Month: August 2024
-
A Manifesto for the Modern Money Launderer
Listen up, fellow drifters of the digital dirt roads, and connoisseurs of the con. The world’s a stage, and every storefront, every glossy website, is just a prop in the grand theater of laundering. The real action happens behind the curtain, in the shadows where the money changes hands without so much as a whisper.…
-
Civilization’s Last Stand: Charter Networks
So all the talk about civilization was just about charter cities and charter schools. They sold you a bill of goods wrapped in the shining veneer of civilization, the grand promise of order, progress, and prosperity. But what did they give you? Not the grand city on a hill, but a shantytown of grifters playing…
-
Whodunit: The Jacobean Revenge Play Turned on Its Head
The whodunit, a subgenre of detective fiction, has captivated audiences for over a century with its intricate plots, red herrings, and the ultimate revelation of a murderer. Yet, beneath its polished veneer lies a structure that bears striking resemblance to an older, bloodier tradition: the Jacobean revenge play. While the Jacobean play explores the inexorable…
-
Free Stuff
The irony is thick when a Silicon Valley VC criticizes the concept of “free stuff” while the entire tech industry often thrives on giving away services for free, monetizing data, or operating on a “freemium” model. Silicon Valley’s success has largely been built on repurposing industries and offering free or heavily subsidized services to consumers,…
-
Tangier
The air hung heavy with the sweet, cloying scent of kif. The narrow, labyrinthine streets of Tangier were alive with the cacophony of street vendors, the chatter of locals, and the distant wail of a muezzin. In a dimly lit, opium den, a group of expatriates sat huddled together, their faces illuminated by the flickering…
-
Tyrant
In the labyrinthine corridors of power, the tyrant’s greatest challenge is not the executioner’s blade, but the absence of the mind. For in the realm of simulacra, where reality is a mere reflection, it’s increasingly difficult to find those who dare to choose, those who risk the void by asserting their will against the currents of control. The tyrant craves the…
-
The Big Exit
When Jean-Paul Sartre penned No Exit back in 1944, he didn’t have a clue that Silicon Valley would turn his existential nightmare into a business model. There, in a well-ventilated room with glass walls, soft bean bags, and artisanal cold brew on tap, the brightest minds of our generation are sweating bullets, not because of…
-
Nerds
Nerds, with their towering intellects and compulsive need to quantify everything from the stars in the sky to the lint in their pockets, often entertain a peculiar notion. They believe that by diving headfirst into a cultural tradition of lesser wit—say, a mathematician becoming a die-hard Thomas Carlyle fan—they can somehow outsmart the grim specter…