When Jean Barker was made a peer in 1980, she chose to become Baroness Trumpington, because the other plausible place to adopt (Six Mile Bottom) was too silly. How times change. (View Post)

The downside of long tail economics. If a spectacle needs a mass audience for the business case to work, public sensibilities matter and you can't be too gross. Once the big profits come from fi… (View Post)

Hasn't it always been the case that a significant slice of humanity has been pretty inhumane? There are differences from a business point of view (putting it on global pay-per-view, instead of i… (View Post)

Blooming NIMBY. (View Post)

Probably an excellent private discipline; the modern political memento mori. But not for public display. (The Letters of Last Resort, as well as a practical necessity, arguably do a bit of the same t… (View Post)