Building Community

The familiarity of an idea

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Cloth toilet paper and peak oil… There are some ideas you run into once and immediately say “Why didn’t I think of that” and implement it in your own life, but there are many other things where the first time you confront an idea, you can’t do much more than file it away as a weird factoid. Without context and familiarity, it is just too hard and too strange.

Economic and planetary collapse: Is it a therapeutic issue?

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If we call those pessimistic about the future “Doomers,” what do we call those who are blindly and enthusiastically optimistic? We might call such optimism a “Panglossian Disorder” and the Peak Shrink suggest that it is a tough, culturally ubiquitous disorder to treat.

South African cities need to change lanes as oil runs dry

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Most of South Africa’s cities experienced their growth during the course of the 20th century. In large part, our cities were structured through the lens of segregation and apartheid. The evolution of our cities is also intimately bound up with the prevalence of abundant cheap oil.