Lunch with a smart friend with whom I often disagree (politiely). This time it is different, maybe, he says (in response to my point that we've known about the essential unsustainability of techno-accelerationist consumerism since the late 1960s - Earth Day, The Limits to Growth, Blueprint for Survival in 1970, 1972 and 1972: I can... Continue Reading →
The emotacycle- what it is, why it matters, what is to be done?
The article first explains the emotacyle and its four phases, then what its consequences are. Given that these are (on the whole) negative, the obvious question ‘why does it persist?’ is next addressed. Finally, the all-important ‘What is to be Done?’ question receives a response, albeit an anemic and incomplete one. What is the... Continue Reading →
Of Greta, misogyny, patriarchy, technology and shattered dreams
On Twitter right now (in my stream anyhow) people are talking about why Greta Thunberg, Jamie Margolin and AOC are triggering such incandescent (old, white) male rage. I've written a bit about this here and here, but here's a recap/short0version. This, in my opinion, goes back way further than August 2018, when one Swedish girl... Continue Reading →
Of cargo cults, social movements and accelerating transitions. #magicalthinking
Imagine tribespeople in the South Pacific. Sure, lots of trading, and contact with Europeans (good and bad). But what happened in 1942 and 1943 must have blown their minds. Giant white men who could fly arrived in big metal birds, with chewing gum and coca cola. And then, as quickly as they came (with the... Continue Reading →
Trying to talk with people about (stopping) the end of the world. And failing.
Since I got back from 7 weeks and 10 tonnes of climate criminality, the same conversation - if you can call it that - has been had several times. Here's the dynamic of it (not obviously direct quotes, for various reasons, and a certain l'esprit d'escalier, but this is my website, so suck it up).... Continue Reading →
Karma does what karma does.
About 15 years ago I went on a training day (it didn’t work – I stayed a douche). It was union steward training. Mostly those days were death by powerpoint, info-deficit tosh. This one thing I am about to describe, though, it stands out. It was a card game/exercise. Each individual was given a card... Continue Reading →
Desolation angels
She had been asked to attend a shit meeting, at which one of the blithely ignorant assholes the electorate seems to love was talking among his friends. She was sent on an intelligence-gathering effort, for an environmental pressure group. And she told me, fighting back the tears, that it had been a truly awful, traumatising... Continue Reading →
The need for/inevitability of magical thinking
We can laugh at the people buying their Make America Great Again hats (made in China) and chanting at Trump rallies for the return of a mis-remembered past. It’s easy to see that they want something that is difficult (impossible) to deliver and that they want it with no particular effort on their part, beyond... Continue Reading →
The same Joe?
Twenty plus years ago I got hold of a book called Suspects, by the film writer David Thomson. The conceit was that Jeff Bailey - the Jimmy Stewart character in It's a Wonderful Life and George Bailey - Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past (amazing film noir) - were brothers. Well, what if "Joe"... Continue Reading →
Why we are doomed: of meetings, ghosts and the QWERTY keyboard
So, I wrote this over a year ago. Nothing I have seen from the "new" organisations on the scene gives me any cause to revise what I wrote back then. I am less prone to flounces and resentment grenades, but only marginally so. There's a much shorter (and life is short, so read that instead?)... Continue Reading →
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