The end of paper?
While the world continues to consume paper in ever greater amounts, the idea that we can preserve all our knowledge electronically is catching hold. Is that really a good idea?
Society
A Compelling Theory to Explain a Key Trait of Modern Humans
Paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean has developed a comprehensive explanation based on a synthesis of research and archaeological evidence for what propelled H. sapiens to leave Africa about 70,000 years ago and colonize every part of the world, replacing other existing hominin populations. Key to the process is “hyperprosociality,” by which Marean means the ability to cooperate with people who are not relatives.
On the Ecological Tyranny of Tech and Repairing Our ‘Just Tech’ Age
What can be said about globalized tech when our earthly existence is consumed by viral uncertainties, urgent climatic shifts, and perpetual socio-environmental precarity and violence?
Towards Cooperative Commonwealth: Transition in a Perilous Century
Strengthening the capacity to meet basic needs closer to home will become a preoccupation for many and require a significant investment of time, energy, and resources. Strengthening personal, community, and ecological resilience close to home will only grow in importance.
A Lifetime Ago
By putting it in terms of human lifetimes, which we can understand intuitively from personal experience, we can better appreciate how brief this transient behavior is.
2023 In Eight Points: Meditating On Our Planetary Moment
I feel that these are the years that I — and perhaps we — have been born for. These are the moments where we need to show up. Yes, it’s not easy, and that’s exactly why we chose to be here — to be here together.
The Human Predicament in 22 Clips
Following up last week’s Frankly outlining systemic themes for 2024, this year-end special is a reflection on 2023 with a series of clips, which together highlight the increasingly challenging world of which we are a part.
Text substitutions
Over the years, I have developed a number of automatic text substitutions for phrases/platitudes I hear people utter. The filter works so that what I hear is converted into my internal version before processing further.
Clearing skies: Opening a new path on climate and the future
Adapting to climate change does not address the societal systems and values that spawned the current crisis. What’s needed is “systemic adaptation” that fundamentally changes our economy, our politics, and our priorities in ways that put community and the planet first.
Holidays are Degrowth Pt. 2
A Christmas Carol is possibly the single most important humanitarian holiday tale of the industrial era. It did not just put the merry in Merry Christmas, it universalized the greeting itself.
Winter solstice 2023
There is a wisdom to this time of the year. Perhaps by just sitting with the dark, the seeds of whatever I must do next will arrive on their own.
Ideas for Living through the Great Unraveling
This year Post Carbon Institute has leaned into the “Great Unraveling” as a label for framing what’s happening in modern society and the natural world. In short, the Great Unraveling represents humanity’s comeuppance from overshoot, a time when debts are coming due and the promise of everlasting growth is fading.
