My parents have been binge-watching the Paramount show Yellowstone, which is not about the infamous National Park but rather is a kind of cowboy Game of Thrones in the modern American West. I can’t stomach […]
Tag: politics
III. The New Rules
Earlier this week, I summarized both Orwell’s and Umberto Eco’s views on a species of thought, which we might call ideological factionalism, that has always been with us but which seemed to be in retreat, […]
II. The Unending Task
Yesterday I wrote about Orwell’s 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” where nationalism meant a manner of thinking that could attach itself to more than just a state. Orwell says he chose the word because it […]
I. The Emotion I Am Speaking
If you haven’t read Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism,” it is a classic and a chief example of why he is a writer of the first class. The title is unfortunate, which he admits in the […]
Tomorrow
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, […]
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, […]
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 […]
