Twitter versus RT: Which One is State Media Again?

Twitter is fast becoming a branch of US state media itself. For a company with such a large international user base, that seems like a bad business plan. And it’s certainly a bad thing from the perspective of achieving the not quite realized, but clearly to be pursued, promise that the Internet holds out to humanity — connecting people around the globe without  kowtowing to the increasingly obsolete and disintegrating concept of national borders.

On Fire for Liberty

There are those who are able to use liberty when it is available. They don’t put any thought into it; it is just there, or it’s not. They are like the people who can use fire as a simple tool, as long as someone else provides it. There are then those who can see how liberty could be increased, and hunger for it when it is violated.

Blaming the Victim, or Digging for Wisdom?

As a man dedicated to stopping the widespread abuse of children, I am very much an ally in this particular fight (“Me too.”). I don’t deserve to be attacked like this. These people don’t know me and the work that I do. They don’t know the trauma I’ve suffered and its long-term effects, effects that I deal with every day of my life. They were wrong to do what they did, but they are not alone in carrying responsibility.

The World Doesn’t Pay You Enough to be Nasty

There’s a reason why we like to get nasty. It’s a lot easier to start a fight than it is to take charge of your life when things seem out of control. Our desire to manipulate others often stems from the need to compensate for our own inability to feel a sense of agency in relation to our goals. We enjoy pulling other people’s strings because those are usually the only strings we know how to pull.