How idiots make it to the top
I lived in Middle Eastern countries for many years. Those were incredibly beautiful years and I have come back with a lasting love for the entire region and its people. One day, I sat in a coffee shop and was…
Category Idiocracy
Welcome to the shallow end of the gene pool, where institutions creak, experts preen, and common sense has been labeled extremist. This is the domain of credentialed clowns, procedural necromancers, and moral toddlers in charge of fire exits.
Here I document the slow-motion implosion of governance, education, media, and culture — not with outrage, but with the grim satisfaction of someone who saw it coming and packed snacks. No reform fantasies. No hand-wringing. Just a front-row seat to the theater of the absurd, with the occasional sharp object thrown from the balcony.
The nature of the beast
In the 2006 movie Idiocracy, the American filmmaker Mike Judge depicts a dystopian world that is failing to maintain even the most basic requirements of human existence. This extreme situation developed due to an extreme form of dumbing down of…
What is true
In the 2001 movie Vanilla Sky, David Aames, owner of a large publishing company, is in prison wearing a prosthetic mask. His life went off the rails when he met the ravishing Sofia while David was still in a relationship…
Are you having fun yet?
In the 2008 film The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner plays a Staff Sergeant who defuses explosives in the Iraq combat theatre. One day, he stumbles upon an IED so powerful that even with all his protective gear, it would have…
Why the world needs a Trump
The last decade has seen a veritable explosion of new superhero movies. One of the most recognizable and also popular heroes is Thor. Son of Odin, the god of thunder and a member of the iconic Avengers team. In one…
Escaping Potemkin
In 1783, the Russian ruler Catherine the Great toured her new provinces in Crimea. The entire tour had been organized and accompanied by a former lover of hers. The Russian nobleman Grigiory Potyomkin. Potyomkin was keen to rise again in…
Statistics
In 1906, the North American Review published Mark Twain’s “Chapters from My Autobiography”. Therein, he ascribed the phrase “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” to the British statesman Benjamin Disraeli. The phrase has come to…
Damned lies
About 180 years ago, the great Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen published the last of his Fairy Tales Told for Children. “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. There was no Facebook or Instagram at the time. Yet the storyline could not have…
Lies
In 1920, an Italian immigrant tricked thousands of New England residents. He made them invest in a postage stamp speculation scheme. He promised that he could provide a 50 percent return in 90 days. He’d use funds from follow-up investors…
The fallacy of external costs
The International Monetary Fund released a new report on fossil fuel subsidies. They say that the world spent 5.200 billion USD on them in 2017. According to this report, the US alone spent a whopping 649 billion USD. More than…