Disclaimer: Parody The apocalypse did not bang a gong. It did not announce itself. No, it simply walked in like a guest who insisted on arriving early and never leaving. Some did notice. A finance minister sweating over spreadsheets. A climate scientist muttering to herself. A general sketching supply lines that made no sense whatsoever. Most though, went about their business as if everything would, of course, sort itself out. Classic. ...
The trouble with governments and cryptography is that they keep mistaking mathematics for magic. In Ankh-Morpork, this was the sort of thinking that once led the Wizards of Unseen University to try and regulate gravity, on the grounds that it was “inconvenient.” It ended, inevitably, in bruises. In our world, the same logic has produced the noble invention of the “government backdoor.” A handy hole in the wall of your digital house, through which the Watch can come and go as it pleases. The Watch insists it will only use this hole to catch thieves and murderers. Unfortunately, thieves and murderers are rather good at using holes too. ...
At first glance, The Hunger Games seems like a dystopian romp designed for young adults who enjoy a bit of archery and a healthy disdain for authority. But dig deeper, and Suzanne Collins’ world is less allegory than blueprint. Panem is not merely fiction. It is a thinly veiled map of our geopolitical, economic, and psychological landscape. If you squint (or even if you do not), you can see the outlines of our own era: a decadent centre, exploited peripheries, staged conflict as entertainment, and rebellions whose success depends not on justice, but on optics. ...
The trickster is no ordinary troublemaker. They are the necessary saboteur, the holy vandal, the one who pries open order just enough to let chaos breathe. Found in every corner of the world and across every era, the trickster is an ancient archetype dressed in local clothes, part comedian, part rebel, part divine disruption. They don’t simply play tricks; they expose the trick of the world itself. From the scheming spider Anansi to the gender-bending Loki, from Coyote’s dusty trails to Hermes’ winged heists, the trickster thrives in the cracks of civilisation, those uncomfortable in-between spaces where certainties collapse and new meanings ferment. If priests bless the structure and kings enforce it, the trickster questions the terms of the deal. They aren’t against the rules. They just want to know who wrote them and whether the ink is dry. ...