optimism

Hope springs eternal: The Café with No Name, by Robert Seethaler, reviewed

1 March 2025 9:00 am

It’s Vienna, 1966, and a young labourer casts a speculative eye on a ramshackle café in the corner of the Karmelitermarkt, daring to restore it and improve his lot

An AI visionary looks forward to the best of all possible worlds

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Technology unquestionably improves lives, says Ray Kurzwei, and soon we’ll be living to 150. As for 3D-printed guns invisible to scanners – there’ll be a solution to those too

Only an idiot would choose to live at any other time than the present

10 March 2018 9:00 am

Steven Pinker’s new book is a characteristically fluent, decisive and data-rich demonstration of why, given the chance to live at…