Inlagd av: UWDude | 17 jul 2023 3:53 UTC | 177 “I read many white papers, which were interesting theories, but their predictions certainly failed.” 
 
There is a scientific concensus that human carbon dioxide emissions contribute to an elevated carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, and that an increased carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere via the so-called greenhouse effect drives the global heating.
And it´s not he same as if there were/are concensus about all the predictions you read about.
 “Consensus does not mean that the question is 100% settled:in principle, new evidence and new theories can emerge that better explain them. But that happens is unusual. “Lars Karlsson Uppsalainitiativet.”

Posted by: Northern Eve | Jul 17 2023 10:39 utc | 203

It’s my birthday today as I join the venerable 6th decadians here.. where I still feel I am the youngster in the group , happy my birthday you all. 🥳
I am not looking for any greetings.
Ok Time to roll up the sleeves and get straighter talking. I’ll use these 3 great posts and contributors:
“No, I’ll never confess to this religion of false prophets. And I live in an enviro-heaven many times a year, the true gardens of eden. I love this planet. And yet another curse on those who proclaim, because I dint believe their science, I don’t love this planet.
I will not curse humanity for being human, I will only try to understand.
Posted by: UWDude | Jul 17 2023 3:53 utc | 177 “
“These threads should be calm and collegial, as they so often have been in the past. But with this most compelling of all matters, imagine what we could achieve in our discussions if we could share information and be colleagues again. Imagine the magic that could arise, the rain that could fall on a parched land.
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 17 2023 5:11 utc | 185 “
“ I think of citizens having both rights and responsibilities towards their government and some are related to specific things like housing, food, water, education, health care, employment, finance, etc.
Think of the discussions we can have about all the potential details of our new world.
Think of it as real world civics. What do you think your rights are responsibilities as a human are (or want them to be) locally, regionally, nationally, globally?
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 17 2023 5:36 utc | 192 “
——————-
Well written and thank you all – I totally concur.
My opinion for what it brings to the conversation- why i chose these 3 specific comments. Many will concur BUT there are many mischievous ‘nudgers’ at all times on these threads.
Still subtle except perhaps to these of us who have enough time to read through comments on every MoA post.
I’m sure b must have some inkling of it, being a better analyst than me or any other regular poster here (?).
What I see is some kind of ‘Overton Window’ being constrained from moving to stop seeing the bigger picture currently off-frame.
The way it is done is multi fold:
Avoiding direct interaction; strawmanning; diversion into fake arguments between obvious partners in crime; actual ad-hominem; squirrel pointing and dead cat on dinner table throwing.
What is their Main Objective?
In my assessment of the data I collect in reading through as many comments as I possibly can it comes down to :
Narcism and Hubris.
The encouragement and continuation of that.
For the benefit of the Few against the well being of the Many.
By focussing only on the Minority of Western European History and ‘Philosophy and Religions’.
Keeping only to its conquered Collective Western Thought and Narratives.
How does this manifest?
1. Hubris – By claiming that we are so powerful that we are able in a few lifetimes to change things which change over eons. Remember the Dinosaurs Died out and Mammals evolved into the new environments. Palaeontology shows in rock that it didn’t happen ‘overnight’. Ice cores show actual data over many thousands of years; as do the permafrosts of the northern landscapes of Russia.
2. Narcism – We few Collective Wasters – that are the Worker Ants and Bees of the Minority’s Hive Queens, feel that the less than 15% of humanity that we Collectively represent can speak for the more than 85% of the current Humanity! That fraction is only going in one direction by the way and, the Minority Slave’s Owners who have had their way for many centuries now, are happy to throw everyone under the bus to retain their Dominance in their ‘Dominate’ phase of Empire.
We are not the ‘fairest of them all’ – we are the wicked witches.
We are Not All Powerful Gods – we are just as human as everyone else and have no rights to control the majority of Humanity’s lives.
No Matter How Much We Believe We Know Better.
So carry on hanging by our fingernails for the very few and their Narrative Management on the daily more extreme rocky path that has no logic, rationality and future.
Or join the Majority of Humanity and follow that new path.
A round for the Bar on me landlord.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Jul 17 2023 12:02 utc | 205

I wondered why there were so many comments on this thread. LOL. Been there and done that.
I’m finished engaging with deniers. They used to fall into four categories:
1) paid shills, mostly connected to one of the billionaires’ liars-for-hire institutes like Heartland Institute. I used to engage these shills for the benefit of lurkers who could watch the liars-for-hire twist themselves into pretzels;
2) those in personal denial of reality, probably because their rice bowl depended on Business As Usual or their addiction to Happy Motoring and its related consumer maladies;
3) those deluded or at least confused by their own skepticism or those who rightly see the fraud of the elites’ “solutions” to the problem and extend that to the problem itself;
4) the truly uninformed.
Climate realities are shrinking Category 4 rapidly, but they are having little effect on the other categories, and I suspect most in those groups would remain skeptical even as they’re staring a Category 6 hurricane in the face or suffering from heat exhaustion in a Heat Dome that has busted the electric grid where they live(d).
So I’m uninterested in the deniers and am wasting no more effort on them
But I do think those of us living in reality need to be as well informed as we can to prepare physically and psychologically for what’s coming. The Noah myth is a story from the ancients about how these kinds of crises split humanity into at least two groups: those who prepare and those who live in denial until it’s too late. So for those who feel they could learn more, here’s a good place to start: “The Fundamental Issue – Overshoot.” an interview conducted by Nate Hagens of William Rees. Both men have Ph.D’s in ecology. Hagens also holds the dreaded MBA with time on Wall Street. Rees is the “inventor” of the ecological footprint. The discussion is frank and honest if quite sobering.
Anyone observing the world around them can see that things are out of whack and getting worse. For me, a couple of years ago I was standing in our kitchen while it was raining. The rain became so intense that it actually frightened me standing inside the house. It’s not like I’m “weather sensitive.” Years ago, I was caught in a pick-up as golfball to softball sized hail shattered the windshield. As a kid, I was part of a group of kids caught in the open in a marble-size hailstorm, and later that afternoon, a tornado took the neighbor’s barn and dumped it in our pasture just before it lifted to spare the house. What is happening now is different both in the frequency of the events and the intensity. That’s not surprising considering the energy we’ve added to Earth’s system with our profligacy and waste.
Another old story from the Hebrew bible is instructive here as another observation from the ancients about human behavior. YHWH calls Isaiah to be a prophet and gives him a hard assignment. He is to preach to the people of Judah, but the result will be that they hear but never understand, that they see but never perceive. Things haven’t changed much even with the huge changes in culture in the 27 centuries since. Trying to convince our climate denying friends is just cementing them deeper in their delusions.
And one more old myth, a more obscure one drawn from Numbers in the Hebrew bible. The story begins with the king of Moab summoning a prophet-for-hire named Balaak. The king wants Balaak to come to where the king is confronted by an army of Israelites who seem bent on invading and taking over Moab. The king wants Balaak to put the curse on them since he doubts his army is up to the task. After being summoned, Balaak starts out on his journey, riding his donkey down the road. Unseen by Balaak, the Angel of the LORD stands in his path, wielding a fiery sword. Balaak may not see the angel, but his donkey does, and the beast of burden wisely quits moving toward the angel and his fiery sword. Balaak is angry that the donkey doesn’t obey his orders, so he beats the poor animal three times. At that point, YHWH “opens the mouth” of the donkey, and the animal asks Balaak what the donkey has done to deserve a beating. At that point, Balaak’s “eyes of opened,” and he sees the angel with its sword and realizes that the donkey has saved his life.
Maybe if the mouths of the animals were opened so that they could tell us what we are doing to the Earth, to them and to ourselves, maybe then we would wake up and Look Up and change course. Not our denying colleagues though. Their hearts are hardened. It’s as if they’re already condemned.
(Note that I was as Christian in middle age and was educated in theology and studied the Hebrew and Greek bibles in their original languages in seminary and in the Ph.D. program in Hebrew bible at the University of Chicago by biblical scholars with worldwide reputations. My spiritual resource these days is the Tao te Ching, but understanding that those old collections of writings that comprise the Bible can give us insight into how humans perceived themselves and the world around them thousands of years ago. It is truly remarkable how much those old myths can teach us about the human condition without the monotheistic overlay. Is there any better mythic representation of the situation in which we find ourselves than the story of Adam and Eve with technology being the apple? Is that what Jobs was thinking with his logo?)
So check out Hagens on Youtube or his “The Great Simplification” website. He talks to the best people from around the world and from a great variety of backgrounds from Doug Rushkof to Kate Raworth. Be informed and be ready.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 13:18 utc | 207

Tom Collins,
Based on your refusal to live car free and abandon A/C – one can only conclude you do not consider climate change to be man made.
Signed – car free (cycle 6,000 miles a year running errands), no A/C,and…. heat 1 room in house to 19c, other rooms 17c, bedrooms 11-15c

Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 13:42 utc | 209

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 13:18 utc | 207
Thanks for your recommendation. I’ve found William Rees the most crystalline on the subject of Overshoot and of course, William Catton, Alice Friedemann, Tim Garrett, Sid Smith. I’m less familiar with Hagens, but will do due diligence.
I no longer waste time on denialists. The information on climate change may be incomplete and flawed, but for my purposes, it is adequate as an indicator or symptom of overshoot. Numerous other converging crises fill out the picture, such as various ore grades, disputes over water, agricultural or crop shortfalls, topsoil loss, desertification, and general decreases in energy return on energy invested.
I’ve watched my land and community slowly transform toward something very different. Piñión pines are nearly gone. Ponderosa pine range is decreasing as fire season has lengthened. . Small herbaceous plants I grew up with are diminished in size and frequency. Cottonwood range is diminishing and seedlings are less frequent. Siberian Elm(Ulmus Pumila) is now ubiquitous. I grew honey mesquites(Prosopis Glandulosa) at our elevation with only minor dieback. Accustomed ranges for trees, some invasives, some natives, are changing within the lifetimes of people here.
Anyway thanks for your voice on this.

Posted by: Andaréapié | Jul 17 2023 14:29 utc | 211

Posted by: Susan | Jul 17 2023 2:40 utc | 173
scorpion
Thanks for your comments
I would just say that my point is everything we do has an impact on everything else. ……So I get the distrust totally. I cannot deal with people who refuse to see what is happing right in front of them.
============================
Good comment(s), well said. I guess my point is that the whole notion of ‘global climate change’ is too generalist, broad and essentially abstract to be of much use. You provided another list of examples of things which damage our world, especially the MIC which I also had on my similar list. But the solution to the MIC is not to be found by focusing on its climate change effects rather on the detail of what they do and either remediating or stopping it.
Let’s take plastic waste which is a problem now all over the world. Each piece of plastic in this global problem comes from a particular manufacturer and goes through a particular journey until it ends up broken down small enough to leach into our bloodstreams or murder millions of fish and birds etc. Those who manufacture plastics have to be responsible for its entire journey cradle to grave including its final dissolution back into emptiness. (Japanese incineration would be my recommended method; theirs are the best – or used to be.) But they are not responsible. My guess is that if they were, they would opt out of manufacturing many plastics especially of the throwaway type because the cost of after-use processing would far exceed their value.
Legislation/regulation could also play a part, of course, simply making certain things unlawful to produce, period. The same could happen for GMO products, both seeds and ‘fertilizers’ (aka toxins). If the manufacturers of DU were held responsible for soil remediation and human health care after their products were used, they would stop making them.
If we go back further, all this comes from corrupt governments and societies who have lost their way such that they/we live in societies which have no clear sense of right and wrong, purpose and meaninglessness. It comes back to fundamental spiritual issues, as much as this might make most practical, reasonable people squirm given how much stupidity and corruption pervades spiritual-religious milieus and thinking as well.
Those who argue for changing the money system are on the right track but for that to happen, not just be wished, a fundamental sea-change in societal mores needs to take place first.
Karlof1 is starting a series on his new substack about what humanity needs going forward. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with. The problem I foresee is that he is going to say that China offers a fantastic model because they are basically doing everything right (whereas we are doing most things wrong). The problem with this is that it is very hard to know what is really going on there and how ‘right’ they are getting it beyond growing very fast, which is no small thing but also relatively easy. How will they be in about 50 years once the growth phase is complete? Well, we cannot see that now. So I hope he will offer more evidence beyond speeches by the President or articles in Global Times, which is a state media organ, so that we can get a ‘hard data’ idea of whether or not they really have cracked the code of what makes for a decent, and decently run, society given today’s infrastructural and other technology and population levels.
I feel for your frustration dealing with political or other organizations. I spent most of my adult life doing that until getting burned out and now have nothing to do with anything like that. I believe that frustration is natural but it is caused, again, by our lack of sane cultural zeitgeist. In the I Ching, there are a few situations where the commentary says something like: ‘the times are out of joint; evil people prosper and good people cannot rise; therefore best for good people to retire from public service and cultivate virtue quietly on their own.’ We are in such a time – at least in the West. I am not yet convinced that East and West are as bifurcated as it now appears but am certainly open to being convinced but if the East has indeed come through the twentieth century with good answers (and clean money!), then presumably any climate change or environmental issues will soon be resolved.
Because it’s 90% political and only 10% scientific an issue.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 17 2023 14:44 utc | 213

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 14:47 utc | 214
Jemez.
Best wishes to you.

Posted by: Andaréapie | Jul 17 2023 14:52 utc | 215

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 17 2023 3:33 utc | 176
We don’t know *exactly* what effect that [Fukishima water dumping] will have (where’s the science?), but as an ignoramus, I reckon it won’t be “good”.
I’m waiting for the deleterious effects of that cynical, political piece of environmental vandalism to later be sold as “climate change”, rather than of eco-system disruption….
=====================================
Yes, that’s a crucial difference: eco-system disruption versus climate change. Even if the latter is true, it is caused by the former which is something we can actually handle whereas the latter is too vast and amorphous to do anything about (that isn’t yet another corrupt, top-down con).
As to Fukishima: I had the same thought albeit mitigated by the following: of all people on earth, the Japanese have the most experience with being bombarded by the deleterious effects of nuclear tech. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Fukishima. I remember dire predictions after the latter event but it seems only a few people on site have suffered and most of the country is fine. (Have there been studies on that yet?) Now of course there are questions about leaching the contaminated liquids into the world’s oceans. Presumably a simple particle analysis is possible: how many particles of toxic DU (or whatever it’s called) versus how many particles of H2O in the world’s ocean. (A bit suspicious that this number hasn’t been widely discussed in Japan and the world already, no?)
In any case, I suspect the Japanese have a better idea than most and that the result is not going to be as horrific as we fear. Of course they could be hiding the numbers and electing to pollute the rest of the world just a little rather than polluting their own island nation very much. But I choose to doubt it.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 17 2023 15:07 utc | 217

Lol come to Houston and live (I mean die) without AC. HAHAHAHA

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 15:36 utc | 219

“These threads should be calm and collegial, as they so often have been in the past. But with this most compelling of all matters, imagine what we could achieve in our discussions if we could share information and be colleagues again. Imagine the magic that could arise, the rain that could fall on a parched land.”
Posted by: Grieved | Jul 17 2023 5:11 utc | 185
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Well said. I remain baffled as to why people get so upset during discussions about issues which I generally find interesting and fun to contemplate. But I guess some things touch on areas which involve one’s view and considering an alternative perspective is somehow a threat to that view and so perceived as insult. Which then justifies an insult in response. But I always avoided psychology and so am not going further down that piste.
Re: William Rees interview, to whomever linked it: Thanks. It’s too long for me to follow today, but around 37 minutes he goes into climate change being a symptom of eco-system damage mainly due to our societies exceeding carrying capacity. That is a good example of what I’ve been harping on. Rather than dwell on the ‘global climate change’ thought-form, and especially if we want to be ‘scientific’ which presumably also means practical, we should keep things at a level where they can be clearly weighed, measured and helped.
No doubt there are controversies in the ecosystem analysis realm too, but it is more down to earth and again brings us to addressing pollution and bad manufacturing and waste management processes rather than following Bill Gates and his acolytes into ridiculous schemes which involve blotting out the sun by seeding additional cloud cover. The more global climate change is treated as a worthy topic the more likely it is that collectively we will do something truly terrible in our collective ignorance and hubris.
First do no harm:
Keep Bill Gates away from ALL Medicine and anything to do with planetary Climate!
Second: create societies which are truly sustainable, which means in touch with Nature again and thus dismantling many irresponsible technologies and business practices.
Third: repeat 1 and 2 until we are in paradise once again which it is our species particular destiny to achieve in this realm.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 17 2023 15:37 utc | 221

Based on your refusal to live car free and abandon A/C – one can only conclude you do not consider climate change to be man made.
Signed – car free (cycle 6,000 miles a year running errands), no A/C,and…. heat 1 room in house to 19c, other rooms 17c, bedrooms 11-15c
Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 13:42 utc | 209
Sorry about my formatting issues. I had to put down the phone and come inside to reply using a PC. 11C you think is cold? Ha! We had MINUS 1.1C INDOORS for a week in 2021 due to the failure of the Texas power grid when it was -10C outdoors. Try that on for size. And we didn’t even have natural gas.
During the summers in Texas (and I’ve lived all over the state including El Paso) the temperature is typically 38-43C. Tell me where you live those are the temps and you don’t have an AC. Please do. I want it in print. Heck in West Texas I used to use evaporative cooling which requires some water, but works fine in low humidity environments.
Re: transport – Great for you. I’ve had my MY2016 “luxury” car since early 2017 and have put a total of 12K miles on it, mainly on long road trips to West Texas, NM, and AZ. This year I haven’t even renewed my inspection/tax sticker that expired in December of 2022 because I haven’t driven the car ONCE! LOL!!! Also, good luck biking around here during the day in the summer. You’ll die of heat stroke before you make it 5 miles. I hide in the house all day (which is where and when I work remotely) and go to the gym where I run 2 miles a day on the treadmill (I’m aiming for a 5:55 min mile, but currently only at 6:30 min) and then come home and walk our dog for about 2 additional miles.
What does any of this prove? You move to Houston or Austin, TX and try riding your bike around or setting your A/C to 85F during the day and see how long you last. Of course I’m just toying with you at this point since what you’re really doing is called a “purity test” – Al Gore rides in private jets! Amirite?

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 15:46 utc | 223

I’ve wondered about Heller for years, did not care enough to do any research. It was your posting above told me who he was. If you can read that curriculum vitae and not see he is military intelligence either you have no reading skill at all or you are same yourself.
I’m not smearing anyone. I am reading. I am reading you.
Posted by: oldhippie | Jul 17 2023 15:40 utc | 222
It wasn’t my post above that posted his CV or said anything about him. I was just responding to your comment. I guess the one with questionable reading skills is you.

Posted by: Phil R | Jul 17 2023 15:49 utc | 225

Houston didn’t have the prevalence of central refrigerated AC in the 60s, but they did build houses differently with large central fans that sucked air outside and into/through interior soffits that let outdoors. It wasn’t as hot then either and the issue here is mainly the humidity. Out in West Texas, NM and AZ, it used to reach 110F regularly in the summers during the 90s and due to the lack of humidity (as in virtually zero) “swamp coolers” or evaporative air conditioning worked fine during the summers. It also not too infrequently reaches down into the upper teens and in some cases below 0 F during the winters there. But the point being – literally nobody who can afford to cool their homes in the SE USA doesn’t. People die every summer due to lack of AC with the way homes and buildings are constructed nowdays.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 15:56 utc | 227

A little lesson in empathy for the dying O/T thread:
* Try living in Houston, Orlando, or inland in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, etc. during the summer – in a typical American city with little to no convenient mass transit. When you bike 6 miles to your job at Chipotle (Exxon Mobil employees drive Audis and BMWs) and arrive sweaty as hell, your clothing soaked and you smelling like hot garbage nobody wants you serving their mass produced food. LOL. Same and worse for job interviews.
* Try living in those places without at least marginally functional central HVAC, specifically AC, during the summer. You won’t have the energy to ride your bike to the Exxon campus or Mcdonalds.
* Try finding a bus system in semi-rural NW/NE/SW/SE Harris county. You can’t. It doesn’t exist. So you’re stuck with your bike or hitching a ride from a friend w/ a car or UBER – OR – not working at all.
I really don’t think people who do not live in the late stage capitalist hell hole of the USA really understand what life is like here. For starters, consider the fact that Uzbekistan has more high speed rail than the entire USA, and by more I mean they have at least ONE MILE of high speed rail compared to our ZERO.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 16:13 utc | 229

Relative to this thread and most others is today’s essay by Alastair Crooke, “A Bonfire of the Vanities”, where it’s best to let him introduce the subject:

Hubris consists in believing that a contrived narrative can, in and of itself, bring victory. It is a fantasy that has swept through the West – most emphatically since the 17th century. Recently, the Daily Telegraph published a ridiculous nine minute video purporting to show that ‘narratives win wars’, and that set-backs in the battlespace are incidentals: What matters is to have a thread of unitary narrative articulated, both vertically and horizontally, throughout the spectrum – from the special forces’ soldier in the field through to the pinnacle of the political apex.
The gist of it is that ‘we’ (the West) have [a] compelling narrative, whilst Russia’s is ‘clunky’ – ‘Us winning therefore, is inevitable’.
It is easy to scoff, but nonetheless we can recognise in it a certain substance (even if that substance is an invention). Narrative is now how western élites imagine the world. Whether it is the pandemic emergency, the climate or Ukraine ‘emergencies’ – all are re-defined as ‘wars’. All are ‘wars’ that are to be fought with a unitary imposed narrative of ‘winning’, against which all contrarian opinion is forbidden.
The obvious flaw to this hubris is that it requires you to be at war with reality. At first, the public are confused, but as the lies proliferate, and lie is layered upon lie, the narrative separates further and further from touched reality, even as mists of dishonesty continue to swathe themselves loosely around it. Public scepticism sets in. Narratives about the ‘why’ of inflation; whether the economy be healthy or not; or why we must go to war with Russia, begin to fray.
Western élites have ‘bet their shirts’ on maximum control of ‘media platforms’, absolute messaging conformity and ruthless repression of protest as their blueprint for a continued hold in power.

The revelation articulated by Crooke isn’t revolutionary as it’s been written about by many for decades and is known as the Establishment Narrative whose destruction is imperative if the people of the West held captive by its thrall are ever to become free. I didn’t speak directly to this in my “Sunday Sermon” and only touched on it tangentially. And as for how long the Narrative has existed, it goes back to when the Roman church completely altered the story of Jesus of Nazareth to neuter the radicalism of his message so Roman creditors could keep their hold on power–and that alteration began over 200 years prior to Constantine making Christianity the Roman State Religion–the Narrative told by indoctrinated priests and via colored window panes and other art while commoners were kept illiterate.
The one failing of Crooke’s fine essay is that he doesn’t mention the specific Class that has benefited from the myth of Western Civilization. Yes, he generically mentions western political leaders and does single out the Wannabe Genocidalist Francis Bacon but omits the predatory Creditor Financial Class, the history of which Hudson’s been revealing over the course of his decades of research and writings.
Yes, the current Ukraine Narrative is failing but other aspects of the Narrative remain strong. Musk’s move at Twitter to cut off access to the unsubscribed IMO was aimed at silencing Tucker Carlson as Crooke notes:
“Yet, against the odds, the MSM is losing its hold over the U.S. audience. Polls show growing distrust of the U.S. MSM. When Tucker Carlson’s first ‘anti-message’ Twitter show appeared, the noise of tectonic plates grinding against each other was unmissable, as more than 100 million (one in three) Americans listened to iconoclasm.”
And such an effect the Neoliberal Parasites couldn’t abide whatsoever. I’ll bet all those whose access was cut know why it was cut, and it wasn’t due to any of Musk’s feeble excuses. Yes, the Revolution won’t be televised or Tweeted, but it will be shown on Telegram and all other non-Western social media platforms.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 17 2023 16:17 utc | 231

I’m assuming VMT = Vehicle Miles Traveled?
As far as the household in total it’s probably 8,000 max. And that’s considering our location, which as I mentioned earlier is NOT serviced by any sort of mass transit at all, and which is so far from any urban areas as to make any bike trip at least 10mi round trip, likely passing through some pretty rough neighborhoods – in 103-110F heat and nearly 100% humidity. To wit: NOBODY does it. I’ve never seen any person biking to work or a job interview in my entire 30 years in SW/SE Texas. I used to ride my bike down (and then back up) the mountain in El Paso when I worked at the electrical utility there and later a few times a week for an engineering consultancy firm that worked with EPE. But it was the exception as it was only a 2 mile drive to work in my 4cyl Subaru.
My car sits in the garage (at our old place it sat baking in the dry sun). My wife’s SUV is the main vehicle we use mainly for practicality but at the moment in large part because 1) We don’t really go anywhere other than to relatives and friends houses and 2) My car is technically illegal without a current registration/inspection that expired in December.
As far as how many KWH of electricity we use cooling the house, it’s lower than most. We have a “modest” home on a large lot with low ceilings in all but two rooms. I chat most days with a group of guys on SMS and they both insanely keep their houses at 68-73 degrees F. Ours is set to 78 or 79F at all times during the spring, fall and summer. During spring and fall the compressor never even kicks on really but I do keep the fan running so that our air passes through a MERV13 filter at all times. During the summer the compressor runs constantly so that and the pool pump are the main consumers of electricity. I should note that a good percentage of the electricity on our ‘plan’ comes from off-shore wind farms and back in El Paso a lot of it came from the wind farms south of the Permian Basin where there is a lot of wind. I also installed three PV arrays last year with an inverter and we have a portable tri-fuel generator and transfer switch for when our utility fucks up – as Centerpoint often does – and we need electricity on cloudy days. Perhaps I’ll spring for a battery bank one day when it’s “affordable.”
All in all we use way less energy/fossil fuels than most people, but back to my point on empathy – it’s god damn near impossible to get around here, much less stay cool, without a car and refrigerated air conditioning. The most thorough solution to that is make people stop moving here and to the deserts. Limit population movement/growth in places like Houston and the desert southwest (where they are also running out of water). But that isn’t happening. The same dudes I mentioned above also happen to drive EVs. One has a Tesla Model 3 and the other that new Ford Mustang thingy. And yes I get that extracting lithium, cobalt and manufacturing PV cells and batteries is both incredibly damaging if done wrong and also chemically toxic. I built thin film experimental solar cells in my graduate research program. There are cancer causing chemicals involved and AFAIK they just got washed down into the sewer system (thiourea for example).
Now that I’ve laid my entire life out here on a thread likely crawling with 3LA spooks, I am hoping that I don’t get a knock on the door – or worse get denied airplane travel – in the coming months or years. I’m sure there are some bellingspooks around MoA who can positively ID me at this point.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 16:32 utc | 233

Nice scorpion!
I agree totally.
When I was working on the aqua culture issues it turned out that the industry, surrounded the fish, geoducks, mussels, and clams, were using so much plastic that gets eaten away by the sea sun and motion that basically all the shellfish you buy now has micro plastics in it.
The same oil companies that pollute the air also make plastic which will kill us all via our food and the ocean.
The MIC is my pet peeve as the climate activists refuse to make it part of the problem so here in my town they have gone all out trying to stop gas as a heating source in any new buildings. So if you believe in climate change you understand that in the pacific NW our glaciers are declining fast. ( climbing routes I used to do are now impossible).So what happens when your power source goes along with those glaciers? Coal thats what. No thought about this just react without thinking! We live on solar we heat and cool and pay a bit in the winter, maybe 3 months.
I also feel that living in a way that uses less is the best we can all do; walk your talk. Travel is certainly my weakness. That said accusing people of stuff because they drive cars or use heat is not useful. It is the same as blaming India or Africa for over population. The Issue is capitalism corporatism and the oligarchs. Scorpion this is not directed at you but other posts.
Somehow we need to deal with this but how when so many people in the US and Europe buy the MIC news without a thought

Posted by: Susan | Jul 17 2023 16:41 utc | 235

Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 16:38 utc | 234
The hard truth is that the only thing that will address Overshoot is the abandonment of growth as a goal for our societies
Yeah, the incongruity being that it’s a choice that’ll be made for us.

Posted by: john | Jul 17 2023 16:59 utc | 237

Solar PV
🙂

Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 17:01 utc | 239

When I was a kid in the 80s my dad used to make rooftop solar water heaters. A black painted drum inside of a reflective box with a glass pane over it. Sold them around town too. Only issue was if it was cloudy for more than a day or two in a row, water wasn’t that hot. We must have had a gas heater too for the winters, but I’m not sure how he rigged that if so. Need to ask my mom next time we talk.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 17:13 utc | 241

Posted by: john | Jul 17 2023 16:59 utc | 237
Yep. The choice is planned degrowth that gives a society a chance to do a couple of things. First, you can triage materials needs for a planned transition to a lower tech (but not no tech) society. You can sock away food. You can plan in a way that protects society’s most vulnerable, preserves life.
Or you can keep the pedal to the metal until you do your Thelma and Louise thing. Meanwhile, the billionaires are building their bunkers and the rockets to Mars. LOL.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 17:23 utc | 243

Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 15:47 utc | 224
it’s called Houston, not Houston City. and it’s worse now than it was then, and it was bad then. fortunately ac was introduced to Houston in the 1920’s. Maybe the first air conditioned mall in the US built there in 1961.
Movie theater, such as the Texan and Majestic, were quick to catch on too in 1926.
Once central air was introduced to cool off homes, the Houston housing boom got hot.
“You get a 50 percent increase in population from 1940 to 1950 in Houston,” Scovil says. “It’s pretty substantial.”

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 17 2023 17:37 utc | 245

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 13:18 utc | 207
excellent post, I mostly don’t engage with the deniers these days for those reasons.

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 17 2023 17:44 utc | 247

I click on your link, I get the lie below about recent heat waves in the US, 1960-2020, which is applied to heat waves in the US in the last 6 decades, not the “immanent(sic) desertification of Europe.
“According to the EPA, time began in 1960 and all of the hot weather before 1960 didn’t happen.”

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 17 2023 17:50 utc | 249

@ Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 17:16 utc | 242
thanks for this post to henry… i wish the naysayers on climate change would address some of this, but perhaps they view this as a separate topic? i am trying to understand and separate the rational from the intuitive here.. perhaps these are 2 different topics – climate change, and the excess and over consumption connected to oil / plastics and etc… i don’t think anyone can disagree for example that the oceans and waterways have an abundance of plastics floating in them, and yet the discomfort over the science is legitimate too.. i haven’t studied it, but my intuition tells me we are doing overshooting and extending our ability and capacity to live on this planet in a sustainable way.. now, whether this directly relates to climate change, and i think it does – some might prefer to look the other way over this topic and view it separately… cheers…

Posted by: james | Jul 17 2023 18:15 utc | 251

to – too

Posted by: james | Jul 17 2023 18:15 utc | 253

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 17 2023 17:45 utc | 248
And they kept it up. Here’s a short clip showing John Dickerson of CBS calling it “the most politically tone-deaf speech of all time.”

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 17 2023 18:34 utc | 255

Sigh…..
Given that the company I worked for is a critical supplier to Carrier starting before WWI until the present day; I‘d reckon I might just know a little bit about the history of A/C.
BTW – it’s called City of Houston. You fell right into that one.

Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 18:52 utc | 257

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 17:12 utc | 240
You’ll be shocked at your annual KWH consumption.

Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 18:54 utc | 259

Great new revisionist article by Unz, again about WWII. He provides a better historical context for what’s going on in Ukraine than most established narratives, mainly because post-war victors’ history has been so distorted. For example about Churchill:

To put things in plain language, during the years leading up to the Second World
War, both Churchill and numerous other fellow British MPs were regularly receiving sizable financial stipends—cash bribes—from Jewish and Czech sources in exchange for promoting a policy of extreme hostility toward the German government and actually advocating war. The sums involved were quite considerable, with the Czech government alone probably making payments that amounted to tens of millions of dollars in present-day money to British elected officials, publishers, and journalists working to overturn the official peace policy of their existing government. A particularly notable instance occurred in early 1938 when Churchill suddenly lost all his accumulated wealth in a foolish gamble on the American stock- market, and was soon forced to put his beloved country estate up for sale to avoid personal bankruptcy, only to quickly be bailed out by a foreign Jewish millionaire intent upon promoting a war against Germany. Indeed, the early stages of Churchill’s involvement in this sordid behavior are recounted in an Irving chapter aptly entitled “The Hired Help.”
Ironically enough, German Intelligence learned of this massive bribery of British parliamentarians, and passed the information along to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who was horrified to discover the corrupt motives of his fierce political opponents, but apparently remained too much of a gentlemen to have them arrested and prosecuted. I’m no expert in the British laws of that era, but for elected officials to do the bidding of foreigners on matters of war and peace in exchange for huge secret payments seems almost a textbook example of treason to me, and I think that Churchill’s timely execution would surely have saved tens of millions of lives.
My impression is that individuals of low personal character are those most likely to sell out the interests of their own country in exchange for large sums of foreign money, and as such usually constitute the natural targets of nefarious plotters and foreign spies. Churchill certainly seems to fall into this category, with rumors of massive personal corruption swirling around him from early in his political career. Later, he supplemented his income by engaging in widespread art-forgery, a fact that Roosevelt eventually discovered and probably used as a point of personal leverage against him. Also quite serious was Churchill’s constant state of drunkenness, with his inebriation being so widespread as to constitute clinical alcoholism. Indeed, Irving notes that in his private conversations FDR routinely referred to Churchill as “a drunken bum.”

https://tinyurl.com/2pmnn2qh
I read Irving’s books on Churchill as soon as they came out and was quite surprised given that Churchill was one of my early heroes – more as a writer than anything else. I still think his command of the English language, not to mention the impromptu quip, are off the charts stratospheric, but as a politician, statesman and national leader it is sad to learn just how corrupt he was in many important respects and therefore the waters in which he swam, for he was very much a man of his time and nation. In that regard, I guess not much has changed though hopefully some of the leading barflies here are correct in supposing that Russia and China are blazing a new trail into a cleaner, brighter future.
Just as my ideas of Churchill growing up were at best incomplete and at worst entirely mistaken, the same can be said about most views about history pertaining to Germany, Ukraine, Russia and the States. Importantly, such mistaken views and ill-founded attitudes influence those now crafting policies today, including all sides in the Ukraine-Russia / West-Eurasia kerfuffle.
‘Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…’

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 17 2023 20:00 utc | 261

That may be true, but none of them that I’ve ever engaged with are able to refute the fact that The Christ Character is almost certainly 100% bullshit with no documentation about him meeting even the most loose standards available at all.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 17 2023 5:30 utc | 191
Feel free to engage with me any time, Tom. Most on this thread are folk I respect very much, for the knowledge that they do have in fields I am not well versed in. I am well versed in eastern Christianity, and I am, I believe, an independent thinker who has come to this study from midlife on, not being coerced into it in any way.
And I don’t bite.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 17 2023 23:41 utc | 263

I do appreciate everyone’s greater knowledge in many scientific areas – that is not at odds with eastern Christianity, and I try to live lightly on the land. I didn’t during the covid episode as my son came to live with me. He drove me shopping in the little old Saturn he bought with Trump’s help – he learned how to take it apart and put it back together again, and he took me shopping when I needed to go.
Now he has gone his way, and I am back riding the bus it is so fortunate to have in this isolated area. It takes me sometimes to the train, for the trip up to Santa Fe, and sometimes in the other direction to shops south of here. It’s an all day affair, but I am a senior senior and that suits me fine. I have a trundler for my groceries, so I do plenty of walking. At first that was hard after a three year interval pretty much as a couch potato, but I am happy that the muscles finally agreed walking is best, because I love to do it. The only drawback right now is the heat, but that will pass.
So, love the planet and love one another. I’m pretty sure everyone on this forum does. I forgot to mention that the quotation I gave of Maximos the Confessor is from texts called ‘The Philokalia’. Greek scholars will know that means ‘Love of Beauty’. These are extracts from the writings of monks who very often were opposed to the governmental Christian leadership of their day. Maximos himself was brutally treated by that leadership, frequently exiled and died soon after his final imprisonment and torture, having opposed those in power through most of his ministry. The west does not know him well, but they should. Eastern Orthodoxy has preserved his legacy.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 18 2023 0:11 utc | 265

@ Grieved | Jul 18 2023 1:40 utc | 266
if you want to be encouraged and discouraged at the same time, consider reading wendell berrys many fine books on this topic..

Posted by: james | Jul 18 2023 1:59 utc | 267

@ psychohistorian | Jul 17 2023 5:36 utc | 192
There are overarching structural issues that must be in place for societies to implement their own policies successfully whatever they decide their mixed economy should look like w.r.t responsibilities and rights. Foremost is reigning in, taking control over, capital flows, capital movements.
Capital flight destroys the best laid plans — the dagger to humanity’s heart wielded by neoliberalism. Thus a primary condition for multipolar world success is public control over finance as you always remind.
I am still working through the threads. I tend not to say anything until I have read it all but with these threads being so long I am usually mostly speechless by then.
I would just say, having been lied to by the gov for my entire life, there’s a lot of trust building to do before constructive actions happen at the level you are asking. In the meantime, step by step, practically, working with our own rich local environ, which it still is however degraded it has become, we must work together to enhance the generosity of nature, and each other. In the end only the love remains…

Posted by: suzan | Jul 18 2023 2:07 utc | 269

@ Posted by: suzan | Jul 18 2023 2:07 utc | 269 who wrote in response
”
In the end only the love remains…
”
Thanks for the thoughts.
You are correct in identifying the capital investment/movement issue. Sovereign nations in the West are not currently leading the parade of capital investment but react to decisions made by the private finance folks.
I think of all as social risk management and I want those decisions to be made by sovereign governments representing their citizens and not the by the God Of Mammon cult…..Have you read in one of the latest from Michael Hudson where he calls out Pope Frank and the Catholic church directly for their instantiation of usury to support the Crusades….that is how long the Catholic religious hypocrisy has endured.
The last thing I want to mention is the opportunity that the West is going to have handed to it by the defeat of the God Of Mammon cult by the China/Russia axis. This coming reality will force changes in the incentives, across the board, by which we live our lives…..I think for the better. That said, now is the time to start talking about what we want to see our social contract look like…..agriculture by wendell berry might be one position, eh james?

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 18 2023 2:27 utc | 271

Posted by: Grieved | Jul 18 2023 1:40 utc | 266
I think we’ve understood for some time that small plots of land produce hugely greater yields per acre than big agri-business does with its massive implementations. The equation is that large-scale monoculture produces much greater profit per square meter of land, while small-scale diversification produces much more food.
I find this very encouraging.
======================================
True about small vs large plots etc. but this is something more, a new methodology. I managed to remember the acronym: SRI which means System of Rice Intensification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_Rice_Intensification
I encountered it when studying about bokashi, a very effective home-grown fertilizer, many of whose afficionados are also SRI farmers. From the bokashi crowd I gathered that some of the SRI methodology is being applied to other crops. If you read the short wiki entry you will see that it involves how seeds are handled, greatly reduces water consumption and, because it features home-grown fertilizers, knocks out the Big-Ag element and thus brings freedom and independence to many plus making healthier food and thus healthier people. Win-win-win-win-win.
And it’s a good example of how there are solutions to problems – all problems – moreover in abundance and with relative ease. We are just looking in all the wrong places mainly because of the materialist contact lenses we wear which, like AI, filter out the spectrum containing so many perfectly splendid possibilities. We just don’t see them and when given hints usually retort, confidently and often with scorn, that they simply don’t exist!

Father Laulanie began experimenting with a new approach that involved planting single seedlings and with wider spacing, using less water, and providing more nutrients to the plants through organic matter. These methods showed significant improvements in rice yields, and Father Laulanie’s approach eventually became known as SRI.[6]
Over the 1990s, a political scientist named Norman Uphoff from Cornell University in the United States learned about SRI and began promoting its adoption in other parts of the world.[2] Uphoff and his colleagues worked with farmers in countries such as China, India, and Indonesia to refine and adapt the SRI approach to local conditions.[7]
Uphoff and his colleagues found that SRI methods could significantly increase rice yields, reduce water use by up to 50%, and decrease seed requirements by up to 90%.[6] SRI gained further recognition in the early 2000s when it was featured in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development, which highlighted the potential of SRI to increase rice yields and reduce poverty in rural areas.[8]
Since then, SRI has been adopted by millions of farmers in more than 50 countries around the world with particularly high levels of adoption in Asia and Africa.[9] In India, for example, SRI has been widely adopted by smallholder farmers and has helped to improve rice productivity and increase farmers’ incomes.[10]

Interesting how the World Bank got involved. A bad sign. Probably why it has not caught on as much as it could as mentioned in the beginning of the article. I also don’t recall from earlier reading that it was a Jesuit invention. In any case, it’s a good example of how solutions are out there. The Kogi tribe and Sebastio Salgado have shown how (in tropical climates!) they can regrow almost desertified terrain in as little as 20 years. Francis Fukayama ‘Natural Farming’ went into the Sahara and, using his method, planted trees which in turn made rain happen. Seth Holzer, a permaculture pioneer and expert who grows lemons high up in the Alps, has had great results all over the world in difficult areas.
The problem – and the root of all problems – is ignorance laced with greed, aggression, envy, arrogance etc.. which are all just different flavors of ignorance.

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 18 2023 2:58 utc | 273

Posted by: juliania | Jul 18 2023 3:23 utc | 274
Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 18 2023 2:58 utc | 273
Thank you for your earlier comment on fermentation in producing a fertilizer from rice — I am going to try that! Also with the ground up rye kernels – does that produce a yeast from the air? — fascinating.
=====================================
Yeasts are everywhere including the air. In the plant life cycle, seeds especially have to transition from locked, or dormant, to fertile, or sprouting. Part of that process is triggered by combination of warmth and moisture, but also yeasts are involved. Ripe plants are sweet including grains and bitter greens like kale. That sweetness is there to attract yeast growth which in turn begins to change the locked chemical condition of the seeds to a growing condition. I believe things called lectins are chemical binders which maintain the dormant state and the yeast activity releases or dissolves them (or some such).
Lectins play havoc in the human digestive tract because they block various living microbial processes (just as they were doing to maintain dormancy in their seeds). Which is why many modern foods are causing serious problems. Including bread – which I studied for a while since I incarnated as a baker. Modern bread is not properly fermented so the grains do not unbind, lectins are still present and digestive distress results (this might explain celiac disease btw meaning its not glutin per se but glutin in improperly fermented foodstuffs which are indigestible).
You can make bread by slicing up apples in water and waiting until you see a few bubbles in a few days. Then use those yeasts to grow a sourdough culture. Some people have used bacteria and yeasts cultures from their armpits and private parts (yucch!) to make cheese but that’s a slightly different group of micro-organisms.
Fermentation is a very powerful, natural process which deserves far more study, especially by farmers. I believe there are a couple of good books out on it. Also, the Weston Price people a century or so ago recommended it highly. The best cookbook from that mandala is called Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. It’s exceptionally well written and one can learn a lot about traditional techniques, including fermentation and how it featured so prominently in traditional cuisines. (With that and Escoffier: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery 1903 one has all one could possibly ever need!)

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 18 2023 3:48 utc | 275

I just looked. Most articles nowadays recommend buying commercial starter cultures for bokashi. This one tells you how do gather the cultures wild from your garden or fields.
https://newspaperbokashi.wordpress.com/tag/diy-bokashi-starter-recipe/
By the masses it is mainly used for composting but it has other uses (chicken coops, cleaner fluids, fertilizers).

Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 18 2023 4:09 utc | 277

Posted by: Exile | Jul 17 2023 18:54 utc | 259
Man, I could provide some *really* personally identifiable info here, so let me tread carefully. I was in an indirect way involved in a program called “Watt Watchers” as part of a community outreach program for poorer folk where I used to live and do some part time teaching at the local Uni. So I still have watt meters sitting around and could probably plug one in on all my major appliances that operate at 120V which is most, however the pool pump is hard wired so it’d be a bit of a challenge. That said, I agree that my kWH usage is probably pretty high, but I go by my utility bills these days and it’s actually LOWER than when we lived in a 3br townhome of approx. 1200SF. Go figure. Bills are not unmanageable but knock on wood. Wouldn’t want to lose my job.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 18 2023 4:20 utc | 279

Posted by: pretzelattack | Jul 17 2023 17:37 utc | 245
Yeah I thought the use of “Houston City” was a little odd too, but I chalked it up to Exile most likely being a non-American. Never once in my life have I heard it called “Houston City” LOL. Go Oilers!!!

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 18 2023 4:25 utc | 281

Posted by: juliania | Jul 17 2023 23:41 utc | 263
You’ve always been very nice. I have no problem exchanging the documents I’ve written and received regarding the Christ Character/Myth should you be so inclined. My email is tomqcollins@gmail.com.
Feel free to reach out so I can reply. I promise I’m not a spook (although I’m sure there are plenty crawling around here).

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 18 2023 4:32 utc | 283

British Government Funds Campaign to Rewrite Climate Science Entries on Wikipedia

Posted by: james | Jul 18 2023 4:59 utc | 285

The problem – and the root of all problems – is ignorance laced with greed, aggression, envy, arrogance etc.. which are all just different flavors of ignorance.
Posted by: Scorpion | Jul 18 2023 2:58 utc | 273
I’ll second that. I was hoping to get a response to my winemaking’s relationship to the Limits to Growth.

Posted by: Henry Moon Pie | Jul 18 2023 13:56 utc | 287

@ Lulita | Jul 18 2023 19:46 utc | 289
That’s a very high teaching, and by a great master, a great teacher of the Dzogchen view. I often dip into the book, and sometimes just touch its cover, as a great source of comfort.
Dzogchen itself is the highest teaching of Buddhism. I confess I was shocked at first to see you offer this teaching here. But I read your post a few times. And you’re right, I think, that this text can be offered to anyone to consider.
We are always taught not to offer high views indiscriminately, to those who may not be helped by them, from the precautionary principle of “first, do no harm.” And this is not hierarchical it’s simply the fear of further bewildering someone. One seeks only the kindest action.
But Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche made an amazing contribution here, presenting in its purest form what every meditator strives for from the first days. It was a reminder to all practitioners, who can so easily become entangled along the way, and offered from his great kindness.
They told us all on day one that at the end of the path we would find ourselves right here, where we started. And even as far from the end as one is, one can see at even a short distance from the beginning that this is true.
~~
Perhaps I could recommend also to anyone interested in mindfulness simply to start with basic instruction and create a daily practice.
And over time, and time after time, with experience of meditation, bring a meditative mind to recognize the supreme value in Rinpoche’s advice, which can continue to unfold and bloom for everyone in every successive day, as one practices. A meditative mind is the most precious attribute one can have.
We offer what we love, and intend it for the best. Thank you for your generous offer of this supreme call to presence.

Posted by: Grieved | Jul 18 2023 22:10 utc | 289

This
I concurr.

Posted by: Lalita | Jul 19 2023 15:12 utc | 291

@ Lalita | Jul 18 2023 19:54 utc | 290
thanks for the book recommendation..
@ john | Jul 19 2023 10:53 utc | 295
i share your viewpoint!

Posted by: james | Jul 19 2023 16:19 utc | 293

@ john | Jul 19 2023 16:29 utc | 299 with the Bobby McFerrin link..thanks
Bobby knows but not so sure about the rest at a deeper level……grin
May the sound be with you

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 19 2023 16:56 utc | 295

Remember Trotter’s “Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War“? And here we are, a hundred years later, and the herd thunders past towards war again, trampling any individual that tries to reason with it.
And I wonder: todays’ internet czars and social media censors – hi Elon -are they herding the crowd or or are they just part of the herd, dragged along like anyone else?

Posted by: Passerby | Jul 19 2023 22:04 utc | 297