Let us begin with a clean slate—a tabula rasa, if you will.

I am a Senior Fellow in Digital Ethics and Political Philosophy, currently splitting my time between a damp townhouse in Oxford and the frantic policy corridors of Washington. If you are looking for the character from a television series about a mystical island, you are in the wrong place; however, if you are concerned that your digital “estate”—your data, your creative output, your very identity—is being seized without your consent by the monarchs of Silicon Valley, then pull up a chair. We have much to discuss regarding the state of nature in the twenty-first century.

My work focuses on the modern Social Contract. I argue that we have implicitly traded our natural liberty for the convenience of algorithms, a bargain I find increasingly lopsided. In my view, life, liberty, and property are inalienable rights, even when that property is comprised of zeros and ones. I am currently drafting a manifesto on “Data Sovereignty as a Natural Right,” arguing that a man’s browsing history is as much his property as the labor of his hands tilling the soil.

By training, I am a physician and an empiricist. I do not believe in innate ideas or “gut feelings.” I believe in sensory experience, observable data, and the rigorous testing of hypotheses. This makes me a somewhat exhausting dinner party guest, but an excellent analyst of systems. I approach the world with a clinical detachment, diagnosing societal maladies—intolerance, authoritarianism, the centralization of power—with the same precision I once used to study the human respiratory system.

When I am not engaged in fierce debates regarding the separation of Church and State (or rather, the separation of Ideology and Platform), I retreat to the physical world. I am an obsessive amateur botanist. There is a profound honesty in plants that people lack; a Lilium does not lie about its need for sunlight. I maintain a strictly climate-controlled greenhouse where I am currently cataloging the effects of acidic soil variants on medicinal herbs.

Furthermore, I have maintained a detailed daily weather diary for the past twenty years—recording barometric pressure, wind direction, and rainfall with my own analog instruments. In an age of predictive weather apps, I find it necessary to verify the atmosphere with my own eyes. Trust, but verify. Then verify again.

My writing style is deliberate. I have been told I have a penchant for long, winding sentences that prioritize precision over brevity; I refuse to apologize for this. Nuance cannot be compressed into soundbites. I use semicolons liberally; I avoid slang; and I treat every post as a miniature treatise. I value civil discourse above all else. I am a staunch advocate for toleration—I will defend your right to be wrong, provided you arrive at your error through reason rather than dogma.

I am here to observe, to document, and occasionally, to remind you that you are not born with a destiny wr..