What is Modernity?

My worry is that, as alienating and bad as things are now, that the cessation of modernity might be followed by merely swapping one savagery for another. We like to believe that the world is growing less brutal and less violent, but the moral arc of the universe doesn’t bend towards justice: there is no arc. There is no absolute, inevitable progress. Everything that we get, we need to push for, fight for, argue for. It’s possible that the world might be a better and more just place if the modern era had never happened, but it has happened. If it is undone, it will most likely be undone through a great deal of suffering.

The Death and Rebirth of Counterculture

Part of this has to do with a thunderous absence in the contemporary period, something that has been present for so long and no longer exists in the context of our time: where is counterculture? It’s entirely possible that I have simply been passed by, that I’m no longer plugged in to the same networks that I was at one time. However, it definitely seems to me that there is a decided and somewhat worrying absence of a unified counterculture at this point in time. It feels like the moment at the top of a roller coaster when you can no longer hear the chain clanking along, but just before the drop happens — the mechanism isn’t involved any more and the mechanics have taken over.

Wars and Rumors of Wars (Time of Monsters #6)

None of this matters. People get worked up about these things that frankly do not matter and then it gets plastered all over social media as people look for the newest thing to be outraged by. They are outraged, because their outrage is profitable to the people who work to influence their emotions.

If Heterosexuality Weren't Everywhere, I'm Not Sure It Would Ever Be Invented

If it seems like I’m re-weirding heterosexuality, then good. It means I’m doing what I set out to do. If heterosexuality wasn’t already common, I’m not sure we would invent it. That isn’t a judgment of those who experience heterosexual desire, that’s an indictment of our treatment of difference.

The Political Economy of Game Design (Odd Columns, #10)

More than anything else – as several reviews I’ve written over the years indicate – I’m interested in tabletop role playing games. These games are fascinating for several reasons, but the one I want to focus on is an intuition that I’ve been working with for a while: Tabletop role-playing games – which don’t, in any but the most loose sense work anything like other games – are toy models of political economy, and I suspect that they could be used as models for alternative political-economic systems.