Nolen Gertz
@ethicistforhire.bsky.social
Philosophy professor @utwentephilosophy.bsky.social
Author of #NihilismAndTechnology (RLI 2018), #Nihilism (MIT 2019), #PhilosophyOfWarAndExile (Palgrave 2014)
https://www.nolengertz.com
#Philsky #Philtech #Existentialism #Phenomenology #Filmsky
Author of #NihilismAndTechnology (RLI 2018), #Nihilism (MIT 2019), #PhilosophyOfWarAndExile (Palgrave 2014)
https://www.nolengertz.com
#Philsky #Philtech #Existentialism #Phenomenology #Filmsky
Pinned
Nolen Gertz
@ethicistforhire.bsky.social
· Dec 27
Nihilism and Technology, Updated Edition
Investigating how human values mediate the design and use of new technologies, the updated edition of Nolen Gertz’s Nihilism and Technology explores the ramifications of artificial intelligence. G...
rowman.com
Thread of things I wrote this year:
1) Updated edition of my #NihilismAndTechnology book with new chapters about why AI doesn't exist, why ChatGPT shouldn't exist, and why climate change can't be solved by nihilism...
rowman.com/ISBN/9781538...
1) Updated edition of my #NihilismAndTechnology book with new chapters about why AI doesn't exist, why ChatGPT shouldn't exist, and why climate change can't be solved by nihilism...
rowman.com/ISBN/9781538...
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
The failure here is that step one isn’t “grab your hammer.”
Here's how to disable Ring's creepy Search Party feature
Ring's Super Bowl ad alerted many people to the company's Search Party feature, which is basically neighborhood surveillance. Here's how to disable it.
www.engadget.com
February 9, 2026 at 7:02 PM
The failure here is that step one isn’t “grab your hammer.”
Black Mirror: Robot dogs will hunt you down
Reality: Robots will use your love of dogs to hunt you down
Reality: Robots will use your love of dogs to hunt you down
“No matter how Ring and other surveillance tech companies may downplay it, there’s no world in which finding lost dogs is the final end-use for this technology.”
Opinion | Ring is using lost dogs to make the surveillance state adorable
The same technology the Amazon-owned company uses to find lost dogs could easily be turned against their owners.
www.ms.now
February 10, 2026 at 7:37 AM
Black Mirror: Robot dogs will hunt you down
Reality: Robots will use your love of dogs to hunt you down
Reality: Robots will use your love of dogs to hunt you down
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
i think this more than anything is what miller wants. vast detention camps with all of the suffering and death that means.
ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps.
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight. www.ajc.com/politics/202...
ICE to begin detaining immigrants inside Social Circle warehouse in April
Homeland Security plans to build warehouse detention facilities in other cities being met with opposition.
www.ajc.com
February 10, 2026 at 3:56 AM
i think this more than anything is what miller wants. vast detention camps with all of the suffering and death that means.
Considering how much tech companies rely on potential medical applications as a way to sell AI, this is a pretty big deal...
#NihilismAndTechnology
#NihilismAndTechnology
“Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Yale universities recently found that 60 FDA-authorized medical devices using AI were linked to 182 product recalls, according to a research letter published in the JAMA Health Forum in August.”
As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts
Medical device makers have been rushing to add AI to their products. While proponents say the new technology will revolutionize medicine, regulators are receiving a rising number of claims of patient ...
www.reuters.com
February 9, 2026 at 1:13 PM
Considering how much tech companies rely on potential medical applications as a way to sell AI, this is a pretty big deal...
#NihilismAndTechnology
#NihilismAndTechnology
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
Got dumped by your AI girlfriend right before Valentine’s? 💔 We got you! ✨💖✨ www.instagram.com/p/DUYiI_bDjB...
February 8, 2026 at 11:49 AM
Got dumped by your AI girlfriend right before Valentine’s? 💔 We got you! ✨💖✨ www.instagram.com/p/DUYiI_bDjB...
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
The Epstein files are turning into one of those accidental historical archives of preserved records like the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Manuscript (fragments from 32BC–640AD found in an Egyptian rubbish dump). But instead of shopping lists, bills and horoscopes it’s the elite manipulating the system.
This is bleak: Jes Staley, currently CEO of Barclays, reassuring Epstein that popular revolt against financial elites is unlikely because capitalism and pop culture have defanged social movements, leaving people more invested in consumption than justice.
February 7, 2026 at 7:53 AM
The Epstein files are turning into one of those accidental historical archives of preserved records like the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Manuscript (fragments from 32BC–640AD found in an Egyptian rubbish dump). But instead of shopping lists, bills and horoscopes it’s the elite manipulating the system.
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
Fantastic kick-off to day two, hearing from @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social and @ethicistforhire.bsky.social - amazing discussion and can't wait for their forthcoming books!
February 6, 2026 at 9:58 AM
Fantastic kick-off to day two, hearing from @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social and @ethicistforhire.bsky.social - amazing discussion and can't wait for their forthcoming books!
Nice venue for my talk this morning...
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal/...
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal/...
February 6, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Nice venue for my talk this morning...
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal/...
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal/...
Waking up in Maastricht...
February 5, 2026 at 8:33 AM
Waking up in Maastricht...
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
“If the design looks familiar, that might be because it’s a suspiciously similar color and shape to the ED-209 in ‘RoboCop,’ an ‘urban pacification’ robot that famously malfunctions and murders a corporate executive during a boardroom demonstration.”
February 4, 2026 at 10:00 PM
“If the design looks familiar, that might be because it’s a suspiciously similar color and shape to the ED-209 in ‘RoboCop,’ an ‘urban pacification’ robot that famously malfunctions and murders a corporate executive during a boardroom demonstration.”
Canada did a consultation on a new national AI strategy, formed an expert task force to write 32 reports, then used AI to analyze the responses & reports. The result is a summary that strings together 100s of vague action items & flattens nuance and policy trade-offs into false consensus
February 5, 2026 at 6:50 AM
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
The GOP has offered nothing this century except for catastrophic wars. No healthcare plan; no re-industrialization. Now they're losing their only issue, immigration, as people see the violence and havoc that comes with mass deportations.
Wow! What sounded like the entire AEW Dynamite audience in Las Vegas tonight chanted "Fuck ICE! Fuck ICE!" in unison before the main event
February 5, 2026 at 4:25 AM
The GOP has offered nothing this century except for catastrophic wars. No healthcare plan; no re-industrialization. Now they're losing their only issue, immigration, as people see the violence and havoc that comes with mass deportations.
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
Westboro Baptist Church tried to make an Anti-Luigi Mangione poster but it just looks like Luigi is threatening billionaires and goes unironically hard af
February 4, 2026 at 8:59 PM
Westboro Baptist Church tried to make an Anti-Luigi Mangione poster but it just looks like Luigi is threatening billionaires and goes unironically hard af
Made it to Maastricht...
February 4, 2026 at 9:07 PM
Made it to Maastricht...
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
On my way to Maastricht for some technological refusal (and for a keynote Friday morning on my new book)...
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal
‘No & ...’ : A Forum on Technological Refusal - Home
www.aanmelder.nl
February 4, 2026 at 2:35 PM
On my way to Maastricht for some technological refusal (and for a keynote Friday morning on my new book)...
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal
www.aanmelder.nl/techrefusal
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
Our next University of Twente Philosophy Lecture will be delivered by Anna Leuschner (University Professor of Philosophy of Science, Bergische Universität Wuppertal) on "From Denial to Selective Ignorance: On the Old and New Strategies against Climate Protection":
www.utwente.nl/en/bms/phil/...
www.utwente.nl/en/bms/phil/...
Philosophy Colloquium Lecture - 19 Febuary 1545-1730 - Anna Leuschner
University of Twente Philosophy Lectures 2025-2026
www.utwente.nl
February 4, 2026 at 11:00 AM
Our next University of Twente Philosophy Lecture will be delivered by Anna Leuschner (University Professor of Philosophy of Science, Bergische Universität Wuppertal) on "From Denial to Selective Ignorance: On the Old and New Strategies against Climate Protection":
www.utwente.nl/en/bms/phil/...
www.utwente.nl/en/bms/phil/...
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
this is exactly right. "popularism" in practice amounts to an abdication of political leadership!
This part of our response essay is where I'm at. Boiling down all of politics to electoralism has been absolutely terrible for resisting rising authoritarianism.
www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...
www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-no...
February 4, 2026 at 2:25 AM
this is exactly right. "popularism" in practice amounts to an abdication of political leadership!
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
this literally looks like a scene from THE FIRST PURGE
Fucking surreal that people dressed like this and carrying assault rifles are permitted to kidnap people off our streets
February 4, 2026 at 2:53 AM
this literally looks like a scene from THE FIRST PURGE
Reposted by Nolen Gertz
If you honestly believe there should be no secret police in America why is it so hard to simply call for them to be abolished. Shameful.
Democrats want commonsense reform for ICE:
End the roving patrols and racial profiling.
Take accountability and abide by the same rules as local police.
Masks need to come off, body cameras need to stay on—no secret police in the United States of America.
End the roving patrols and racial profiling.
Take accountability and abide by the same rules as local police.
Masks need to come off, body cameras need to stay on—no secret police in the United States of America.
February 4, 2026 at 3:56 AM
If you honestly believe there should be no secret police in America why is it so hard to simply call for them to be abolished. Shameful.
"Jeremiah was a bullfrog" was the greatest opening line of any song and blew my mind when I was a kid whenever it came on the radio...
Chuck Negron, one of the most recognizable rockers of the 1970s and a founding member of the band Three Dog Night, died on Monday at 83.
Chuck Negron, Singer With Three Dog Night, Is Dead at 83
His tenor anchored generational hits like “Joy to the World” and “One.”
nyti.ms
February 3, 2026 at 11:17 PM
"Jeremiah was a bullfrog" was the greatest opening line of any song and blew my mind when I was a kid whenever it came on the radio...