Most write to make themselves heard; I write to shut others up.
Jul 112017
Jul 102017
Fiction is more confining than history, for fiction must be plausible, while history need only be real.
Jul 072017
Problem, n. In mathematics: A problem. In social science: A state of affairs with which one is unhappy.
Jul 062017
The end of civilization will likely not be preceded by general alarm over civilization’s impending end.
Jul 052017
Problematic, against all odds, has become a useful word, as a sign to stop reading.
Jul 042017
Reasonable, adj. Good at thinking of reasons.
Jul 032017
Democracy and war are the most efficient mechanisms for becoming angry at large groups of people one has never met.
Jun 302017
A belief, we are told, is a thought you keep thinking; in fact you stopped thinking it some time ago, if it was ever a thought at all.
Jun 292017
It is possible, indeed common, to be both boring and weird.
Jun 282017
Cultural epochs used to last for centuries, then generations, then decades, now a year or two, and soon it will be fifteen minutes.