Category: society
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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…
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A Nerdly, Software-Engineering-ish, Computer-Sciencey Approach to the Gay Marriage Debate
Gay marriage is a proposed change that’s hoped to be an optimization. Advocates say that the current system (society) is sub-optimal in that a particular sub-system (marriage) is not sufficiently general (same-sex couples aren’t allowed to participate). Let’s say marriage is a function by which a man and a woman are combined to create an…