We keep talking about the Great Filter like it’s a cosmic bear trap: some external horror waiting in the dark, a gamma-ray burst, a plague, a meteor with bad manners. Something that happens to you. Something you can blame. Something that lets you die with your dignity intact, whispering, “Well, what could we do?”
But what if the Filter is not outside.
What if the Great Filter is a mirror.… Read the rest
I have no interest in mocking anyone’s faith. Not because I am afraid of offending people, but because faith is often where people keep their most tender parts: grief, hope, guilt, gratitude, love. If you kick that door down with sarcasm, you do not prove you are intelligent. You prove you are careless.
And yet, if something is truly sacred, it should be able to breathe in daylight. Questions are … Read the rest
The phone box was parked in open space the way a confident cat parks itself on your keyboard: with total disregard for physics, your calendar, and your dignity.
From the outside, it was an ordinary public phone box, the sort you would ignore on a wet street in Manchester. From the inside, it was a lounge, a studio, a parliamentary bar, and—if you looked too closely at one corner—possibly a … Read the rest
Content 18+
Back in Moscow — and also now in Bulgaria, as I continue to work with Russians via Skype and Zoom — it has been my business to have close connections with Russian professionals. Because of that, I know a lot of 50-something guys who were living the good life until they lost their jobs. A lot of them were in the banking industry, some dealt in software, others … Read the rest
