In the corner of the internet we built—our little ThinkMyTime bunker with its hand-rolled reflections and late-night arguments—we used to mistake the silence between posts for breathing room, used to believe that if we just sharpened the sentences and kept the nerve, the world would keep meeting us halfway; but the numbers came back like a pathology report and they weren’t subtle: the audience didn’t drift, it evaporated, as if … Read the rest
Tag: Rationalism
Border Theater: Why the Legal Immigrants Pay First
A functioning country has to do two things at once, even when that makes everyone uncomfortable: enforce its laws, and keep its promises. Borders matter. Procedures matter. And so does the basic bargain implied in every civics class and every naturalisation ceremony: if you follow the rules, the rules will be intelligible, stable, and worth following.
That is why the slogan “we’re cracking down on illegal immigration” feels, at first … Read the rest
The Bus Stops Here
By Eric Le Roy
One of my students put this article under my nose yesterday during a class discussion. He is Swiss, and the original article was in German. So here is a translation of the gist of it:
Germany: In front of a nursing home for people with dementia in Duisburg, a fake bus stop has recently been installed. A fictitious timetable hangs on the typical bus … Read the rest
The Hangman’s Children
By Eric Le Roy
The universe was once a black hole so small that not even a microscope would have detected it. If my feeble grasp of science is right on this one, then it makes it all the more amazing when that cacophonous “Who Let the Dogs Out? moment occurred. All hell broke loose, literally and metaphorically. Night and nothingness made way for light and somethingness.
And … Read the rest
