Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
None of us gets to choose the era we live through or to control a whole lot about the world we live in. But we should strive to rise to the challenge of the situation we are confronted with, by doing what we can to make our communities, our country, and our world as livable (and worth living in) as we can.
Like Russia’s frontline blood banks, the Venezuelan bond trade signalled that the preceding furore was headed in a specific direction. And in the increasingly chaotic, ill-defined mess of multipolar politics and climate chaos, reliably finding which ‘weak signals’ matter—and which signals are just noise—will be vital for navigating what comes next.
What “necessity” is really driving the autonomous vehicle push?
The idea that we are stardust, and made of the same stuff that all the plants, animals, and Earth itself contain is a very unifying truth. Everybody plays by the same rules.
In this week’s Frankly, Nate takes thermodynamics out of the physics classroom, utilizing its principles to explain the invisible forces behind growth, competition, and complexity in our world.
Even among those that seem to agree that this growth-addicted system is doomed to fail and collapse, there seems to be quite different perspectives on how fast that will happen. Equally important is of course how deep the collapse will be and what will collapse.
We should admit that widely-mandated climate optimism has been actively harmful to the needful acknowledgement of reality – and to the active collective self-protection that we now desperately need to get serious about making happen.
Let us humbly receive the minimal (experimentally validated) foundation that can plausibly account for everything we experience, even if we can’t ourselves connect all the dots. Trust the universe, not our brains.
Mutual Aid 101 taught me that success is not marked by a group’s size, nor its productivity; those are the vestiges of capitalism. It’s about community, collective decision-making, and taking care of each other, no matter how small the circle.
I have seen many people, usually those under the influence of a belief in modern exceptionalism, claim that our ancestors were frightened of this time of darkness, that sacrifices were offered to sky gods so that the sun would rise again after the longest night of the year. To that I say: Nonsense!
Archaeology’s singular contribution to understanding people and their interactions with each other and the natural environment has always been its worldwide documentation of past lifeways over long time spans.
Consider the staggering impact that the invention of cordage and textiles has had on human development. Hank Green has added them to his list of the ‘foundational’ technologies of our species. (Plus a note on the use of AI.)
