Some people like to argue that more economic inequality is a good thing, because it is a “natural” byproduct of capitalism in a world of “makers and takers,” “winners and losers,” “wolves and sheep,” [insert your favorite Manichaean metaphor here]. However, too much inequality is deleterious for both economics and politics — for with oligarchy […]
A timeline of recent Russian aggression
Russian aggression is mercurial — itβs getting harder to tell anymore who is being paid to push pro-Russian messages, and who has just been sadly taken in by them. For all this braggadocio (braggadocious, even!) about βbuilding a wallβ to keep supposed Mexican rapists out (although net migration has been falling with our southern neighbor for […]
Culture is collective neurosis
There’s a popular and somewhat understandable misperception of culture as a vehicle of reproducing “normalcy” throughout society. However, each historical era makes the cognitive mistake of assuming its particular version of Normal is, well, Normal. And that all eras which came before — that were obviously ruled by stupid people who could not understand the […]
No one knows more about diversity than old white dudes
For every thoughtful, measured perspective on the gigantically thorny problem of Diversity in the Valley, there has to be at least 10 angry white dudes who feel entitled to take a shit all over the idea that being more inclusive has to involve, like, actually learning to be inclusive — or really, making any changes […]
SOTU word cloud: Make work, America. Obama OUT!
Some of the more interesting bits From Obama‘s State of the Union speech, 2015: President Obamaβs tech-centered State of the Union: full text, and digital rights concerns β Boing Boing. p.s. cool visualization of Twitter mentions during the speech (via srogers @ cartodb)