Category: society
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Age verification: a moral panic
Senator Frame, Representatives Berry and Reed, I’m writing to oppose the imposition of age verification requirements for online services in the State of Washington. The laws before the legislature on this topic and similar laws in other states are not privacy-preserving, but enable surveillance, risk identity theft, and suppress free expression on the internet, which…
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The Constitution Is Cool
Like a neglectful car owner who postpones the next oil change, we don’t talk about the U.S. Constitution enough, don’t listen to its hum and sputters enough, and aren’t doing enough to set in order the problems impairing the long-term functioning of a free government. One of the few institutions where people are talking seriously…
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‘they’ is not a drop-in replacement for ‘he’ and ‘she’, but we could use one
Singular usage of ‘they’ is well-established in English, going back centuries. Depending on your exposure to it, you may yourself use it regularly, as I happily do. It’s great having a single word that can refer to individuals whose gender is unclear or unspecified. However, gender-neutral ‘they’ and its friends ‘them’, ‘their’, and ‘theirs’, do…