In this week’s roundup of recommended reading: various developments in the ongoing global economic collapse, more dystopian/totalitarian trends, the problem with America’s enduring attitude of techno-worship, the crisis in America’s education system, an earthshaking religious discovery in the Middle East, Dan Simmons on the creative daemon muse, and the imminent promise of true cinematic brilliance…
Tag: apocalypse watch
Recommended Reading 3
Topics this week include imperial and economic collapse, the true value of a college education, our troubled shift from physical to digital media, the nature of consciousness, a mysterious marine mammal die-off, the nature and quirks of the human religious instinct, and a new UFO documentary.
Silently Witnessing World War III
This morning, not long after sitting for 20 minutes or so of meditation, while I was drinking my coffee and checking my news feeds, I came across a headline announcing “US gives Iran ‘last chance’ warning over shutting down nuclear facility.” Right after that I saw a separate one announcing that “Russia Is Massing Troops…
Recommended Reading 1
In the wake of my exit from Facebook a couple of weeks ago — something I still intend to write about here in the near future, in tandem with an explanation of my reasons for leaving Google as well — I’ve taken the time, energy, and attention that I was using to post things over…
Gamma (short SF/dystopian film)
GAMMA from Factory Fifteen on Vimeo. (Be sure to expand the frame and watch this film in full-screen mode. It looks simply amazing. Many thanks to JesĂșs Olmo for bringing it to my attention. -Matt) SYNOPSIS: In a post-nuclear future, when the earth is riddled with radiation, a new urban developer proposes to regenerate the…
Report warns of society-wide increase in mental illness due to climate change and severe weather
I grew up an hour from Joplin, Missouri, and spent a lot of my formative years heading over there for high school debate-and-drama contests, martial arts lessons, and more. I know people in Joplin and the surrounding small towns. My wife and I still drive through Joplin when traveling home for the holidays. So this…
UFOs over China and fireballs over Peru: What the Lovecraft is going on?
So, you know, sometimes we really do need to ask ourselves whether and to what extent our new Internet-created ability to piece together all kinds of events and news reports instantaneously from across space and time is encouraging us to read false patterns of meaning into things. More pointedly, is that what I’m doing below…
Bank of America: Four-alarm emergency, possible failure imminent — and BOA is just the canary in the coal mine
You know how all of the chatter about “the recovery” during the past couple of years has sounded like pure propaganda when held up against real economic life on the ground for real people in the United States? You know how that kind of talk has all hinged on how the big corporations are doing,…
High food prices and global societal collapse: US researchers warn of a link
If anyone still wants to question or deny whether the era of peaking fossil fuels, along with the epic government-backed financial swindles of the past few decades, will have — is currently having — distinct real-world impacts of a severely disruptive nature, please note the emphasis on the role of biofuels and government deregulation of…
The world riots, nations shudder, Cthulhu wakes
What do Lovecraft, Cthulhu, Eckhart Tolle, global economic collapse, Queensryche, Robert Bloch, Rage against the Machine, and proliferating riots around the world have to do with each other? Simple: They herald a period of cosmic, cultural, and human disruption.