Excerpt: This is the mechanism. This is how constitutional republics die. Not through formal coup or dramatic collapse but through making it dangerous to invoke constitutional protections. You don’t repeal the law protecting refusal of illegal orders — you just investigate anyone who mentions it until no one dares. You don’t ban opposition — you make examples until opposition becomes unthinkable. You don’t eliminate the Constitution — you prosecute people who cite it until citing it becomes sedition.

Excerpt: Only a generation or two back, someone who claimed that polio wasn’t so bad would have been swiftly shouted down — because most people knew someone for whom polio had indeed been very bad. It is precisely because of the success of vaccines that polio misinformation can now find a foothold.

Excerpt: The quasi-privatized system called “Medicare Advantage,” otherwise known as Part C, was created in 2003 as a means of expanding the role of private sector corporations in the publicly-funded Medicare system. Proponents claimed it would lower costs and improve health care for seniors. It has achieved neither of those goals; instead, MA has become a wildly profitable scheme for private insurance giants, who have become adept at taking advantage of Medicare’s billing model to claim exorbitant profits. At this point, MA is more profitable for many companies than their conventional insurance businesses.

Excerpt: The companies have sparked debate about the role private firms should play in tinkering with the global climate. Proponents say start-ups can develop a potentially world-changing technology faster than plodding university scientists; in recent years, academics studying geoengineering have tried to do basic outdoor equipment tests in Sweden and California only to face pushback and cancel their plans.

“They stop. They give up,” said Maex Ament, a venture capitalist and Stardust investor. “If I’m an entrepreneur at heart, no, there is no ‘I’ll give up. Next topic.’ I’ll solve this problem, without compromising safety. There’s a different mindset.”

Excerpt: Your blog is not original. There are hundreds of blogs out there, what makes you think yours is different? You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.

You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.

You are only showing the world how stupid you are. If what you say is not better than silence, you better shut up.

If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it. Your work is trash, and exposing it will make people notice you’re trash as well.