We are going to burn all of the oil and coal we have, because their benefits as energy sources are concrete, immediate, and local, while their costs are gradual, delayed, and global.
Regarding a recent Wall Street Journal article by Russ Roberts—“Why Friedrich Hayek is Making a Comeback”—I have to react on several levels. I’ll start with one that is superficially emotional and immature… but that seems the most apropos and on-target reaction… and then follow up with added, calmer insights.
Ever have the experience that you seriously think you’re trying to achieve one thing, but then in hindsight, years later, you look back and feel like your past self was actually trying to achieve something else entirely?
As the historian Robert Nisbet writes, “No single idea has been more important than, perhaps as important as, the idea of progress in Western civilization for nearly three thousand years.” But let’s understand what we mean by progress.
Not too many years ago, I was among those anticipating a rapid acceleration of “progress” in which a future transformed by excitingly exotic new technologies would soon welcome us.
In a 21st century world of uneven growth, disruptive technology, climate danger, and chaotic politics, we must build a society that’s transparent, diverse and able to look ahead—and embracing a philosophy of resilience will help get us there.
In response to a flurry of interest that’s been stirred by Stephen Hawking’s new Discovery Channel show—specifically, his lead-in episode about extraterrestrials, wherein he recommended against our calling attention to ourselves—I’ll offer a hurried little riff here, about Hawking and aliens, with added contributions by and about Paul Davies, Robin Hanson, and others.
In some other places, the topic of legendary science fiction author Robert Anson Heinlein has repeatedly come up, along with shouting matches — “He was a libertarian!” “No, a socialist!” “No, a fascist!” — I’ve finally had enough and will weigh in.
Democracy ... capitalism ... communism ... socialism ... anarchism ... the list goes on and on ... is there any really good way to structure a human society? If not, then what’s the best of the bad lot?
In this third installment of the 2020 Visionaries series [Part1] [Part2], we look at the future of the global environment and of democracy — two areas of concern that will increasingly intertwine in the next 10 years.
In the developing world, a billion people go without clean water. Across the developed world, storms and failing infrastructure threaten to contaminate water supplies. Is there any hope to be found?
What general values can we identify as important, beyond culture-specific or species-specific or otherwise context-specific moral codes or ethical values?
Yesterday in Shanghai, a woman miscarried. The child that wasn’t born would have led a unified China to attack and defeat India, Russia, and finally Europe, resulting in a Chinese empire that ruled the world from 2050 to 2100. Instead, China wilted under internal political strife caused by economic and environmental pressures, and became a second-rate power in the 21st century.
A lot of things keep me up at night – everything from the trivial (“did I remember to brush my teeth?”) to the to the profound (“does it matter?”). But recently, I’ve been plagued more than usual in the wee small hours by the challenge of developing sustainable and resilient technologies.
A piece in the latest issue of Science shows that there’s a considerable amount of methane (CH4) coming from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, where it had been trapped under the permafrost. There’s as much coming out from one small section of the Arctic ocean as from all the rest of the oceans combined. This is officially Not Good.
If the field of futures were invented today, what would it look like? What would its intellectual foundations be? Who would it serve and influence? And how would its ideas and insights be put into practice?
The nation-state as a primary locus of power in the world is a paradigm that dates back only a few hundred years. Could that model be replaced in our lifetimes by something different?
If human intelligence evolved from a need to keep track of complex social networks, then perhaps our minds are naturally predisposed to building webs, complex manifestations of order, like ecosystems.
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