The Subjective Nature of 'Nothing to Hide'Opinion
Whether you have something to hide has far more to do with who is looking than what they can see.
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Society & Politics
Reflections on power, institutions, and public life, exploring how political ideas shape—and are shaped by—social norms, incentives, and cultural assumptions.
33 essays
Marginalia: Anatomy of a Search Engine
I wonder if there is an alternative reading in which they did not make a conscious decision to be 'evil'?
Inner Circle
5 reasons I will be celebrating the Queen’s Platinum JubileeOpinion
It becomes a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
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Pseudo-Profound Bullshit
In this context, we do well to reject the bullshitters of this world, but we do our understanding a disservice if we are sceptical to a fault.
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They Are TeachableOpinion
One of History's lessons is that once a group is deemed unteachable they will be placed in the category of an ever present threat to the preferred social order.
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Teflon Leadership
Those who rise to the top jobs, do so not because they are better leaders or have fewer blots on their copybook — it is because they are better able to shrug off criticism and weather the blistering attacks that are directed at all holders of public office.
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Power and Control: Tech Billionaires in PoliticsOpinion
Don't worry about the populist, worry about what comes after them. And what is coming seems clear: Billionaires of the 2.0 revolution.
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Marginalia: Protect Duty
While I am not keen on the idea of self-policing, lest we go the way of some American states, I do wonder if society may not be better able to protect its citizens if its citizens were more involved in that self-same protection. Be it physical, intellectual or cyber.
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Hail, Lobster!
The moment when left leaning popular culture overreached itself and instead of fascist shaming a once obscure academic into silence, brought back into popular use what had long been taboo and empowered the very thing they thought they were destroying.
The Commons
Bitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets - Political
In praxis, the result for Bitcoin is that the ideological claims for a decentralised, government free, anonymous currency has given way to the ‘worse-is-better’ ideology of why most people seem to be dumping cash into crypto: to get rich and live the capitalist high life.
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Bitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets - Environmental
I have long been concerned with the negative human impact on our environment and while I am some way off from thinking the world is on fire, it is clear that business as usual is going to leave a decidedly lessened planet for our children. Thus my spotlight on the ecological effects of our choices i
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A Mastodon To Call My Own
Mastodon allows you to run your own server which means you have "absolute control over your own voice on the web, not subject to anyone else's rules or whims. Your server is your property, with your rules."
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The Shape Of Things That Are
Though conclusions drawn from data may be offensive, we should be slow to take offence at data. Even if it contradicts our deeply held beliefs.
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A Marvellous Idea for a Blog
I didn't have the time to write you a short blog about historical analogies, so I wrote about something else.
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Dead Certainties
The key is to avoid reading events falsely, which inevitably leads to politics shaping what we think is true.
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