Paradocracy

On the sixth of June, 2013, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 departed Incheon International Airport near the capital city of Seoul, South Korea. Its destination: San Francisco International Airport. Unfortunately for the crew and the passengers of Flight 214, that destination wouldn’t come without incident. On final approach, the aircraft would come up just short of the runway, the landing gear impacting the seawall, causing the Boeing 777 to tumble and the tail section to break off after impact. For the crew of Flight 214, this would prove to be the ultimate test and, for the total 307 souls on board, the most poignant lesson in the risks posed by misunderstood technologies, the dangers of unintuitive systems operated by fallible human beings, and the extreme costs incurred in matters of human life. In terms of numbers, for Flight 214 that cost begins at the three lives lost, the 187 who were injured, and all who suffered and who carry the trauma of the incident. As is the case in virtually...

The cost of government is the quantity it spends, not the quantity it taxes; that cost representing the financial burden imposed upon those who pay the taxes and all who transact within that economy or through its common currency.  Therefore, the argument against tax cuts requires further context to appreciate why tax cuts have failed and will continue to fail to deliver economic growth, especially where those tax cuts promote or serve excess indulgence and cheap speculation. In short, it’s not that tax cuts are inherently destructive, or that reducing the tax liability of the wealthiest in society “doesn’t work”; rather, the fact is that the public debt is so high that the country simply cannot afford those tax cuts without defaulting on its debts or — which is the same — covering them through inflation. It’s not that tax cuts are inherently destructive to economic growth, but that the deficits run higher by profligate government spending, the protracted low interest rate policy, ...

What inspires me to write is the people I hope to inspire, the truths I seek to uncover, the crusade to capture, captivate, compel, and consider.  It’s the thought of the lasting, of those more convinced, ideas made immortal from the time of birth and for all of time since.  As clues to mystery, as scrutable hints, as parts of history, as pathways in print, speaking love and legacy, mapping the places we went — above all a yearning for what it all meant.

The Bible describes the End Times as a period of difficulty marked by the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Christ. In anticipation of this, the Bible commands us to stay clear of the decadence, the depravity and the people who partake in it: per 2 Timothy 3:1-5 , we are to “understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” While this warning is evergreen, bearing relevance in virtually all contexts, serving as the most cautionary of tales and worthy of the patient consideration of all who inhabit this planet, there is a problem becoming clearer all the time as ...

Buy your copy today of  Fischer: Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse (featuring the Morals of Chess by Benjamin Franklin) , available at  Amazon  and Barnes & Noble . The name Bobby Fischer reigns supreme in the world of chess, yet there was a time when it hogged headlines, struck fear into the eyes of the competition, and was on the lips of folks all across the globe. More than the face of the centuries-old game, there was a time when Bobby Fischer was synonymous with the cause and spirit of America, that his moves on the chessboard sought more than checkmate but to pit the strength of “raw-boned American individualism” against “the Soviet megalithic system” which had come to dominate the game of chess at the same time it dominated Cold War politics. Fischer’s triumph over the USSR's Boris Spassky in the ’72 World Chess Championship would ultimately be celebrated as a symbolic and diplomatic victory for the U.S., but, as time would tell, it would not mean the American...

Artificial intelligence is bound not only to render the ordinary human being boring by comparison, and in many cases practically unnecessary, but to dispose human beings to hostility toward each other where any dares pose a question or raise a concern instead of taking it up with a chatbot (or AI interface); such a course of action eventually assuming such a regular place in human affairs as to stand in entirely for human discourse and daily interaction.  This is not only a very real possibility when considering the future course of human ‘civilization’; it is more than likely imminent or already upon us.  It is left to be seen just what this will look like, just how this will play out, just what tolerance the species (and even beyond) has for such extremes which this technology is to bring about. Likewise, it remains to be seen whether a heavily-indebted society facing never-ending and unavoidable taxes (i.e. taxes on property) can even be expected to retrain and retool for t...