Golden age pirates and the lies we continue to swallow

A couple of weeks ago I found myself chatting with two highly educated adult men about pirates, as is the tendency of grown men when their partners aren’t watching. The conversation started when one of the men claimed to be confused as to why his two young children were so obsessed with pirates when the objects of their awe were little more than rapists and mass-murderers. The other agreed, referencing a celebrity chef’s programme on…

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A society riven with hierarchy facilitates sociopaths and gives psychopaths free rein

I have shared my life with many people of many doctrines, beliefs and faiths, some religious and some political. One of the things that has never ceased to amaze me is the moral dissonance that affects so many people, regardless of whether their purported 'ideological core' is based on faith in scripture, or faith in science. Society, as it is structured today, seems to have a tendency to nudge people together into groups, and then…

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