Every society is ruled by its high-status beliefs; if you don’t like them, your only recourse is to lower their status.
Nov 032022
Nov 022022
Tenure, like many privileges, is granted on the implied condition that it never be exercised.
Nov 012022
Whatever everyone is on about you want nothing to do with.
Oct 312022
Automated spell-check is an object lesson in tail risk: it reduces the number of errors, but by attempting to correct them with actual words, renders each a potential catastrophe.
Oct 282022
Language becomes hackneyed by always being placed in the same sterile surroundings, not by any fault of its own. Dead phrases can be revivified by bashing them against each other in a novel way, like rubbing sticks together to make a fire.
Oct 272022
What is worth reading is worth reading esoterically.
Oct 262022
No matter how the world appears to be improving, it always feels like it’s falling apart.
Oct 252022
Every regime, in every era, has installed incompetents in positions of high responsibility and authority; it is our unique distinction to do so on high principle.
Oct 242022
We often profess ourselves baffled by exceptionally bad behavior, though with a little reflection we could readily understand it. Incomprehension becomes our talisman, lest if we understood more, we might resist less.
Oct 212022
To want your name known is innocuous, even healthy. To want your face known is when sickness sets in.