your post is pretty all over the place... howabout making one concise point that we can talk about?

You're right, it's not. But for freedom to exist does require a certain limitation on centralized control over the citizenry. You can be free, or you can be controlled; you cannot be both.

How does it follow that disorder equals freedom?

Alphaville anyone?

The problem isn't optimization of the kind that you're talking about, with traffic. Greenfield is concerned because the smart city extends the logic of traffic optimization to everything: pedestrians, governments, law enforcement. He's worried that parts of the city's social life will be destroyed by making them…

"Smart City"

WE MUST DISSENT

The 'networked city' doesn't sound so great to me, but then I've never been so good at the hive-mind thing. I would suspect the outcome is over-arching authoritarian control, disguised as 'managment'. You know what they said about Mussolini, he made the trains run on time. And if my historic memory serves, it seems to…

We must dissent...

"You are being watched..."

It's true. Gandalf the Grey convinced me the death penalty is wrong.

So, the saying goes "history is written by the winners", and I never understood that when I was a kid. Then in 6th or 7th grade we watched the documentary Children of the Camps. This film made me realize that we weren't the ultimate "good guys" fighting the evil Nazis during the war. Then in High School we got into…

Conflating the fact that we can eat meat with the ideas that we should eat meat or that it is 'normal' to eat meat is disingenuous and stupid.

If you were to offer that pig to a Muslim in Africa, I can assure you that they would contend that it is not for eating. If you were to offer dog meat to an average American, they would insist that eating it was 'unnatural.' Culture is a much more prominent force concerning diet than physiology (and the current…

Please point out where, in the comment you're responding to, I demonized you or made you feel guilty for eating meat. I pointed out that eating meat is a.) unecessary, which is true, and b.) a lifestyle choice, which is also true.

Tastes good and because it's a natural thing for us to do. We can choose vegetarianism -for moral reasons, for sustainability reasons, for the fact that a spouse is- but that is not how we evolved. There is really no argument to be made otherwise.

You're giving him/her a lot of credit - that those friends even exist is not somethingI'd bet money on.

Grow up.

Your friends sound fairly stupid. It's easy to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet and be completely healthy.