Category: General
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Ersatz moralities
It’s no coincidence that good guy/bad guy movies, comic books and games have large, impassioned and volatile fandoms – even the word ‘fandom’ suggests the idea of a nation, or kingdom. What’s more, the moral physics of these stories about superheroes fighting the good fight, or battling to save the world, does not commend genuine…
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I am not sick. The world is sick.
After I learned all this, and what it means for us all, I started to long for the power to go back in time and speak to my teenage self on the day he was told a story about his depression that was going to send him off in the wrong direction for so many…
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That was the year that was
I still vaguely recall my mother’s 40th birthday back in 1987; that was the golden era of the catchphrase “life begins at 40!”, and I heard it repeated many times that year in many tonal variations, from sincere statement of aspiration to bitter statement of crushed hope. I turned forty this year. And I guess…
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Unpacking the suitcase words
Half a dozen different people sent me this article for slightly different reasons; one has come to dread the listicle format, but this example is excellent, with every point well worth passing on. My talk in Munich last week was an extensive riff on Clarke’s Third Law, so I’ll not reprise that now; instead, I’ll highlight…
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Five theses for the future
(Or: what I did on my holiday, by Paul Graham Raven, aged 40 ¾) Many thanks to the lovely people at Bayerischer Rundfunk for inviting me to their annual conference in Munich, putting me up in what looks to be possibly its most characterful hotel, and giving me a stage from which to expose the noxious back-stage…