating National Black Business Month

National Black Business Month is about correcting an imbalance and recognizing that supporting Black-owned businesses is suitable for everyone.

Getty Images, Tara Moore

Celebrating National Black Business Month

Every August, National Black Business Month rolls around, and for a few weeks, social media lights up with hashtags and well-meaning posts about supporting Black-owned businesses. You'll see lists pop up—restaurants, bookstores, clothing lines—all run by Black entrepreneurs. Maybe your favorite coffee shop puts up a sign, or a big brand launches a campaign. But once the month ends, the noise fades, and for many, it's back to business as usual.

This cycle is familiar. It's easy to mistake visibility for progress or to think that a single purchase is enough. But National Black Business Month is meant to be more than a fleeting moment of recognition. It's a moment to interrogate the systems that got us here and to put our money—and our intent—where our mouths are. In a better world, Black business success would be a given, not a cause for annual celebration.

Keep ReadingShow less
How Abnormal Are the Revisions in This Month’s Jobs Report?

Seasonally adjusted data. Graph excludes March to August 2020, initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the reported jobs numbers were especially volatile. Shows difference between the preliminary estimate and the final revision for each month. Includes initial revision for June 2025 (BLS often issues a second revision).

How Abnormal Are the Revisions in This Month’s Jobs Report?

On Friday, President Trump announced that he was firing Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Earlier that day the BLS had issued its monthly national jobs report, which showed lackluster growth in employment, and a slight uptick in the unemployment rate.

The report showed a relatively small increase in employment for July: +73,000 nonfarm payroll jobs. The BLS also included revisions to the preliminary jobs numbers reported earlier, stating: “Revisions for May and June were larger than normal. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down by 125,000, from +144,000 to +19,000, and the change for June was revised down by 133,000, from +147,000 to +14,000.”

Keep ReadingShow less