Some music ages like milk. Other music ages like iron. I am not entirely sure which quality I expected when I returned to Master of Puppets after all these years, but I suspect I did not expect to recognize myself in it. In 1986, when the album was released, I was ten years old and nowhere near … Continue reading The Puppets Still Dance
Category: Cultural Essays
Reflections on the customs, moral assumptions, and social habits that shape everyday life. These essays explore the traditions, virtues, and institutions that quietly organize society.
The Laws of Human Systems
Every profession accumulates its own small collection of proverbs. Sailors have sayings about wind and weather. Farmers accumulate aphorisms about soil and seasons. Soldiers develop blunt little rules about leadership and survival that rarely appear in official doctrine. Organizations produce their own proverbs as well.They often masquerade as jokes. Sometimes they appear as cynical observations … Continue reading The Laws of Human Systems
The Ecology of Trust: What the Internet Teaches Us About Trust and Civilization
Modern cybersecurity architecture begins with a curious assumption: trust is dangerous. Security frameworks associated with John Kindervag operate from a simple premise—no user, device, or system should be trusted merely because it appears familiar. Every request must be verified and every interaction authenticated. Anyone who has spent time working in cybersecurity eventually notices how easily trust assumptions … Continue reading The Ecology of Trust: What the Internet Teaches Us About Trust and Civilization
Three Paths Through the Same Question
For the past year this site has explored a number of overlapping themes—technology, trust, history, genealogy, and the strange ways information moves through human systems. As the archive grows, a clearer structure has started to emerge. Going forward, posts will generally follow a simple weekly rhythm. Technology and Trust Systems Sunday evenings will focus on … Continue reading Three Paths Through the Same Question
Information as a Weapon
Every semester in one of my cybersecurity courses, I assign my students a short article from 1997 titled Information as a Weapon1. After they finish reading it, I ask them a simple question: Is this article still relevant today? The reaction is usually predictable. The paper was written before social media, before ransomware gangs, before … Continue reading Information as a Weapon
Credentialed and Unprepared: Systems, Persistence, and the Slow Education of a Practitioner
Thomas Sowell once wrote: “There have always been ignorant people, but they haven't always had college degrees to make them unaware of their ignorance. Some people imagine that they are well informed because they have memorized a whole galaxy of trendy dogmas and fashionable attitudes.1” I do not quote that comfortably. I teach at a … Continue reading Credentialed and Unprepared: Systems, Persistence, and the Slow Education of a Practitioner
Boundaries, Belonging, and the Meaning of Citizenship
The recent announcement that the Department of War will condition its support for Scouting America on the rollback of certain diversity initiatives has been framed as another chapter in the culture wars. Perhaps it is. But as I have watched the debate unfold, I have found myself less interested in the political skirmish and more … Continue reading Boundaries, Belonging, and the Meaning of Citizenship
