Overton Window

The following are two brief comments (followed by a couple of shorter responses to others) I put out on one of my town’s FB pages regarding the ongoing conversation/debate around a proposed 18-story apartment complex along our main street. This is a very controversial plan given the fact that buildings…

The Overton window is a term used to describe the range of ideas that are politically acceptable to a given society at a given time. It is a pretty simple and straightforward idea but a very important concept to understand; especially for context both historical and contemporary. In the last…

Todays’ contemplation has been prompted by the usual shenanigans of government. In this case, the government of my home province of Ontario, Canada. As regular readers of my posts are acutely aware, I have a strong belief that the primary guiding principle/motivation of our ruling caste is the control/expansion of…

Lately I’ve been paralyzed by a puzzle. Most of us have had the dream where we’re lying in bed, awake, aware there’s danger in our house, our bedroom, but we can’t move. We know we must spring into action, we know our survival might depend on a defense, but we…

The American political theorist Joseph Paul Overton conceived among his ideas the notion that all thoughts and opinions concerning society could be seen and understood from a window perspective, today called the “Overton Window”. Inside this window would be the acceptable and dominant positions. Outside this window would be all…

Contextualizing, let’s see some truths (at least until now) related to software development: 1. The process of testing software is required and also important for all the tech industry (https://www.ibm.com/topics/software-testing); 2. The saying "every pot has its lid" can also be applied to programming languages. For every problem to be…

Talk to anyone of a similar generation to the sadly departed UK’s Duke of Edinburgh (husband & consort of HRH Queen Elizabeth) and they bemoan the lack of quality in the political ruling class we seem to have these days. …

Today’s contemplation is once again generated by way of an article from the online media site The Tyee. …

‘Renewables’. They will save us! This is one of the most common beliefs being bandied about by the ruling class and especially those that stand to profit from a shift to them in an attempt to power our complex society. I would argue, however, that we are not being told…