One day before the presidential election in 2000, president-to-be George W. Bush told an audience in Bentonville, Arkansas that his vanquish...
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Taking a short break - no post this week
I'm taking a short break from posting this week. I expect to post again on Sunday, May 5.
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Is matter conscious? If so, does it matter?
I'm messing with you a little bit to get your attention. This is because I believe the question posed in my title is at the heart of man...
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Life imitates art: Norway rejects oil prospecting in sensitive Arctic islands
In what seemed like an episode of the Norwegian television drama Occupied , Norway's largest political party joined smaller ones in the ...
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Taking a short break - no post this week
I'm taking a short break from posting this week. I expect to post again on Sunday, April 14.
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Carbon emissions reach record: How can we build solidarity to fight climate change?
When carbon emissions appeared to level off from 2014 through 2016 , some people were hopeful that industrial civilization just might be abl...
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The Russians are coming (and they're bringing oil)
As America's Russia hysteria is stirred once again by the arrival of the long-awaited report of the U.S. Department of Justice on Russia...
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Deep adaptation, post-sustainability and the possibility of societal collapse
I write this piece primarily to get you to read an academic paper that has attracted relatively widespread attention. It is entitled "D...
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Uber, Lyft and oil frackers: Tech mirages, not real businesses
Ultimately, businesses must make money for their investors or those businesses are shut down. It's true that some businesses "make...
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The unfinished American project: Democratizing work
At the dawn of the American republic, most people worked on farms. Census data for 1790 didn't include occupation. But it is estimated t...
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Taking a short break - no post this week
I'm taking a short break from posting this week. I expect to post again on Sunday, March 3.
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"Which species are we sure we can survive without?" Revisited
Two years ago I asked the question in the title of this piece. Now comes a wide-ranging study that suggests we are about to test that quest...
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Is a key ingredient humans need to live about to run short?
Phosphorus is essential for all living organisms. So, it's not surprising that humans get their phosphorus from other living organisms, ...
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Will anything slow down the U.S. LNG juggernaut?
It is the legally mandated purpose of a for-profit corporation to make money for its owners and to prioritize that goal above all else. So, ...
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Has U.S. shale oil entered a death spiral?
The bad news coming out of the shale oil fields of America could all be put down to slumping oil prices. That is certainly a big factor. Bu...
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The greatest good for the greatest number: A doctrine of acceptable losses
In 1776 philosopher Jeremy Bentham wrote a phrase that continues to be central to our modern way of thinking: "[I]t is the greatest hap...
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Taking a short break - no post this week
I'm taking a short break from posting this week. I expect to post again on Sunday, January 20.
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Democracy, truth, fallibilism, and the tech overlords
In a recent conversation a friend of mine offered the following: "There would be no need to vote on anything if we knew the truth....
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