I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

by Jason Pargin

He decided that, if things continued to progress in this fashion, he would open with forearm blows to the head and then delegate the closing argument to his boots. No doubt the other firemen would try to jump in, but you can’t waste your life worrying about stuff that’s not gonna happen until thirty seconds from now.

Damn it, thought Malort, this is what happens when you start posting cops in the schools; the kids just take their school shootings outside. The

She would have called this a lucky break, but the truth was that most such schemes fall apart from the inside. If your entire worldview is “Don’t tread on me,” what’s going to happen when a leader tries to impose rules? You’d think they’d learn to put their differences aside for the cause, but that’s hard to do when you’ve been raised to believe there’s no such thing as a minor disagreement. If you think that, say, a cashier failing to wish you a Merry Christmas is a sign of impending Christian genocide, you’re probably not the type to hash out differences over brunch.

seventeen years, a case of two perfectionists who were fortunate to find each other because no one else could tolerate them.

just wanted to ask you a few questions.” “Do I need an attorney?” The answer to this question is actually yes, every time, regardless of whether you’re being interviewed as a suspect or a witness, as law enforcement absolutely does not have to tell you which one you are.

Key’s theory, which Patrick had mocked as the “Virgin Apocalypse,” was that all modern hate groups were really just incel grievances in disguise. It’s a historical fact that one of the key precursors to mass violence in a society is simply an excess of young, unmarried men. The really unpopular part of Key’s theory, the one that had caused a lot of colleagues to stop talking to her in the hallway, was that the smart societies knew you could deal with this problem simply by finding some excuse to go to war. Through all of history, wars were a way to burn off your excess young men, like venting heat from an engine.

“Why not, if they all want the same outcome, and each bring their own component to the plan? Now this is the part where you scold me for indulging speculation, at which point, I’ll reply that the sooner I can get hard information, the quicker we can put the speculation to rest.” “What a wonderful world it would be if it actually worked that way, speculation wilting in the face of evidence.”

Phil Greene had lost his wife and then his daughter within a few years, and here was a fairly clear story of a man who, in the process, had lost his only anchors to reality. Key believed the world was full of crazy men who were kept tethered to reality by sane women, though this was the kind of thing that, again, never got a great reaction when said around the office.

in isolation, human minds tend to get strange, like a self-portrait painted from memory, in the dark, using a live snake as a brush.

“He went from running meth to becoming a get-rich-quick finance guru? Sad to see someone fall off like that.”

The problem, she had quickly realized, was that while knowledge of its location was necessary for action, it wasn’t at all clear if any action was possible. So much of a modern life was just sitting back helplessly and watching disaster unfold, in real time and in high definition.

“None of the young people I know drink these days. I don’t get it. It’s unhealthy. Science agrees that it takes two drinks just to make you a normal person.”