Nepal, Oct. 19 -- I am writing this while the US government boasts about a planned livestream of an execution. A firing squad, a December date, a 1 pm start, and the Defence Secretary, the global defender of human rights, promising that 'people will be able to watch it'.

The world has come to this: Simple binaries of more stupid and less stupid. Being rational or having common sense is left with an 'at your own risk' tag.

George Orwell would know the scene. Early in his book 1984, Winston Smith describes a night at the cinema. A war film, a boat full of refugees bombed at sea, and an audience shouting along with laughter. The bomb is ordinary. What frightens is the cackling.

It is hard to say which hits the mind harder: puberty or 40 (...