American composer Michael Dellaira secured the operatic rights to Lampedusa’s novel after rereading it following a trip to Sicily in 2014. Pandemic complications froze the entire performance world for two years, so the opera only had its world premiere in March 2022, in a run of two performances by the Frost Opera Theater.

After evading numerous requests by Ukraine for heavy weapons, the German governing parties have now acquiesced and voted for a parliamentary proposal for such a delivery, alongside training offers for Ukrainian soldiers on German soil.

Over time, as artificial intelligence gets more entrenched in the realm of moral decision-making, it is entirely possible that the AI’s used for those decisions become standardized. But is this desirable? The answer has less to do with the form under which the decision is made—an algorithm or a human brain—and more with what moral values the decision maker applies to the problem.

The notion that there are limits to our growth is holding the West in a psychological stranglehold. Whereas other civilizations are thriving, the West suffers from a weariness that stifles any belief in further progress. This weariness has had a name for almost 2,000 years: Acedia.