Category: the state
-
American immigration policy: a 75 year plan
Over the next 75 years or so, barring catastrophe, the global human population is expected to rise to around 10 billion before plateauing for a while and then, perhaps, declining through the first half of the next century. Simultaneously, the developed world will face a demographic challenge as more people age out of the workforce…
-
The same boogieman
Privacy advocates and gun advocates fear the same boogieman but only privacy tech can stop it short of war and war is rarely an invited guest. The fear of authority gone awry and reaching towards authoritarianism is not irrational. The desire to have tools that protect you from authoritarianism is not irrational. The desire to…
-
Late-stage Westphalianism
In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia brought an end to decades of widespread warfare between Catholics and Protestants in continental Europe. In a pair of treaties involving 109 parties, a system of International relations was born based on the idea that rulers were allowed to determine the religion of their own state, but that their…
-
1600 hours
It might be the case that the greatest change in American society we could make is to fix Federal Officer pay schedule as a multiple of 1600 hours of the Federal Minimum wage and to tax corporations based on how much greater that multiple is between their lowest paid worker and their highest. Currently the…
-
Democracy and capitalism
Democracy is about removing the friction of living well amongst people. Capitalism has realized there is money to be made by monetizing in perpetuity that friction that democracy is trying to remove.
-
Consequences
There is a natural spectrum of consequences in human society. Shame Confinement/Confiscation Exile Death. We have created two problems. The First is that Corporations are not, in practice, permitted to be killed. The Second is that Exile is almost entirely gone from our social structures. This reduced set was halved again when we effectively saw…
-
Context Matters
Context matters. Barack Obama, regardless of your politics, was and is not an uncouth narcissistic bully who insists that all social interactions be conducted on his terms. Nor does he align himself with fascists, white supremacists, or foreign states hostile to democracy. Nor does he lie about trivial, easily obtainable facts and instruct his staff…
-
Mitigating gun violence versus controlling gun access
Gun control is decisive. Guns salve fear. Fear is increasingly pervasive, mostly because it is an effective tool for manipulating the market or the masses, occasionally because it is warranted. Fear-of-direct-bodily-harm-driven gun violence is most hazardous in places with higher population density. More people in smaller spaces increases the opportunity for both ad hoc violence,…
-
Argument to the comforters
argumentum ad solatorem
-
Internet mass surveillance shenanigans have one obvious outcome:
the widespread proliferation and use of IPSec AH headers and ESP in transport mode. First one with an easy-to-use solution for the masses wins the Kewpie doll.