Prior to WWII, the US had a marginal presence overseas. We now have over 800 military bases in 70 countries around the globe — more than any nation in history — including 174 in Germany, […]
Tag: politics
Past Participles: History & Secession
People read passages from the Federalist papers in school, or an ancient treatise on Stoicism or whatever, and it informs their sense of how things were in the past, forgetting (or worse, never realizing) that […]
(Curiosity) Voting for Darth Vader
Celebrities don’t exist. Not really. They are characters in a public drama, which is why, whenever someone meets them — or rather, the person of the same name who plays them — there’s always an […]
Optimism — one of Superman’s often-overlooked superpowers.
(Curiosity) A 16th Century Political Meme
16th century anti-papal political meme by Lucas Cranach the Elder: German peasants farting at the pope (1545). The whole fake news phenomenon is big and complicated and covers everything from the advent of social media, […]
(Curiosity) AI and the future of humanity
Whether we like it or not, Algorithmic Intelligence is here to stay, and genuine Artificial Intelligence, even though not related, is probably coming at some point in the future. Just like genetic modification of food […]
We live in a time when strange women distributing swords no longer sounds like a completely ridiculous form of government. art by Tiago Sousa
(Curiosity) The Cacophony Before A Deafening Silence (or, Science Fiction is Dead, Jim)
Until the New Wave began in the middle 1960s, most science fiction was fundamentally “rationalist” in that the worlds it imagined were overwhelmingly built on rational principles. This is true even if the story were […]
(Curiosity) If you only read one book, read one that isn’t true
A connection of mine recently self-pubbed a cyberpunkish dystopian sci-fi novel. Since I’m universally supportive of gatekeeper-free publishing, I was enthusiastic at first, but it’s since turned out to be little more than a thinly-veiled […]
(Curiosity) Not Right
Ne Fas Day From the Latin ne meaning not, and fas, which is more difficult to translate since there isn’t an English cognate. Roman society, like all classical societies — including those that still exist […]
