Author: the Author
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“Oh, You Didn’t Read the Playbook? Shocking.”
Let’s talk about playbooks. You know, those things that everyone seems to follow when they’re about to do something terrible, but nobody seems to read when they could, you know, stop them. Monopolies? Oh yeah, there’s a playbook for that. Step one: Dominate a market. Step two: Crush competitors. Step three: Jack up prices while…
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Digital habitats.
What are your favorite websites? If you peel back enough layers of my curiosity, you eventually arrive at a simple truth: I don’t have favorite websites in the traditional sense. I have digital habitats—places I wander through like a nomad with a Wi-Fi signal instead of a compass. I live in a world where information…
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Gen X Faces an Inheritance of Opportunity
For decades, Baby Boomers have shaped the American landscape. Their sheer numbers forced the construction of new schools, the expansion of suburbs, and the widening of roads. Every stage of their lives demanded a response, and entire systems were built around them. Now, as Boomers age and eventually pass, Gen X will inherit not only…
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“Spending Money to Save Money: The ROI Delusion”
Ah, the eternal wisdom of the eco-marketing gurus: “Replace your perfectly functional [thing] with this shiny new [thing] and SAVE MONEY!” Sure. And if you believe that, I’ve got a “net-zero carbon footprint” timeshare in a swamp to sell you. The Gas Guzzler Gambit A long time ago, I drove a car that drank gasoline…
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The Bureaucrat, the Idiot, and the Ass
In a bustling kingdom where the affairs of state flowed like rivers through stone channels, there lived a small but steadfast clerk. Each day the clerk bore scrolls and messages from one office to the next, ensuring the business of the realm marched onward. Now, this clerk dealt with folk of all kinds: some wise,…
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The Renaissance We Never Choose
Imagine a world where nations did not cling to past glory as a cudgel or a myth, but as a syllabus. A global syllabus of greatness. Where history was not weaponized nostalgia — the kind that breeds nationalism, grievance, and paranoia — but rather curriculum. A shared document of principles that once lifted a civilization…
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New Mexico’s Doctor Shortage: Groundbreaking Idea—Maybe Pay Them?
Oh, New Mexico. Land of enchantment, green chile, and a health care system held together by duct tape and the sheer willpower of the three remaining doctors who haven’t fled to Texas yet. But fear not! The Legislative Finance Committee has stumbled upon a radical new strategy to fix our physician exodus: paying doctors like…
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The Age of Borrowed Mastery
Humanity’s quiet surrender of skill There is a strange comfort in believing that technological progress always empowers us — that every new tool lifts another burden, broadens access, and advances the human project. It is a story we love to tell about ourselves. With each innovation, we say, more citizens gain the abilities once reserved…
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The Myth of the Pure Human: Why Technology Isn’t Our Corruption, It’s Our Nature
There is a comforting fiction we like to tell ourselves—one that paints a mythical era when humans lived “naturally,” unburdened by devices, free from technological intrusion, closer to some imagined primal truth. In this story, technology arrives later, corrupting purity. It is the stain on Eden, the clang of the first hammer drowning out birdsong,…
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The Universal Benefits Card: The Rare Policy That Actually Helps Everyone
There are moments in public policy where simplicity meets moral clarity. Where a single innovation sweeps away layers of inefficiency, inequity, and economic drag—not through revolution, but by applying common sense to a system that has grown unnecessarily convoluted. Giving every American taxpayer a universal Electronic Benefits Transfer card—one that functions as a free public…
