Friday links! Binary new world edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 0 Comment

Utopian dystopia

We know two things about the future: it’s coming, and it will be either all bad or all good. That second part is obvious from movies. Films about the future are either set in utopias (Star Trek, Gattaca, 2001: A Space Odyssey)—or dystopias (Aliens, Idiocracy, Back to the Future.) It follows that at this moment, everything is either about to be fine or just setting off for hell in a handbasket. The odds of some problems getting better and others getting worse just doesn’t make sense. It’s an immense mathematical unlikelihood that the world would stay exactly as good as it is now. Today is Friday, and what comes after will surely be different. Won’t you call it in the air with me?

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Friday links! Other people working edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 3 Comments
The author, who from an early age loved to watch other people work—photo by Suzan Brooks

The author, who from an early age loved to watch other people work—photo by Suzan Brooks

Is there anything more satisfying than hard work? Can any force build a stronger character than honest labor daily undertaken? Work nourishes the soul—not my soul, of course, but the souls of others. In these times of national struggle, the only clear way forward is for other people to roll up their sleeves, take hold of their bootstraps and, with whatever hands remain available, get to work. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to teach other people the value of work, whether that means opposing welfare or cutting my own taxes. Today is Friday, and honest labor sets everyone free except me. Won’t you rediscover the joys of work by yourself?

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Friday links! Captive to others’ rights edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Mexico City seen from above—photo by Pablo Lopez Luz

Mexico City seen from above—photo by Pablo Lopez Luz

More than seven billion people live on planet Earth right now, and each of them is as important as you are. I haven’t checked his math, but Gabor Zovanyi of Eastern Washington University has something sobering to say about population growth:

“If our species had started with just two people at the time of the earliest agricultural practices some 10,000 years ago, and increased by one percent per year, today humanity would be a solid ball of flesh many thousand light years in diameter, and expanding with a radial velocity that, neglecting relativity, would be many times faster than the speed of light.”

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, I suppose they will all want dignity. Today is Friday, and your rights end where my nose begins. Won’t you find yourself enclosed in a thicket of sharp elbows with me?

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Friday links! Good-enough Morgan edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links, Uncategorized 1 Comment
Children climb on the Vietnam War women's memorial in Washington, DC.

Children climb on the Vietnam War women’s memorial in Washington, DC.

I learned a sweet expression yesterday: good-enough Morgan, an issue or talking point used to influence voters temporarily, particularly in the period before an election. For example, gay marriage became a good-enough Morgan in 2004, driving evangelicals to the polls so they would vote for George W. Bush and then vanishing from the national Republican agenda. But the best part of “good-enough Morgan” is the etymology. William Morgan was a former Freemason who planned to write a tell-all book before his mysterious disappearance in 1826. When Thurlow Weed, organizer of the nascent Anti-Masonic Party, found a body floating in the Niagara river in 1828, he said it would be a “good-enough Morgan” until after the election. Today is Friday, and the people must be tricked into wisdom somehow. Won’t you misidentify the bodies with me?

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Friday links! Invincible perfection of ideology edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 1 Comment
Vladimir Putin and a puppy that later betrayed him

Vladimir Putin and a puppy that later betrayed him

We all know that one ideology is correct. That’s just common sense. So many ideas are wrong, and so many people are wrong for holding them, that there must necessarily be a way of thinking and behaving that is absolutely right. It’s like when you see land; you know there must be an ocean somewhere, because otherwise you would just be seeing space. But how can you know which ideology is correct? With your heart, obviously. And how can you know whether you are adhering to that ideology enough? Through constant vigilance—specifically, constant vigilance of others. Today is Friday, as other people will agree but maybe not enough. Won’t you believe perfectly in a perfect ideology and become invincible with me?

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