Five Ways to Curb the Power of Corporations and Billionaires
By Jeremy Lent, Patterns of Meaning
Transnational corporations have become the dominant force directing our world. Humanity is accelerating toward a precipice of overconsumption, and the large transnationals are the primary agents driving us there.
Steven Pinker’s Ideas About Progress Are Fatally Flawed. These Eight Graphs Show Why.
By Jeremy Lent, Patterns of Meaning
It’s time to reclaim the mantle of “Progress” for progressives. By falsely tethering the concept of progress to free market economics and centrist values, Steven Pinker has tried to appropriate a great idea for which he has no rightful claim.
Culture Shift: Redirecting Humanity’s Path to a Flourishing Future
By Jeremy Lent, Open Democracy
What do all these ideas have in common—a tax on carbon, big investments in renewable energy, a livable minimum wage, and freely accessible healthcare? The answer is that we need all of them, but even taken together they’re utterly insufficient to redirect humanity away from impending catastrophe and toward a truly flourishing future.
What Does China’s “Ecological Civilization” Mean for Humanity’s Future?
By Jeremy Lent, Patterns of Meaning
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, affirms an ecological vision that is in line with progressive environmental thought. Is it mere rhetoric or does it have a deeper resonance within Chinese culture? The answer may ultimately have a profound effect on humanity’s future.
Jeremy Lent: Human History and the Climate
By Alex Wise, Jeremy Lent, Sea Change Radio
As we move into a new year, and try to square 2017 in our rear view mirrors, it’s an opportune moment to contemplate how we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, both recent and ancient. This week on Sea Change Radio, we get philosophical with Jeremy Lent, whose new book, The Patterning Instinct seeks to explain what has made us tick as a species over the millennia.
What Will It Really Take to Avoid Collapse?
By Jeremy Lent, Patterns of Meaning
Fifteen thousand scientists have issued a dire warning to humanity about impending collapse but virtually no-one takes notice. Ultimately, our global systems, which are designed for perpetual growth, need to be fundamentally restructured to avoid the worst-case outcome.
AI Has Already Taken Over. It’s Called the Corporation
By Jeremy Lent, Patterns of Meaning
Imagine a world where corporate charters were only granted if they adopted a triple bottom line, and where shareholder lawsuits threatened every time a company broke one of its own social and environmental standards. Until that happens, it may be that the “worst event in the history of our civilization” is not the future development of modern AI, but the decision by a group of 17thcentury politicians to unleash the power of the Corporation on an unsuspecting humanity.
Resisting Trump? Five Tips from the Hunter-Gatherer Playbook
By Jeremy Lent, Common Dreams
Our egalitarian hunter-gatherer ancestors developed sophisticated social technologies for keeping upstarts in check. What can the popular resistance movement learn from them in confronting the worst excesses of Donald Trump? The recent election results in Virginia and elsewhere suggest that the tide may be turning away from the egregious behavior exhibited by Donald Trump, and back toward a sense of decency in American politics. How can we keep that momentum going over the next three years?