I love you forever. I am sorry I cannot love you now.
Nick HarkawayTags: love heartbreak lovers heartache forever love-hurts love-letter
There was a small, quiet moment, the kind you just have time to notice, which makes you feel sad for no good reason.
Nick HarkawayThat's probably why she has added the two severed heads to the uprights of the throne. They lend her an undeniable air of not screwing around.
Nick HarkawayThe problem isn't who is in charge. It's what is in charge. The problem is that people are encouraged to function as machines. Or, actually, as mechanisms. Human emotion and sympathy are unprofessional. They are inappropriate to the exercise of reason. Everything which makes people good - makes them human - is ruled out. The system doesn't care about people, but we treat it as if it were one of us, as if it were the sum of our goods and not the product of our least admirable compromises.
Nick HarkawayTags: power morality humanity people emotion logic corporations machines system
People don't want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it is better. You want to teach about sex? Fine, but only when they're old enough to do it. You want to talk politics? Sure, but nothing modern. Religion? So long as you don't actually think about it. Otherwise some furious mob will come to your house and burn you for a witch.
Nick HarkawayTags: politics reality education knowledge school children sex religion teachers idealism ignorance teaching controversy school-system naivete
This place does not feel like my country. It feels like countries I have read about where things are very bad. It feels, in fact, like exactly the kind of thing we were protesting against, but we thought it was elsewhere. It is not heartening to find that it has come to us.
Nick HarkawayTags: politics security government privacy human-rights anti-terrorism counter-terrorism
Law is error, you see. It's an attempt to write down a lot of things everyone ought to know anyway.
Nick HarkawayTags: society values law rules structure criminals norms
Garbage in, garbage out. Or rather more felicitously: the tree of nonsense is watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster.
Nick HarkawayTags: error metaphors government nonsense gigo
Now, are those engaged in the business of governing any different by nature from those they govern?"
"Yes. They're prideful and tend to sexual misconduct. Also, the situation of being in government tends to drive you mad."
"But are they more virtuous or more intelligent? Or more compassionate?"
"Ha!"
"Let's call that one a 'no.
Tags: politics intelligence compassion power human-nature corruption government leaders politicians
You end up with a machine which knows that by its mildest estimate it must have terrible enemies all around and within it, but it can't find them. It therefore deduces that they are well-concealed and expert, likely professional agitators and terrorists. Thus, more stringent and probing methods are called for. Those who transgress in the slightest, or of whom even small suspicions are harboured, must be treated as terrible foes. A lot of rather ordinary people will get repeatedly investigated with increasing severity until the Government Machine either finds enemies or someone very high up indeed personally turns the tide... And these people under the microscope are in fact just taking up space in the machine's numerical model. In short, innocent people are treated as hellish fiends of ingenuity and bile because there's a gap in the numbers.
Nick HarkawayTags: enemies danger security statistics government enemy terrorism numbers counter-terrorism stat-filler
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