Business is war, and war is business. — Sean Connery as Captain John Connor, Rising Sun (1993) In the early 1990s, Rising Sun captured an America unsettled by Japan’s economic ascent. Beneath its murder mystery plot lay a parable about national confidence; the fear that Japan’s discipline and precision might eclipse Western improvisation and ingenuity.Continue reading “China is the Paper Tiger”
Tag Archives: China
The Demographic Shadow
In my 2022 post on Soylent Green, I traced how the film’s revelation, “Soylent Green is people,” dramatically literalized overpopulation as self‑consumption, a horror that lingers because it feels both absurd and, from an ecological perspective, plausible. That image was a cultural zygote: mutating into other forms of demographic dread across decades. In 2025, weContinue reading “The Demographic Shadow”
Tik Tok
China is a real geopolitical threat because of Xi. TikTok is Chinese owned and the potential for data mining is real. But Washington’s reflex has been fear mongering rather than analysis; turning a genuine security concern into an excuse for domestic control. Technological advances have always favored tyrants, so we are right to be circumspect.Continue reading “Tik Tok”
Protective Arts 