Today I visited the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. with a friend. A section dedicated to MLK reminded me of the inevitable arc of history idea he once uttered. Paradoxically, he also said that “change does not roll in on wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” I wonder how can you reconcile both.…

To be engaged in the messiness and tension of moral values makes you unpredictable. If you are guided by a single moral value, such as loyalty or punctuality, you become predictable, because the moral compass resolutely points to the same direction, no matter the circumstances. The real world is not like that. There are times…

A superpower is to imagine that a film crew is following you all the time as you interact with the texture of reality. This forces you to be more accountable with yourself. It helps in closing the distance between what you say in public versus what you say in private. If you are able to…

There is no arc of history. That quote by Martin Luther King Jr., although it sounds nice, makes us complacent. What is implicit in that statement is that no matter what we do, things are going to be O.K. in the end. The truth is that there is no single line of history. History is…

Cowardliness is icing courage.Big lies are icing the nuanced truth. Conformity is icing individual responsibility. Cancel culture is icing the opposition. Denunciation is icing impartiality. Masks are icing individual responsibility. Data centers are icing the blue sky. Techbros are icing the future. Screens are icing reality. Apathy is icing conversation. Cynicism is icing coalitions. Suspicion…

It is not responsible to shoot in the face several rounds to a civilian after giving conflicting instructions. It is not responsible to play the victim (“I am being doxed”) when you hold the monopoly on violence. It is not responsible to cover your face if you carry a weapon and receive a government salary.…

Today, a masked ICE agent shot in the head multiple tomes a woman in Minneapolis. She was a legal observer. In a social media post, the Democrats responded with a rather tired quote from Orwell: “the Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”…

When I was a little kid, I was fond of building little cities in my room. I shaped whole towns from what I could find in my room: Hot Wheels, LEGOs, VHS cases, empty boxes, pillows… Imagination turns anything sufficiently interesting. My room looked very much like Andy’s room in Toy Story. In school, during…

An effective way to become an expert on a subject is to write about it every week for a few years. The process of writing crystallizes the essentials of a subject matter. Even better, it helps if you integrate the Feynman Technique: Repeat the iterative ladder ad infinitum.

The right-wing version of American imperialism believes that the world is a better place because of them. The left-wing version of American imperialism believes that the world is worse off because of them. Both are ways of seeing the world in a self-referencing and solipsistic way, because in the end what matters is what the…