Tom Whipple

Dilithium Crystals “most likely” to power next generation

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In a Gallup poll released today, Americans chose dilithium crystals as the top choice of fuel to run both cars and power plants, with 84% of Americans choosing the crystals over other options including nuclear, hydrogen, corn ethanol, shale gas, and photovoltaic solar panels. Respondents indicate that dilithium crystals are popular for providing quiet, clean energy, with a proven track record including over seven-hundred twenty-six episodes in four different Star Trek television series.

Book review: “Against the Machine: Hidden Luddite Tradition in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives”

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We are a stressed out, frustrated, and angry people that has become totally dependent on our technology for our everyday lives. People routinely bang on their computers in a way reminiscent of the first Luddites who hammered at the weaving frames of the smoke-belching factories of Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield. Nicols Fox in her book, Against the Machine provides an astute and highly fascinating account of how we have come to where we are today and what we sacrificed as a result.

Summer reading list promotes democratic thinking

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In Follett’s book, you see the hard lives of the Welsh coal miners, the English servants and the Russian peasants. And you see the rulers declaring war, losing millions of lives — usually poor people’s lives. And, of course, as in Victorian novels, the poor people often seem to have more character than the rich.

… It’s not enough to bemoan the decline of democracy or complain about the accumulation of wealth at the top — we need to act. What we learn in Follett’s book is what many of us have learned from experience: There’s nothing so exhilarating or fulfilling as joining with others to fight for what you believe in.

The high cost of restaurant culture

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The fact that 1/3 or more of all calories are consumed at restaurants, that half of all meals involved someone else doing some of the cooking somewhere down the line and that one in every 3 Americans eats fast food on any given day all should give us pause.

So is how our food dollars are being distributed – the vast majority of them go not to small bakeries and restaurants in our neighborhoods, but large supermarkets (where pre-made take out foods now constitute a major portion of sales), fast food restaurants and chains.

Peak university

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The university as a repository of knowledge may well have peaked and be rapidly going the same way as slide rulers and mechanical typewriters went. Disappeared; surpassed by faster, better, wider ranging instruments. We need to think of new an more dynamic ways to pass knowledge; we need to stop this weird ritual in which you say things to young people who look at you, but you have no way to know whether they are actually decoding the sounds you are uttering.

We should rather focus on the direct, human contact with a teacher. The relation with a mentor has been fundamental in history and it is likely to remain the master way to attain knowledge. But that happens outside classrooms; it has always been like that, and it always will be.

Voluntary poverty — it could save your life, but it’s a hard sell

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John Michael Greer recently suggested that those who haven’t found poverty yet might want to seek it out for their own good. Not only can people who know how to provide their own food, clothing, energy and other household needs live comfortably if today’s abundance gives way to scarcity in the future. But embracing poverty can be a way to protect your self-sufficient homestead from those who might threaten you. Sounds promising — but we will need a huge mind-shift to voluntarily accept a way of life that our whole society equates with weakness, stupidity and personal failure.

Resilient to what?: a fascinating new look at risk

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A chart in the World Economic Forum’s “Global Risks 2011” sets out all the risks they see in the world on a matrix which positions the various risks by their perceived impact on the global economy and by the perceived likelihood of their happening. What you might expect to be at the top, given recent media reports, would be the threat of terrorism or perhaps some hideous computer virus that knocks out nuclear power station. But no. There at the top, leading the pack, are climate change, ‘extreme energy price volatility’ and fiscal crises.