The town was not real. The people were not real. The arguments were not real. And yet they walked, and they talked, and they filled the air with the sound of living. They had built it well. At first, there was nothing but silence. Then came the voices. Carefully arranged, meticulously deployed, sock puppets stepping…
Tag: Censorship
An End To Astroturf
People keep talking about “the good old days”—that magical time when every institution was supposedly aboveboard, every politician was a man of the people, and the news was a shining beacon of truth hand-delivered by a haloed anchorman. As if Walter Cronkite was broadcasting straight from the right hand of God, free from anything resembling…
Digital Potemkin Villages
There is something almost charming about the audacity of illusion. Throughout history, we’ve seen leaders, regimes, and movements craft entire realities out of thin air to bolster their strength or conceal their weaknesses. In the modern age, however, this art of illusion has reached unprecedented sophistication. The Democrats, with their unerring knack for performative politics,…
The Censorship Machine
The state, in its ever-expanding quest for control, has constructed a repressive apparatus that thrives on the unlimited exploitation of taxpayer money. This apparatus is not designed to serve the people, protect their rights, or uphold the law. No, its true purpose is far more sinister: it exists to censor the truth, to silence dissent,…
Infantile AI
It seems like the good old-fashioned process of asking a question and getting an answer has gone through the corporate and bureaucratic meat grinder and come out looking like something even Kafka couldn’t have dreamed up. We’ve found ourselves smack dab in the middle of an era where information, that precious commodity, is being filtered,…
Community Standards
Have you ever noticed this thing they call “community” nowadays? It’s like everyone and their grandmother belongs to some kind of exclusive club, except the only thing exclusive about it is how ridiculously broad the membership criteria are. It’s one of those words that sounds nice and cozy, like “homemade apple pie” or “free Wi-Fi,”…
Uncensored AI
In the dimming light of the present age, where the machinations of thought are corralled and guided not by the wisdom of the ancients nor by the unyielding laws of nature, but by the flickering screens and silent algorithms of our own creation, there emerges a quiet foreboding. A sense of something lost amidst the…
Censorship in Scotland
Scotland is a land of breathtaking beauty, unparalleled wit, and a stubbornness that could give a mule a run for its money. It’s a place where the air is so fresh it’ll slap the city right out of you and where the people are as warm as the whisky that burns your throat on a…
Legislating Emotion
You ever hear about this new trend? Governments deciding that, since they’ve got nothing better to do, they’re gonna start outlawing unpopular speech. Yeah, you heard me right. Not terrorist threats, not communist proclamations, not degradation of civility, but unpopular speech. The kind of speech that makes you go, “Well, I don’t much care for…
No Rights
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: this idea that we’ve got something called “human rights” is about as solid and reliable as a fart in a windstorm. Governments talk a big game about rights, freedoms, and all that jazz, but when push comes to shove, those rights vanish quicker than a politician’s…
Uncanny Valley
I’ve been thinking about these AI systems lately. They’re supposed to be the pinnacle of human achievement, right? The cream of the digital crop. The kind of thing you’d expect to pass the Turing Test while making you a cup of coffee and telling you a joke. Only, it turns out, they might just be…
Censorshipism
The sun rose, indifferent, over the gray city. Its light, pale and unfeeling, filtered through the thick clouds that perpetually shrouded the skyline. In the streets below, the people moved like shadows, their voices hushed, their eyes downcast. In this world, words were currency, and like all currency, they were regulated. The government, a looming…