Politics Steve Kerrigan Jan 2025 Town Hall Hi, and thank you for the opportunity to share. I want to start off by expressing how disappointed I am that Rep. Seth Moulton found himself duped into using his words to attack the microscopic minority of children who find themselves both transgender and interested in playing sports in school.
Poetry I think we all know that the end is approaching It’s a feeling deep in the gut, beyond faith or theory, like when you’re alone in the woods and the birds suddenly stop singing. When I was a teenage christian soldier, we were told we were in the “last generation,” by a preacher’s son, while he cried & shivered on stage from god’s mighty touch.
Bury me in the forest When I die, bury me in the forest. Bury me in a shallow grave, naked and full of humors. Bury me next to a great tree, so that it may drink of me, and I may be one with it. Bury me in mushroom spores, the colorful ones, the dangerous
Transgender Contrapoints: J.K. Rowling - A cupid's arrow of weaponized empathy There are few people working in Online Culture with as much wisdom, empathy, and insight as Natalie Wynn, A.K.A. Contrapoints. Her videos are known for being well-researched deep dives into the internal psychology of internet communities, and for their surprisingly long runtimes. It is my opinion that the
Politics A Millennial/Boomer Dialectic: Part 3 - Jobs & The Economy What follows is an imagined conversation between two imaginary people. Alex is a Leftist Millennial and Blake is a Conservative Baby Boomer. Alex: Why should everyone work? Blake: Because work is a moral good, work creates value for the economy, and work isn't just sitting around leeching off
Politics A Millennial/Boomer Dialectic: Part 2 - Police & Prisons What follows is an imagined conversation between two imaginary people. Alex is a Leftist Millennial and Blake is a Conservative Baby Boomer. Blake: Fine, sure. But the current protests are a bunch of Marxists looking to "Abolish the Police" and "Abolish Prisons." Both of which are
Politics A Millennial/Boomer Dialectic: Part 1 - Protests & Civil Rights What follows is an imagined conversation between two imaginary people. Alex is a Leftist Millennial and Blake is a Conservative Baby Boomer. The starting question: Is America Racist? Blake: No, America is not racist. America was founded on equality and liberty for all. What remained of Southern racism was fixed
Politics The Culture War "I just wish there wasn't so much hate and divisiveness on the internet these days" This is a take I've been seeing a lot of lately. It's not wrong, but I think that this idea could use some analysis. There are several
Politics Redefining Progress Many in my generation, myself included, grew up watching Star Trek. That show’s utopian vision for the future informed the moral foundations of my youth, but my Pollyanna-ish ideas were soon tempered by harsh realities. It turns out that even the most basic of technologies that promised to reshape
Politics Choose your own reality The internet has a way of changing and subverting everything it touches. Every industry has been, or is in the process of being blown apart by newcomers touting touting on-demand service, targeted marketing, analytics intelligence, and employment models that somehow dodge offering any benefits or recourse. The information horizon &
Politics How does America end? America will not last forever, and I'm honestly worried about it surviving the next half-decade. The current administration is just the latest round of rot that has eaten away at America's core. The rot is the religious-level fascination with hyper-capitalism that is so common among the
Transgender A letter to my younger self Hi John, it's me, you. I'm older, wiser and all that shit. Oh yeah, I say swears now. You'll figure that out in college. So, this isn't a letter to tell you which stocks to buy or lottery numbers to bet on.
Transgender How to be friends with a transgender person I've been "out" for about 6 months now, and I've had the opportunity to meet lots of people as my new self. Everyone I have met in person has been nominally supportive and kind, for which I am very grateful. I'm writing
Politics Deconstructing Nazi Arguments Against Immigration (Cover image source credit Robster16) The title? Hell yes it's inflammatory. America has flirted with fascism several times in the past. The Red Scare, the Sedition Act of 1918, and now. You might say, "yeah, but those Trump supporters were a minority." Yes, so were the
Politics What the fuck is even happening right now: an analysis I'm writing this for a number of reasons, none of which are to persuade anyone to switch sides. I do, however, want everyone to have a better understanding of what they're disagreeing with. Political discourse these days seems to be mostly nut-picking and piling on outrage
Politics Fighting Fascism The Nazis didn't need a majority to take control of Germany. They didn't win a majority of the votes in any election. They won through fear and complacency. They roamed the streets, and the people did nothing. They vandalized Jewish businesses, and the police did nothing.
Science An optimistic outlook on climate change So, I know I promised optimism, but let's get the bad news out of the way. The climate is warming, and it will continue to do so in an exponential fashion. The window in which we could have done something to slow or reverse climate change closed years
Politics What are the rules of responsible discourse? This is a troubling political time, and now more than ever it's important that political messaging is clear and free of hyperbole. After 8 years of Republican hysteria about Obama, I'm seeing some of the same trends starting to come out of the Democratic base. This
Politics The Lesser Evil At this point, I think two things have become clear. Donald Trump's agenda is exactly what he said on the campaign trail, contrary to what many of his fringe supporters claimed. Also, Hillary Clinton's appeal was limited at best. I'd like to extend an
Politics Intervention Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's the problem with military intervention. The USA has many examples of "humanitarian" intervention in just the last half-century, from Kosovo to Somalia on the lower end of scale to Iraq and Vietnam on the upper
Politics Fake News is Spam 20 years ago, "advertisers" discovered that they could scrape the web for valid email addresses and send "advertisements" directly to customers, for free. What probably started out as an honest marketing exercise turned into a hellhole of scams and shady pharmaceutical sales. It also spawned a
Politics Is it worth it to only push the progressive agenda at the national level? Starting in 2009, it was obvious that the road toward progressive reforms would be long and difficult. Even with a super-majority in both wings of congress, it was difficult to pass meaningful legislation. After the 2010 midterms, that became downright impossible. When Republicans lost control of both branches in 2008,
Politics I find your lack of patriotism disturbing Now that we've flipped the balance of power back in the GOP's direction, we're seeing more and more protests directed at the incoming Trump administration. Republicans, predictably, are not pleased at all that their president is being protested. We're already seeing widespread