The German-based Energy Watch Group has released a study that claims world oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030. They go on to say that Peak Oil is not a problem for the near future, it is something that has already happened; last year. More at The Guardian…
My Politics & My Philosophy
Through my writings presented here I have come to be misunderstood by a great many people, mostly with regards to my politics and my philosophy. There seems to be, if my email box is any measure, a widespread conviction that I am a socialist of one stripe or another.
While that may be true (I do [...]
What Shall We Do With Our Future?
Prospect Magazine asked 100 writers and thinkers to answer the following question:
Left and right defined the 20th century. What’s next?
The responses they received were overwhelmingly negative. Almost every respondent expected the world to stay as screwed up as it is, and most expected it to get worse. The list of the dichotomies they see [...]
Hell Has Frozen Over, Or At Least Washington…
US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said he accepted the conclusions of the scientists.
“We’re very pleased with it. We’re embracing it. We agree with it,”
he said;
“Human activity is contributing to changes in our Earth’s climate and that issue is no longer up for debate.”
Hell, but not much else, has now officially frozen over.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
In the New York Times Magazine last week, Michael Pollan wrote an article entitled Unhappy Meals, in which he blasts the prevalent particularly American and reductionist approach to looking at food that turns everything into pseudo-scientific “essential nutrients”.
Instead of this “nutritionism” as he calls it, he counsels a more realistic view of eating, based on [...]
Peter’s Puritan Principle
The Puritan Work Ethic is a sign value; the perceived difficulty or effort expended in accomplishment of a task, not the outcome of that task, is the measure of the worth or value of the task. Accordingly, something that demands a long period of extreme effort and determination will be worth more than whatever comes [...]
Against “Western Buddhism”
Modern, or should I say post-modern, life is in some large part obsessed with ‘escaping’ the stressful tensions of daily life in late-capitalist society. What free time we do allow ourselves to have is spent in searching for methods of ameliorating ‘future shock’ as it is popularly understood.
The Freedom / Security Balance
During childhood, at least the sort of idealized childhood we all like to think still exists and that we ourselves had, life was, for the most part, without tension or conflict. As a matter of fact, most of us understand the process of “growing up” to be one of learning to deal with conflict and [...]
Anyone Care To Defend Egoism?
In which I further lambast the badly thought out ideas of Ayn Rand, and challenge all comers to defend her self-obsessed codswallop.
Lazy Blogger In A Hurry…
Seth Godin has a post up about “lazy people in a hurry“, in which he posits that some people are:
Lazy as in willing to buy the first choice that’s ‘good enough’ as opposed to finding the best choice.
Now, as some of you know, I disagree completely with the concept of maximizing as a way to [...]
Maybe I Read Too Much?
Is it any longer possible to be the ‘authors of our lives’, given the constant disloyalty and paranoias sold to us under the title of “flexibilty”?
This Is Not The Information Age
For years now we have been hearing all about the “information age”. The promise of the “coming information age” in the late 1980’s, the “digital revolution” ushering in the “global information age” in the early 1990’s, the “knowledge economy” made possible by the new “information age” in the late 1990’s, and now the “economics of [...]
A Cynical Look At “Lifestyle Amenities”
There has been, since the mid 90’s, a trend towards companies offering more and more on-site amenities. From day care to car washing, coffee bars to game rooms and massage therapists, companies, especially IT firms, are falling all over themselves to provide these types of things “to attract the best talent”.
Have you ever stopped to [...]
The End Of The Industrial Revolution
The last 200 years have driven centralization and changed the human experience in ways that conflict with human nature and evolution. It is now possible to reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle.
(Un)Raveling
Seth Godin has noticed the trend I have been talking about, the one that got this blog started to begin with. He calls it raveling.
…all the systems that kept all the processes in place and leveraged mature industries and experienced players are slowly (or quickly) filtering to the masses
Yep, the age of the middleman is [...]
Being The Vagabond
*vag a bond* _n._
# A person without a permanent home who moves from place to place.
# A vagrant; a tramp.
# A wanderer; a rover.
We are realists in a world of dreamers, and we are quick to anger when we take our own dreaming too seriously. We have within us too much of the poet’s realism [...]
Choice, Discontent & Satisficing
Welcome to the 21st century, the age of “limitless potential”, meaning unlimited choices. There really isn’t a facet of our lives, from toothpaste to marriage, where we are now faced with a functionally infinite number of choices. As a society, we have let the perfect become the enemy of the merely excellent, and in doing [...]
Logos
Logos are the heraldry of the new feudalism. The serfs and commoners advertise their loyaties, badge themselves vassals, and happily pay for the priviledge of wearing their chosen master’s livery. They create micro-social orders based on the perceived cost and power of their purchased logo-status, by their customer affiliations. They are happy to hear themselves [...]
The War Against Stuff
When you make an effort to minimize the amount of stuff you have, it is amazing how big 950 square feet can be…
Judging and Condemning
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such a departure as a criticism of themselves.
These are the ramblings of 