Unprecedented. That is the key word in these opening rounds of the Coronavirus pandemic. Just so. And as such, countries will need to apply unprecedented solutions to the crisis. Make no mistake: this is the time for overreaction, especially of the monetary type. Otherwise, we are probably looking at millions of deaths, instead of just thousands. Here is my big picture take on our situation. … Continue reading The Covid Pivot
It is time to abandon the fantasy that we are above the past and alienated from the rest of life on earth. We truly are a successful species in our own right that lived in harmony with the earth and its other forms for millions of years — a species that has not changed intrinsically. The genome is our Pleistocene treasure that transcends short-term and short-sighted goals. Possibilities … Continue reading The Last Fiction – Part 1
You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you. Matthew 5:43-44 Return animosity with virtue. Laozi – Tao Te Ching 63 Just don’t look. The Simpsons … Continue reading Winning the Peace in 2020
In Part 1, we confronted the uncomfortable reality that unequal societies like ours do not, unfortunately, fix themselves gradually or peacefully. Instead, conditions ossify and then worsen, until one of the Four Horsemen of violent upheaval comes galloping along to level the socioeconomic landscape. So at the very moment when we need maximum flexibility to confront the looming spectres of climate change, ecological devastation, and … Continue reading Transparent Trojan Horse – Part 2
The trouble with the eagerness to make a world is that, because the world is already made, what is there must first be destroyed. – Paul Shepard, ‘Nature & Madness’ Modern industrial societies have three fundamental features: they are stupendously successful, stupendously destructive, and stupendously unequal. It is the last facet, inequality, which prevents any meaningful action to mitigate the destruction or redefine success. Inequality, … Continue reading Transparent Trojan Horse – Part 1
“It is the nature of a new idea to confound current consensus.” William H. Whyte, Jr. In the previous post, we looked at the most daunting socioeconomic issue facing us today: the decline of labor value. Looking beyond a simple statistic like the unemployment rate, we can see the inescapable reality that technology, and the myriad systemic offshoots enabled by technology, will continue to reduce … Continue reading The Cerberus of Surplus Capital
The modern age has carried with it a theoretical glorification of labor, and has resulted in a factual transformation of the whole of society into a laboring society…. It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the fetters of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of … Continue reading Something Ain’t Workin’
Entropolitan 