In the late 1980s – early 1990s, post-Soviet people sold burned out lightbulbs in the market because they were in high demand.

Can anybody guess why?

Gary Gerstle explains that back in the 1990s, when the IT revolution was beginning, the Republican Newt Gingrich was the Silicon Valley’s greatest cheerleader. But the techie entrepreneurs were put off by the Republicans’ belief in morality. They wanted freedom not only from government regulation of industry but also freedom from any constraint. This is why the tech industries are today so woke.

Of course, people who are wealthy and extremely disciplined can withstand a lack of external constraints because they create their own with the help of a platoon of expensive specialists they can hire. For people who don’t have the money, the discipline or a very high intellect, this kind of freedom is quite literally deadly. We can see that in the plummeting life expectancy, deaths of despair, the soaring opioid addiction, etc.

Gary Gerstle defines a political order as a state of affairs

when the opposition acquiesces to an order’s ideological and policy imperatives.

The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order

By this measure – and I think it’s a correct one – we are already living in a woke political order.

If somebody is being an asshole on Twitter, block them instead of replying. The Twitter algorithm punishes people for getting blocked and rewards them for getting replies.

`Do you know how impossible my working life is? Does either of you have a clue? No. I thought not. Well, let me tell you. I come in at the beginning of every shift with a list of things to do, carried over from the previous day. The trouble is, before I have a chance to start doing any of them, more things appear out of nowhere-paperwork, idiots causing problems for no reason, people needing to see me and talk to me.’ He winced, evidently of the view that both these needs were staggering in their depravity.

Sophie Hannah, Little Face

Kids are climbing and sliding at the amusement park but Klara has found a bit of text and is mesmerized reading it.

“I heard a journalist say,” N tells me, “that Soviet people were used to think one thing, say something completely different and do something even more different. And this explains why Putin and everybody around him are acting so crazy.”

“That makes sense,” I say, starting to think of the many examples of this phenomenon.

“So I started to wonder,” N continues, “am I also like that? Do I have this problem?”

If N hears that somebody somewhere on the planet has a character flaw, he immediately finds that flaw in himself. I’m glad he hasn’t heard about the Nashville shooter and hasn’t started looking for echoes of her dysfunction inside himself.

It isn’t market deregulation or downsizing the government that’s scary. These have both positive and negative sides that can be debated. What creates really bad consequences is

expanding the market relations into realms considered non-market realms such as family, marriage, and education.

Gary Gerstle, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order

Children become a lifestyle choice on par with any other. Romantic partners turn into a burden because there’s always a shiny new “experience” beckoning. Even life itself is evaluated on the basis of a cost-benefit ratios.

But the scariest of all, people start seeing themselves as machines. Any unproductive emotion is hunted and eradicated. Grief, sadness, pain – everything is medicated away in a rush to restore maximum efficiency.

An actual market is great. A market economy is fantastic, take it from somebody who actually experienced the alternative. It’s turning love, children, family, and self into a market that’s disturbing. And immoral.

The Russian Orthodox Church has recognized the use of VPN as a sin.

In case you have a dirty mind, a VPN is a virtual private network that keeps your online activities and geolocation private.

I’m very glad that all of the more straightforward sins have been defeated in Russia, and the church can now turn to eradicating these less scandalous ones.