My Life in Song
I wasn’t born a doomer, nor a social critic. The path was long and imperial, albeit dotted with few indulgences, as least by “civilized” standards.
Adventures at the Mud Hut: An Overdue Update
Prophet of Doom is a tough sell, as it always has been. Nobody appreciates a prophet in his own time, I suppose. On the other hand, there’s no need for a prophet in these times: the newspapers are filled with far more economic doom than I can keep up with, much less write about. So this post will focus on my personal approach to an economy rigged to fail.
Capitulation draws near
Over at Endless Emendation, I’ve been debating whether the industrial economy is near its end. Even without seriously raising the issue of the horrors of the industrial economy for the world’s cultures and species, and even for our own species, I’ve met a bit of resistance.
It’s not unlike the resistance I’ve met here. Or, during the last several years, everywhere else in the empire. I’ll avoid the issue of the horrors, just for simplicity. But I’m going to foray into the last of fast collapse. Readers, brace for impact.
Reset
Seems a life in the ivory tower is damned poor preparation for post-carbon living. But I’ve largely survived the blister phase, and calluses are forming on my soft, pink hands as I return to a life of labor at the mud hut. My fingers try to wrap around a shovel handle, even when there’s no shovel in sight.
The rewards are not evident yet, but I can feel them coming closer with each new dawn. Fortunately, I’m no longer addicted to academic success, as I once was, because I know there are greater rewards than meaningless paper in the bank and meaningless plaques on the wall.
The prototypical disaster
The Financial Times gives us comprehensive coverage of the “disaster” in Davos even as unrest breaks out throughout the industrialized world (e.g., France and England, but not yet in the U.S., likely because we still have food at the grocery store, water coming out the taps, and American Idol on the television). As we descend further into the abyss of the industrial economy’s unwinding, we can expect widespread rioting to spread further, finding its way to the U.S. within the year. Considering this backdrop, it’s informative to glimpse into history at similar events. Since we’ve before never witnessed the end of industrialized civilization, I’m turning to a fictional account.
Business Party II slithers by Business Party I
Now that Barack Obama has been hanging out in the Oval Office for a whopping two weeks, he’s starting to show his true colors. Turns out those colors aren’t bright blue. They’re purple, with a red tinge. Obama has bought into the Calvin Coolidge notion that, “The business of America is business.”
The detritus of empire
The Economist finally showed up for the party, admitting late last week “the worst economic performance in 26 years could still be described as better than expected.” Yep, the vaunted hyper-conservative journal of record for the hyper-conservative financial sector finally conceded the economy’s in the tank and, calling it a recession, “this one is getting worse.”