Best posts
Here are some of my posts that I like or that have been popular, by category.
Scottish Independence
Scott and Chapman's censored article on Scottish Independence -- an article by UK government advisors, Richard Mackenzie-Gray Scott and Geoffrey Chapman, pointing out that Scotland would do better as an independent country than the UK government likes to imply
Why Scotland should leave the UK and join the EU -- Scotland should a part of a larger union, a European union.
EU would be "enthusiastic" about Scotland joining, says Tusk -- why Scotland would find it easy to rejoin the EU, contrary to what naysayers and unionists tell us
How Scottish independence negotiations might go -- imagining the course of indy negotiations
Indyref2 should include a devo max option -- because voters might want devo max but not indy
Defence policy
The Scottish Defence Policy series:
Scottish Defence Policy 2: nation and army comparisons compares the British army with some others and asks why they are different
Scottish Defence Policy 3: Scotland's Army notes that independent Scotland could easily have a bigger army than the UK
Scottish Defence Policy 4: Drones including lessons learned from Russian use of the Iranian Shahed-136 drone in Ukraine
An alternate history scenario, imagining if Scotland had voted for independence in 2014:
Scottish defence policy 6.1: If we'd voted for indy in 2014, what might the Scottish armed forces look like today?
Scottish defence policy 6.2: The Scottish army in 2024, 10 years after we voted to leave the UK
European Defence Policy: how Europe could rule the world -- a European Military Alliance would deter Putin and Xi, and could eventually become the most powerful geo-political entity
Why didn't Russia use nukes in Syria? -- why Putin supporters are wrong
International relations / geopolitics
The Skripal Poisoning, a case study -- looks at what the UK did, and asks what it could have done instead
Contra Hanania on Russia/Ukraine -- why it is in the West's interests to help Ukraine
Israel isn't on Europe's side, so Europe shouldn't be on Israel's side either
Voting systems and electoral reform
FPTP is a shitty crappy no-good voting system -- everyone's least favourite voting system, explained
Voting Systems: Additional Member System / Mixed Member Proportional explained -- the voting system used to elect the Scottish and New Zealand parliaments
Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) -- a voting system for electing one winner
Is Single Transferable Vote the best voting system ever? -- Spoiler: yes, for certain values of better.
A better electoral system for the US presidency -- a better way for the USA to choose its president
Technology
Google blocks Infogalactic -- a case study in Big Tech censorship. It is the opinion of this blog that once Scotland is independent from Westminster, we shouldn't just swap it for dependence on foreign state and non-state interests, including big corporations such as Google.
Software is eating the world -- and therefore who controls software and computers, controls the world. It follows that any country that wants to be truly independent has to control its computing and communications infrastructure. This means all layers of the technology stack from integrated circuits, to social media and internet-based services and APIs, and everything in between. Since Scotland is too small to do all this on our own we must do it as part of a larger European entity, either the EU or some new body.
Should Visa have the power to shut down OnlyFans? -- who gets to decide what can be said on the internet, democratically elected governments, or faceless corporations. If corporations have that de facto power, it's the end of democracy.
Miscellaneous
What Labour should do -- written before Starmer took power, explaining how they could avoid being a one-term government
Polkemmet New Town, a proposal for a new town in Scotland's central belt. Scotland's economic revival would be helped by building more housing, and transport-oriented development.
Master morality and slave morality -- why Nietzschean slave morality is harmful
The Right to walk away — because it’s hard to oppress someone if they can just walk away from your system of control.
Labour promised to cut fuel bills — instead they have massively increased them