The governor is expected to sign them. This is not an April Fools’ Day joke.

I told my friend, Carmen, that I want to cry, but I’m too angry right now. I’ve witnessed, and personally experienced, the significant harm caused when religion and government become bedfellows. As many of you may already know:

Ok so I admit it – last week’s contribution to AI October didn’t actually have anything to do with Artificial Intelligence at all. The prospect of humanity accidentally making itself redundant is still a pretty worrying concept, but since we as a species always seem to be working busily on new ways to wipe ourselves out, it’s not so much a problem of technology as it is a problem of the human condition.

True artificial intelligence on the other hand, is a very different kettle of fish. Let’s be clear here; when we say artificial intelligence we’re not just talking about a sophisticated machine that can fake being alive. Our rapidly advancing technology has developed machines that can walk and talk (moderately) convincingly, can gather information and make decision, but these are all reactive skills – no more intelligent or alive than a wheel’s ability to roll when pointed down…

The ironic thing about living in this information age, with technology advancing at an unprecedented rate, is that there really haven’t been all that many truly new ethical problems to sort out yet. Sure the internethas created virtual worlds from scratch, and personal surveillance drones have suddenly made the jump from ‘science fiction’ to ‘$19.95 at Dick Smith’, but despite the new technical complications both of these basically boil down to the issue of privacy– something society has had a long debate about for hundreds of years. The emergence of global terrorism has lead us to willingly forsake civil liberties we used to hold dear, but again, the general debate of ‘security versus freedom’ has been around forever.

Sure, the continued march of technology is likely to give us plenty of terrifying new ethical issues to tackle someday soon. Should cloning be allowed? Does lab-grown meat qualify as…

If you’re over 17 and capable of reading this then you remember where you were. I was in bed, waking up for another school day. I remember the radio going off as my alarm and the news reports starting to filter through my fuzzy mind until I was, for possibly the only time in my entire life, paralysed with shock. I remember stumbling out of my room, barely dressed and finding my parents already watching the replays on the TV – that now timeless video of a smouldering World Trade Centre, captured by a confused and terrified New Yorker at the very moment the second plane hit and immediately removed all doubt that this could have been an accident.

A few hours later we watched at school at both towers of the World Trade Centre, an iconic landmark or the iconic city of New York, of the even more iconic…

In 2011, on New Year’s Eve, I started thinking about all the years I spent in church listening to preachers talk dirt about humanity. I recalled the years I had a negative self-image. I knew why.

Y’know, life never fails to amaze me. Here I am, having spent the last 15 years exploring some of the fundamental questions of human existence, snuggling into a nice deep nest of cynicism and then BAM! Massive controversy from the one source I’d never in a million years have predicted.

People are opposing vaccinations now?! In a time when the benefits of vaccines were considered so blindingly obvious that they’re just a normal part of life, the idea that they might be harmful for you was pretty damn shocking to say the least. And the idea that they might be so dangerous that they’re not worth the benefits, was like waking up and being told that ‘exercise is bad for your health and we should all be getting fat instead’.

But despite (or perhaps because of) this massive shock-value, the anti-vaccination movement has grown from a fringe idea to

Along with any sane person who spends a lot of time online, I have a love-hate relationship with the internet. On the one hand it’s an invention right up there with fire and public sanitation in terms of its significance to human development. And on the other, its labyrinthine and anonymous nature provides the perfect breeding ground for some of the most insanely ridiculous drama you can possibly imagine. Drama so petty, complex and extreme that it would be near impossible for it to come into being offline, because everyone involved would be shunned so hard by society that they would spontaneously go into orbit.

If only that were an option here, I wouldn’t have to be writing this article. Even if the drama could just stay online, I would be so happy. The pre-teens, basement dwellers and narcissists could have their flame war, and while I would find it…