Category: Society

“The thing is, at some point you have to balance the rights of the individual versus the needs of society.” His statement left me stunned.  I’d invited this tax collector into my home on good faith, and when he wasn’t praising the intricacies of World of Warcraft, he was busy uttering the vilest musings it’s ever been my misfortune to hear. “I mean, you’ve got to think about China – we need to compete with their worker class, and we won’t be able to do that without locking up citizens for victimless crimes.” China.  Now there’s a moral barometer.  I...

I’ll be honest folks, I don’t like mentioning this – on the one hand, the beast that betrays freedom creeps, it comes on from all sides, attacking those that nobody cares about… But Goddamnit, I just don’t like talking about the smoking bullshit.  I’m biased about it all. So instead, let me tall you about Robin Hanson. The man ain’t no true Libertarian – 90% of the time he agrees with us, but the other 10% of the time, well… He believes in efficiency, not liberty.  Nine times out of ten he’ll say freedom is the true route, but that...

I gotta tell you folks, I’m feeling pretty depressed today.  I Spent the night arguing with my girlfriend, my car’s being a piece of shit, there’s nothing funny on the internet today, and, as my friend Griffin so eloquently put it, I’m looking out the window at an ashtray sky. Might as well write about Climate Change, I guess.  That’ll at least give me a good excuse to get drunk later.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to miss this particular controversy, but like a bad case of chlamydia it’ll catch up with you eventually unless you’re hiding under a rock. So if right now it doesn’t burn when you pee… well, like Serenity says “You can’t stop the signal”.  Allow me to be your cultural agent of memetic virulence.

The other day my girlfriend told me that she really enjoys sharing a bottle of whisky with me on Thursdays. A bit of strange statement, given that half these nights end up with her sobbing as I yell at broken furniture, but I’m not one to judge. I’ve always lived with the philosophy that an interesting life is better than a happy one, and that tragedy is the highest form of art. After all, you have to admit that hiding in the corner as your boyfriend breaks his knuckles on an oaken coffee table is more interesting that playing Solitaire...

As I write this, delegates from the Switzerland, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and the European Union have gathered in Seoul under the watchful eyes of their leader from the United States. Dressed in a blood-red gown, he leads them through dark hallways chanting the ancient Latin prayer of offering to the MPAA as his followers flagellate themselves with the burning tips of a firewire cable. But this is not a committee dedicated to the study of S&M; nor is it some harmless group of Opus Dei celebrants....

Last week, I was driving back from the girlfriend’s house, about midnight or so on a Tuesday. I was mostly driving through residential neighbourhoods, on a 50 km/h main drag, but one portion passed through a city park which spans most of the city, and has underground tunnels for the pedestrians and bike-riders. Most of the time, people go through here at 65 or 70 – and it’s perfectly safe. There’s few, if any, pedestrians walking along the road, and given that it’s a mild valley the extra momentum can be useful for making your way up the other side....