The feeling that time goes faster as we grow older is universal among humanity. “Every day is getting shorter”… “Last year flew by”… “Ten years ago feels like yesterday”… “Life seems to slip away”… Who hasn’t used such and countless similar clichés to express one’s despondency before the excruciating inevitability of a seemingly ever-accelerating journey toward self-expiry?So … [Read more...]

Putin may be delusional enough to really believe he can command a horde of under-trained, under-armed, under-dressed, and under-motivated boozers to storm Ukraine through the winter.But if not, his plan could be entirely different than it seems at first. If he’s also understood—like most—that win is impossible, he’d go for the next best thing: survival; if necessary, handcuffed … [Read more...]

Racism in the 21st century is as pressing a topic as ever. In order to understand its essence, discussions on racism often attempt to pinpoint its origins. They commonly trace these to the era of European expansionism and the slave trade in particular. Although this may seem a forthright conviction, it is in my opinion shallow, taking into account superficial history and … [Read more...]

Russian warmongers have heavily adduced history in justification for their invasion of Ukraine. Not only have they constructed such a fantasy as a historic mission, but they even believe in its righteousness with unfaltering piety.Here I also intend to view the Russo-Ukrainian War through the glass of history — definitely not to justify it, but nor even to condemn it, simply to … [Read more...]

Putin and his disciples have set about to accomplish their life mission of restoring Russia as a great world power. Unlike most modern nations, they still gauge national greatness not by economic success and human progress, but by land area controlled. They make no secret of aspiring for nothing less than the Soviet Union's historic borders. Half a year into conquering, … [Read more...]

The idea of terraforming—i.e. artificially revamping an entire alien planet to recreate on it the optimal conditions for human habitation—isn't exactly new. The term was coined by science-fiction writer Jack Williamson in his 1942 short story Collision Orbit. The first scientific account of the concept was written by astronomer Carl Sagan in a 1961 article published in Science … [Read more...]

If you are like me—a non-French citizen who only attends French politics on sporadic occasions—you probably know Marine Le Pen as what she’s notorious for: a Far-right extremist thinly disguising her nationalistic zealotry in a bid to occupy France’s presidential chair.You’d think she’s the kind of aspiring policymaker with ulterior motives such as banning Muslim women from … [Read more...]

While watching the Ukraine news on the world’s major video-streaming platform earlier today, I refrained from skipping an ad for possibly the first time in my life. I saw the familiar, distressed face of Kyiv’s mayor pleading the world for help. I couldn’t just press the arrow. The dude might have been speaking for the last time.Having read earlier that YouTube barred RT and … [Read more...]

Since you are reading this story, I assume you are more likely than not to have never played — or even heard of — the game of backgammon. I am not here intending to go into any encyclopedic details about its history or its mathematical analysis. I rather wish to communicate an observation I recently made that struck my mind with the exhilaration of discovery: that this game … [Read more...]