Blog Posts

John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government has little to say about slavery, but what is said is said early. Chapter Four, entitled simply enough, Of Slavery, is but a couple of pages long. Bear in mind that the Second Treatise was published in 1690; England did not formally...

My wife and I exchange books on Christmas. I've finished the first, Lulu Miller's, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life.
It's rare I wish a book were longer. But I wish that of this book. It is actually three books in one -- at twice the...

Last week’s censorship of the New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the Ukraine has renewed calls to take another look at the immunity from suit for libel and defamation provided to social media giants, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. Should Internet hosts...

As I watch the nation transform itself into the Failed States of America, I struggle with what the future will hold. My best guess? Long after the union has crumbled, we’ll be coping with, and relying upon, artificial intelligence (AI).
Indeed, I spend a fair...

I am convinced that I am an artificial intelligence alarmist for the same reason that I like dystopian and apocalyptic literature. What I don’t understand is why the secret hope for catastrophe. The current pandemic has certainly called my bluff. Be careful what you wish for, I...

For years, I’ve been haunted by the message of a slender volume written in 2014. Only China survived the challenges imposed by climate change. It did so because it alone had the ability to mobilize itself against the threat.
Western societies, western...

Let me put my cards out on the table: I represent Alex Jones and Infowars. I despise efforts to silence him because his speech discomfits the self-righteous. And I regard Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg as clear and present dangers to the right to speak freely.
If any of this offends...

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian with a love for the long view, as in where did we, as a species, come from, the topic of his first book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014), and where we, as a species, are going, the topic of his second book, Home Deus: A Brief...

I’ve never worn blackface, but I’ve laughed when I’ve seen actors like Bing Cosby do so. Just like I laughed when I saw three Coors beer cans in hoods surrounding a Budweiser bottle in a noose. In the highly charged world in which the closest thing to holiness is...

Remind me never to piss off John Uustal. Or, if I do, remind me that I should get him angry at someone I don’t like. The Florida litigator is so furious just now, he’s putting his money where his mouth is. If you have the information he is looking for, he will pay you up...