Tag: society
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The Categorical Error
In the ever pleasant environs of coastal San Diego, where I spent the 1990s, whatever was happening in Silicon Valley reached us faintly, like the buzz of cicadas sealed out by good windows. Still, the vibrations traveled. You could feel them most clearly at the magazine rack, which became a monthly trading floor for belief.…
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Dancing at Dream’s Denouement
It is Independence Day, 2025. I don’t really have much to say that I didn’t say last year.
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the illusion of stability
Why Everything You’ve Built Is on Shaky Ground You probably don’t think about the economy much. Not the big picture, anyway. You’ve got a job, a mortgage, maybe a 401(k). You pay your taxes, try to make smart decisions, and hope things work out. When something feels off—rising prices, a blown tire you can’t quite…
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the 20 worst ideas of the 20th Century
In no particular order: Dishonorable mentions that didn’t make the top 20, again in no particular order:
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the gravity of Truth
“I’m sick” is the lie we tell so we don’t have to deal with the gravity of, “I’m dying faster than normal”.
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a thought exercise
Imagine, if you will, that on the day you were born, you were handed a trust fund designed to run out the day you died — 100 years later. Every day of your life, you could spend some of that trust fund, and on the final day, you’d spend the final penny.1 How much would…
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social myth
Philosophical mythology vs political sociology is the conflict between progress and regress, sophrosyne vs hubris, and thus the world of freedom and liberty vs the world of authority and control. “Do or do not, there is no try” is incompatible with corpo-capitalism because teaching mythological belief in the Force that you can find harmony with,…
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thinking about how collapse will come
LA is burning. The destruction is immense, but less than it could have been, This is a small blip on the radar of future catastrophe. Time will only intensify these events – wildfires, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods – as the climate adjusts. As the ice and permafrost melts and the load on the poles lightens,…
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I hung up on my mother
I hung up on my mother today because she was trying to make an argument justifying why ~20 million Joe Biden voters didn’t show up for Kamala Harris because she wasn’t competent. There are many, many reasons why this happened, and none of them have to do with the competency of Kamala Harris compared to…
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power and consequences are directly proportional
“With great power comes great responsibility” — Uncle Ben in every Spider-Man media ever made We want fairness, and in that fairness we want those who are more powerful to be punished more when they use that power to harm. We want this because of a concept of fairness called “fairness as justice” which is…