The Dogs of War
The Dogs of War: a review of Phantom Liberty
Phantom Liberty is the only extension planned for Cyberpunk 2077. I've had it installed on my big computer since its release last September, but until this week have not seriously played it. I've not played it partly because, with all the technical failures I've had over the course of this winter, I rarely had enough electricity to run the computer; but also because the first two hours of Phantom Liberty are an utterly miserable experience, shockingly poor game design, which really do not encourage you to explore further. If you're caught in this trap, take comfort: it does get (much) better.
Cyberpunk 2077, and flawed art
Cyberpunk 2077, and flawed art
This essay is unfinished: come back later to see a better draft.
Thinking about USENET
NetNews, otherwise (and these days, more commonly) known as USENET, was the first social media system I experienced, back in the early nineteen eighties. Usenet was a huge, sprawling thing, connecting tens of thousands of servers, and carrying tens of thousands of 'newsgroups' — essentially discussion groups on specific topics.
Like modern ActivityPub, and unlike contemporary systems like 'bulletin boards', it was global (for values of 'global' that primarily covered western University campuses); unlike other contemporary systems like for example AOL or CompuServe, it was not owned or controlled by any one entity, but, like the modern Fediverse, was a loose confederation of heterogeneous servers owned by a wide variety of different organisations, including many individuals.
This meant, like the modern Fediverse, different servers might (and did) have different policies about the content they would carry.
Whatever is not reserved, is devolved
Whatever is not reserved, is devolved
There's a core principle in the Scotland Act that 'whatever is not reserved, is devolved'. I think that's an important principle. It's an important principle for the Scottish Parliament — without it, the powers of Holyrood would be eroded very quickly.
There's another important principle which long predates the Scotland Act, one which may be expressed many ways. One popular expression of it is 'do as you would be done by;' another it 'sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander'. It says that similar things — where 'things' includes relationships — should be similar; and implicitly, that they should be similar across scales.
Feeding the one billion
This essay is unfinished: come back later to see a better draft.
These problems are very hard to solve: it's very hard to see how we can get from where we are, economically and politically, to a stable and satisfactory society. But they have to be solved, or else there isn't a future.
Just ignoring the problems of a billion people isn't going to work. Creating a 'fortress Europe' with impenetrable borders and watching complacently as the bodies pile up outside the fence, even if that were possible, would be hugely corrosive on our own societies. And it isn't possible. Even without weapons, people whose only alternative is death will fight to overcome our barriers.