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The Follies File

Where hubris builds its empires, and I bring a magnifying glass. This is the place for dismantling illusions, exposing cracks, and calling out absurdities. A space where critique sharpens its edges and satire finds its stride—because sometimes, folly deserves nothing less.

On the real authors of Western decline.

— and why the storm should linger a little longer. It is often said that globalization failed America. It did not. America failed itself. Globalization did precisely what it was always going to do: it connected markets, lowered trade barriers, and accelerated the movement of goods, capital, and ideas. Predictably, it

The Illusion of AI Governance

There is a theatre unfolding before us. The actors: regulators, policymakers, AI companies. The script: ethical AI, responsible innovation, compliance frameworks. The performance: convincing enough, if one does not look too closely. For beneath the surface, power remains exactly where it always was. AI regulation, as it stands, is a

Does a Foreign Language Make Us More Rational, or Just Less Capable of Moral Thought?

For years, research has suggested that the language we use shapes the way we make moral decisions. The foreign-language effect, one of the most studied phenomena in this area, seems to show that when people face ethical dilemmas in a second language, they are more likely to choose utilitarian solutions,

The Other Minds Problem: AI, Intelligence, and the Universe. From Frankenstein to Laplace’s Demon.

The question of other minds has long troubled philosophy. How do we know that another being—human or otherwise—has subjective experience? We assume other people do because they behave like us. With nonhuman animals, the question is harder to settle. We know they feel pain, form bonds, and act

Your Majesty, There Are Still Judges in Berlin

In an old Prussian legend, a humble miller stood before Frederick the Great, refusing to give up his land. When the king threatened to seize it, the miller uttered a defiant phrase: Your Majesty, there are still judges in Berlin. It was a reminder that even an absolute ruler was

AI in Medicine: Rushing Forward Without a Moral Compass

There was a time when technological advances were met with cautious optimism, a balance between curiosity and critical reflection. Today, we find ourselves moving forward at a relentless pace, integrating artificial intelligence into medicine with minimal deliberation, as if ethics were a secondary concern rather than a foundational one. AI-powered

The Politics and Ethics of Reproduction

The debate on reproductive rights is often framed through rigid ideological lenses, reducing a profoundly intricate ethical issue to political slogans and legal technicalities. At its core, however, reproduction is not merely a legal or political question—it is an ethical one. Only by addressing the underlying moral dimensions can

The Roman Salute and the Shifting Face of Authoritarianism

Classic fascism emerged as a reaction to instability: economic collapse, national humiliation, and fear of social change. It sought absolute state control, glorified war, and aimed to dissolve the individual into a unified national body. Mussolini’s fascism was rooted in statism and militarism, with the corporate state controlling the

The Circus

There’s a peculiar alchemy in the way complex social issues are transformed into spectacles—a political circus, where nuance is abandoned in favour of hyperbole and division. In Portugal, two pressing topics, the right to health care for non-residents and immigration, have been dragged into the centre ring. Both