Sounds like a science fiction idea, doesn’t it? Well, of course, it is a science fiction idea, and a venerable one at that, with roots that reach back to the early 19th century, when Mary Shelley processed the cultural fears and fascinations of an entire era by writing Frankenstein — an act which was, notably,…
Tag: apocalypse watch
‘Green shoots’ a lie, Greater Depression still unfolding nicely
Like a lot of other people, I have been alternately galled and amused in recent months to hear all the talk of economic “green shoots” that started back when Ben Bernanke first used the term in February during a 60 Minutes interview (and thereby became the first Fed official ever to do so, even though…
An Economic Day of Reckoning for America’s Colleges
Interesting video from The Chronicle of Higher Education showing speakers and attendees at the Chronicle‘s Leadership Forum, held on June 7-8 in Washington, D.C., hashing over the question of just how worried colleges ought to be about the economy, and how they ought to respond to the crisis. Their bottom line: Brace for serious change….
Religion, voluntary poverty, and cultural survival in an age of collapse
Or actually, what I present here are quotes of the day, plural. Both are from John Michael Greer, he of the liquid prose and fearsome erudition, and one of the most important writers about the civilizational trajectory we’re pursuing right now. [Toynbee’s insight] that religion very often serves as the conduit by which the cultural…
The last generation’s successes become the next generation’s problems
An interesting recent article from The Chronicle of Higher Education that explains one effect of California’s epic budget crisis on its college system spells out a principle with much wider applications for our culture and civilization at large. “California’s ‘Gold Standard’ for Higher Education Falls Upon Hard Times” (June 15) explains how the fabled California…
Kunstler channels Lovecraft, or, Cosmic Decay in Upstate New York
How very, very fascinating to see James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and World Made by Hand, and one of contemporary America’s most visible, forceful, caustic, and eloquent prophets of doom (via peak oil, economic collapse, climate change, and more), turning to none other than H.P. Lovecraft for a properly evocative literary reference…
The Human Race at a Crossroads
Guy McPherson, professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona, pulls no punches in his May 21 essay, “Humanity at a crossroads.” In fact, he begins with his punchline itself: The evidence is gaining increasing clarity: We’ve reached a crossroads unlike any other in human history. One path leads to despair for Homo industrialis….
It’s official: The human race is earth’s disease
Okay, so it’s not actually “official” (since, after all, what would such a claim even mean?). But the following represents an interesting progression of an interesting idea through modern-day media culture. 1961-1964 and 1981: William Burroughs and the human virus In his classic Nova Trilogy, published in 1961-4, William Burroughs famously developed the idea that…
Choose now: a “depopulation explosion” or a doubling of earth’s population by 2040
There’s a very worthy front-page story in today’s Washington Post (“Simplicity Becomes a Selling Point“) about the current scramble among mass-produced food companies to slant their advertising campaigns to cater to the swelling public desire for greater simplicity and “naturalness” in food products, and also the desire for more locally produced foods. Near the end…
Thomas Friedman: The game is up, the ‘Great Disruption’ is at hand
Who would have believed it? Two days ago in Saturday’s (March 7) edition of The New York Times, Mr. Economic Globalization himself — Thomas Friedman, author of the monumentally influential tome The World Is Flat, which argues that individuals and nations must recognize and adapt to the reality of a level global economic “playing field”…