Editorial illustrations for Science For The People magazine.
"Patriot Man" illustration feature ("Killing in The Name Of" Vol. 25 no. 3, 2023)
There is a ready association in pop culture between cutting edge technology and the perfect weapon. Scientific genius (or madness) lies at the heart of many of our heroic origin stories as the source of their power. Characters from comic and screen like “Patriot Man” here have been transformed through scientific ingenuity into both a symbol of the country itself and, notably, its military.
The history of science is entangled with military history and the creation of some of humanity's most terrible agents of destruction. Chemical weapons like mustard gas and Agent Orange exist thanks to advances in chemistry for fertilizer and herbicides.
The same rocketry and aerospace technologies developed to deploy warheads also took us to the Moon, in what was at once a triumph for the capabilities of collective humanity and a demonstration of the tactical supremacy of the United States. When the first V2 rockets hit London, their designer Werhner Von Braun (Nazi and, soon after, NASA engineer) allegedly said: "The rocket worked perfectly, except for landing on the wrong planet." And of course, the long shadow of The Bomb loomed behind research into the fundamental physics of atomic fission.
With modern aviation, robotics, and artificial intelligence, this Jekyll & Hyde dynamic of “dual-use technologies” is only accelerating. Even our multi-billion dollar movie franchises have an alter ego, with an uncomfortably cosy relationship between some film studios and the armed forces to create what is arguably soft recruitment propaganda.
-Jordan Collver
"The Tragedy of The Commons Revisited" feature by Tegan Morton ("Cooperation" Vol. 23 no. 3, 2021)
"Heading for the Last Roundup" feature by Edward Millar and Cliff Conner ("The Soil and The Worker" Vol. 25 no. 1, 2022)
