Tag: worldbuilding

This week’s essay kind of belongs back with the theft-related essays that started off Year Six, but for reasons of logistics it’s getting tacked into

Basically every society ever agrees: murder is bad. . . . but what counts as murder?

As the saying goes, my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. Turns out, that’s also the distinction between assault and battery.

When we turn our attention toward the more violent end of crime, things get pretty dark, pretty fast.

We’ve probably all heard the famous Arthur C. Clarke adage: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Given that the New Worlds series is made possible via Patreon, it’s about time we discussed the role of patronage in the arts!

If singing and drumming are simultaneously honored and deeply suspect, the kinds of instruments we’re looking at this week often waltz across the line into

We’ll never actually know if I’m right about the voice being the oldest musical instrument . . . but if it isn’t, then that title

Over time, the list of things unique to the human species gets shorter and shorter. We’re not the only tool-users; we’re not the only ones

Privacy is a hot topic these days, thanks to the internet and the growing population of smart devices all around us.

Are virtues universal? Unhelpfully, my answer is both “yes” and “no.”