Two outstanding deindustrial fiction books from yesteryear
If you’re in the mood for some good deindustrial fiction, I recommend checking out these books by Ann M. Pino.
Frank Kaminski
“Which species are we sure we can survive without?” Revisited
We have eliminated the species around us with reckless abandon and without concern for whether we can survive without them. An alarming new study suggests a rapidly accelerating decline in worldwide insect populations. Can we survive without the insects of the world?
The world-changing potential of hot composting
As long as there have been humans, we have taken the parts of plants we don’t eat and thrown them back onto the soil again, knowing it would turn back into soil to create more plants. Until we modern people came along, that is.
Is a key ingredient humans need to live about to run short?
Phosphorus is a key ingredient in modern fertilizers and essential for all living organisms. Will we have enough to feed the world in the decades to come?
The philosophy of Stagecoach
Old black-and-white movies set an example for people to follow. In an era when we interact more with screens than with people, and when few people remember how to work together or build a better society, examples are what we need more of.
Has U.S. shale oil entered a death spiral?
As long as investors continued to plow money into U.S. shale oil companies, the industry seemed unstoppable. But with the flow of those funds all but stopped, has the U.S. shale oil industry entered a death spiral?
The greatest good for the greatest number: A doctrine of acceptable losses
“The greatest good for the greatest number” seems like an enlightened view until you examine its application. Then things get very messy.
Democracy, truth, fallibilism, and the tech overlords
Truth is a very difficult thing to come by. Usually, when humans stumble onto it, they don’t even know they have. America started out as a nation skeptical of royal prerogatives and concentration of power. We’ve morphed into a gullible society easily manipulated by dreams of a techno-utopian future.
Christmas during the Forgetting
No one is saying that all modern creations are bad, of course, and you can like whatever you like. I’m simply saying that the actual customs that our forebears kept for hundreds or thousands of years disappeared quickly and recently during the Great Forgetting of modern times, replaced by less wholesome and healthy customs manufactured by people with agendas.
Green New Deal – 23 December 2018
– GND explained by David Roberts
– Possible without a revolution?
– Launched today (2008) by Rob Hopkins
Drones for Christmas
Unidentified drones shut down London’s Gatwick Airport for three days last week in the midst of the busy holiday travel season. Drones are examples of how miniaturization and cost reductions of existing technologies can lead to havoc when there is no thought or testing concerning the implications for public safety.
Artificial intelligence and the limits of the machine model
If we reduce all of our efforts at addressing our problems to language a machine can understand, we will get machine solutions. What we need, however, are solutions that come from our deep connections to this planet as beings of this planet, connections that no machine will ever fathom.