Imperial collapse: things I’ll miss, things I won’t, and a few things I’ll enjoy

As I prepare for my post-carbon future, I’ve been thinking about the benefits of empire. My entire life — all 47 years, so far — has been marked by economic growth and rapidly increasing national prosperity. My folks were the first in their families to attend college, and I spent my childhood in a small, redneck town filled with hard-working manual laborers — it was a logging town, complete with a lumber mill and filled with white, lower middle class folks. The only real dangers were barroom fights and bad driving. I was too young to drink in public, and very lucky to avoid dying in a car crash.

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The Fed slashes, the dollar bleeds

The Fed had several options, none of them good. Here’s a surprise: They chose the one that will contribute to inflation, financially enrich the wealthy, and impoverish the poor.

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Last Chance for the Hairless Monkey?

Our last best chance to make it through the ever-tightening bottleneck is to bring down civilization. Although Peak Oil will bring down civilization within the next decade, maybe sooner, we can and should hasten the collapse along.
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Philosophy and Conservation Biology

It is not at all clear that humanity can be saved (or, for that matter, is worth saving). Evolution drives us to breed, drives to procreate, and drives us to accumulate resources. Evolution always pushes us toward the brink, and culture piles on, hurling us into the abyss. Nietzsche was correct about our lack of free will -- as Gray points out in Straw Dogs -- free will is an illusion. It's not merely the foam on the beer: it's the last bubble of foam, the one that just popped. It's no surprise, then, that we are sleepwalking into the future, or that the future is a lethal cliff.
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Welcome

Welcome to the show. My initial foray into the blogosphere lets you know where I’ll be going, and invites you along for the ride.

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