News

Why We Need to Start Being Decent Human Beings Again, or The Deep Wisdom of Decency There’s a thought that keeps echoing in my mind. You are welcome to judge for yourself whether it carries any water. We need to start being decent people. Maybe “again” or maybe “for the first time”…

How the Dunces of Modern History Ended Up Being Us Every age has a dunce. A society, or set of societies, that just don’t get it. They don’t learn history’s lessons. They don’t progress — they stagnate, and then regress, clinging desperately to failing ideologies, grasping at dead, obsolete ideas like a drowning person grasps … Read more

How Capitalism Made Necessities Luxuries (and Luxuries Necessities) for Americans I’m always entertained when American thinkers discover capitalism’s failings for the first, time and recoil in horror. I’m even more entertained when the cognitive dissonance kicks in — and they can’t…

How Britain Chose to Self-Destruct and Make Itself a Global Laughingstock If you’re not quite following the bizarre, incredible, self-self-inflicted catastrophe that’s Brexit…well, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s not only labyrinthine…it’s a maze of shameless stupidity, head-spinning folly, and…

Or, Why We’re Going to Have to Reimagine Economics, Society, and Politics For a World That’s Running Out of Work Here’s a statistic that might shock you. If US GDP were distributed equally, every household would make $160,000 per year. Surprised? Now. I’m not suggesting we have a glorious revolution anytime soon. I’m suggesting we’re … Read more

What We Should Have Learned from the Christchurch Massacre One of the things that we should have learned over the last few days, the hard way, from the Christchurch massacre, is this: we need take online hate seriously. Lethally seriously. Because it has real consequences. We are giving it a free pass, treating it as … Read more

What Global Collapse Means — and Why Its Risks Are Skyrocketing Lately, I’ve been discussing how we are beginning to run the risk of irreversible civilizational collapse now. Five great waves of collapse are merging to form a kind of tsunami — economic, political, social, cultural, and psychological collapse…

Humanity’s Path Divides Into Irreversible Collapse and Ongoing Progress, Right Now We have, by my reckoning, about a decade. Until what? For what? To right humanity’s ship, my friends. Do you think we are anywhere near ready for that task? Are we even undertaking it — let alone aware of it as the challenge of … Read more

Or, How The Opposite of Capitalism Isn’t Socialism — It’s My Local Record Store Here’s tiny question. Across the street from me, a while ago,a little record shop, with a charming little cafe in the back, opened up. Confession time, my friends love it. They go there to have little coffees and buy some vinyl … Read more

Why Capitalism Led to Collapse, Not Prosperity and Maturity We’re beginning to have a long overdue debate these days: what’s the point of billionaires, anyways? Do societies need billionaires, or do billionaires need societies? Which one is more true? Whether we couch it in terms of higher tax rates or new kinds…