Nicholas Agar

Nicholas AgarNicholas AgarNicholas Agar
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Nicholas Agar

Nicholas AgarNicholas AgarNicholas Agar
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About Me

I am Professor of Philosophy at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.


I've been busy over the past almost thirty years exploring the ethical implications of technological change, and the ways in which genetic and cybernetic technologies may alter us. Recently I've been very busy writing about the coronavirus pandemic.

Latest

How exploiting confusion about digital tech became an enormously profitable business strategy — and what can be done to stop it

How exploiting confusion about digital tech became an enormously profitable business strategy — and what can be done to stop it

How exploiting confusion about digital tech became an enormously profitable business strategy — and what can be done to stop it

A piece for the ABC that recounts an embarrassing and expensive error with digital tech and uses it to highlight a very profitable digital tech business model that exploits human cognitive frailty. 

Link to article

How tech co-opted the philosophical debate about human enhancement

How exploiting confusion about digital tech became an enormously profitable business strategy — and what can be done to stop it

How exploiting confusion about digital tech became an enormously profitable business strategy — and what can be done to stop it

A piece for the ABC that calls out the suborning of the philosophy of human enhancement by tech and money. 

Link to article

Too much information, too little time: Why conspiracy theories appeal to the time-poor

How exploiting confusion about digital tech became an enormously profitable business strategy — and what can be done to stop it

COVID-19 reminds us why we should be wary of politicians bright-siding scientific advice

A piece on the ABC that explores a conjecture about increasing levels of time-poverty and the rise of conspiracy thinking.

Link to article

COVID-19 reminds us why we should be wary of politicians bright-siding scientific advice

COVID-19 reminds us why we should be wary of politicians bright-siding scientific advice

COVID-19 reminds us why we should be wary of politicians bright-siding scientific advice

A piece with the ABC that calls out the politicians' habit of always trying to look on the bright side of advice about the pandemic. Boris Johnson is the worst offender. Australia can put its recent disappointments about Omicron down do political bright-siding of scientific advice.

Link to article

We need more philosophy to create cognitive herd immunity

COVID-19 reminds us why we should be wary of politicians bright-siding scientific advice

We need more philosophy to create cognitive herd immunity

Achieving herd immunity against COVID-19 requires more than vaccines. It requires cognitive herd immunity.

Link to article

Finding Purpose in the Humanities

COVID-19 reminds us why we should be wary of politicians bright-siding scientific advice

We need more philosophy to create cognitive herd immunity

A piece on Project Syndicate. With policymakers intent on privileging technical “job-ready” majors, it is becoming more difficult for liberal arts departments to attract students. But these fields of study are as important as ever, and with a few modest reforms, they should be an easy sell for today’s “purpose-driven” young people.

Link to article

Beware the Wikipedia effect in higher education

Never mind the naysayers — let’s start listening to the “silent majority” about vaccines

Beware the Wikipedia effect in higher education

This piece on the ABC uses ideas from the behavioural economist Dan Ariely to point to a threat for the in-depth understanding characteristic of the humanities from Wikipedia's knowledge-for-free business model.

Link to article

Confessions of a philosophical shit-stirrer

Never mind the naysayers — let’s start listening to the “silent majority” about vaccines

Beware the Wikipedia effect in higher education

A follow up to this piece on the vice of philosophical shit-stirring. And a bit of a mea culpa for past shit-stirring.

Link to article

Never mind the naysayers — let’s start listening to the “silent majority” about vaccines

Never mind the naysayers — let’s start listening to the “silent majority” about vaccines

The paradox of choice: How Australia’s vaccine rollout provides a warning for the future of the flu

A piece on the ABC that suggests we focus more on the knowledge that most of us have acquired about vaccines than on the angry minority who haven't been paying attention.

Link to article

The paradox of choice: How Australia’s vaccine rollout provides a warning for the future of the flu

The paradox of choice: How Australia’s vaccine rollout provides a warning for the future of the flu

The paradox of choice: How Australia’s vaccine rollout provides a warning for the future of the flu

Piece on the ABC in which I discuss the difficult choices about whether and how to vaccinate against COVID-19 that Australians confront. I offer a warning about the future of ‘flu vaccination.

Link to article

The Inflection Pointillists

The paradox of choice: How Australia’s vaccine rollout provides a warning for the future of the flu

The Inflection Pointillists

A piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books written with Stuart Whatley that challenges popular beliefs about exponential improvement as the solution to pretty much everything.

Link to article

The Dream Economy

The paradox of choice: How Australia’s vaccine rollout provides a warning for the future of the flu

The Inflection Pointillists

A piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books written with Stuart Whatley that deflates some of the hype that turns tech visionaries into multibillionaires.

Link to article
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Books

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Opinion Pieces

Contact Me

nagar@waikato.ac.nz

Copyright © 2022 Nicholas Agar - All Rights Reserved.

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