The Biggest Takeaways from the Logic of the Superorganism
In this Frankly, Nate revisits some key messages from this channel and delves into some of the more challenging takeaways.
Society
Weather Predicting
The intrusion of AI into weather prognostication is a fairly accurate measure of just how stupid our supposed created intelligence is. I know you’ve seen the results.
Shortcut Brains
Brains. What are they good for? Why do we—and loads of other animals—have them? What is the point of evolving increased neural complexity?
Ray Kurzweil, Evangelist of Techno-Immortality
As John Gray has written, utopian visions, whether fascism, communism, globalism or the Singularity, invariably promise “dreams of collective deliverance.” But in waking life, they “are found to be nightmares.”
Some thoughts on Richard Heinberg’s ”Envisioning a Livable Future”
Few in recent years have made a more significant contribution to our ecological salvation than Richard, and in my dogmatic opinion his most recent essay is stating many of the lessons we need to learn fast if we are going to get through to a satisfactory world.
CDRCs: A proposal concerning work, resilience, and the repopulation of the countryside
The proposed model, Community Development and Resilience Cooperatives (CDRCs[1]), relies on three fundamental pillars to articulate its strategy: direct democracy, cooperativism, and agroecology.
Review: Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore
With its brilliant blend of epic scope, dark comedy, goofiness, sharp irony and a multilayered, eerily prescient narrative, Greener Than You Think remains a wildly successful and thoroughly entertaining work of satire.
Odyssey: Hopes and dreams
Societies around the globe face multiple crises. In this context, is marshaling hope and dreaming up beautiful futures—imagining a world that could be—a useful response, or is it escapism?
The view from Washington: Part 2
Capitol Hill Republicans and the Trump administration are under great pressure to produce significant, observable progress on the incoming president’s America First agenda. Although Trump will be free to issue executive orders, much of the agenda depends upon congressional action.
U.S.-China trade war: Is the latest battle really tit for tat?
Somebody needs to buy U.S. trade policymakers a periodic table of elements. China last week banned export of the key high-tech metals antimony, gallium and germanium to the United States. In this case, China has the upper hand.
Earthelujah! An Anti-Consumerist Conversation with Reverend Billy
Reverend Billy, the leader of the Church of Stop Shopping, is hellbent on spreading the gospel of the anti-consumerist life and the non-materialistic approach to finding meaning and joy. Environmental journalist Rachel Donald interviews the good reverend.
From reform to what works: Moving from the limits of institutions to a culture powered by neighbors
No matter where the effort began, the transformation in each of the stories is about relocating functions to the local citizen sphere from the managerial sphere. All of these stories are about democracy in action to and within the capacity of citizens to solve problems and implement new creations.
