After neoliberalism: the politics of place
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
One of the biggest current problems with our politics is that the political systems that emerged in the first part of the 20th century, and which dominated the long post-war boom, have now cracked apart, but new systems have not yet taken their place.
The constrained future of aviation
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
Aviation’s core problem is not the 2.5% (or more of carbon emissions it contributes worldwide). Its problem is that carbon emissions are baked into its business model.
The value of biodiversity
By Andrew Curry, the next wave
It came as a bit of a shock to open a government news release that reads more like an editorial in the Ecologist, but I think it’s an indication of the speed at which the landscape is changing here.
Sowing the seed of the future
By Andrew Curry, the next wave
Visionary fiction-writing is a practice we can use to imagine and prepare for the future together, to generate the ideas that we want to see more of in the world
Re-Reading Future Shock 50 Years On
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
Future Shock skates across the surfaces of the world that it describes, piling up anecdote and data, playing fast and loose with timescales. This may be the reason for its success; the single idea about “future shock” morphs endlessly, shape-shifting as we go through the book. Does it have a theory of change? Arguably, it is that everything is accelerating, and that this will then have deep and drastic social consequences.
Ripping Off the Plaster
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
They say that your syntax always finds you out. Metaphors can be just as revealing. As George Lakoff observes, metaphors are the devices we use to frame the way we think about the world. In politics, according to Lakoff, it the competition for the frames--effectively, competition between the metaphors--that resolves electoral and political competition.
Brexit and Long Wave Thinkings
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
Although Turchin's piece is full of comparisons between the UK and the US, which he sees as fellow travellers, certainly when compared to France, there are significant differences between Trumpism and Brexit.
The Curse of Thomas Malthus
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
Poor old Malthus. He has had a bad reputation ever since he predicted, towards the end of the 18th century, that over-population would lead to famine and then to social collapse.