Category Archives: How the World Really Works

The Right to Do Nothing

Posted on November 23, 2021 by Dave Pollard

one of many recent anti-mandate protests in Europe and the Caribbean, this one in Croatia; AP photo via Al Jazeera The arguments against getting vaccinated are now coalescing around the issue of “mandates”. These arguments no longer insist that the … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 4 Comments

The Impossible Dream

Posted on November 19, 2021 by Dave Pollard

cover art by Eric Drooker This week’s (Nov. 15) New Yorker is pretty depressing reading, but as I read it I realized that all of the analyses in the issue are focused on complex, intractable problems, and, refreshingly, none of … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 3 Comments

Links of the Month: November, 2021

Posted on November 14, 2021 by Dave Pollard

cartoon by the ever-brilliant Sandra Boynton I have been pretty grouchy sometimes in the last few months (like, whenever I read anything about COP26, or the racist murder trials in the US). I know there is no justification for it, … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 2 Comments

IHME Reverses Course on Excess Deaths, and Crashes

Posted on November 10, 2021 by Dave Pollard

This is the 22nd in a series of articles on CoVid-19. I am not a medical expert, but have worked with epidemiologists and have some expertise in research, data analysis and statistics. cumulative excess deaths Mar 2020-May 2021 (red numbers) … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

Ten Questions I’m Thinking About Now

Posted on October 31, 2021 by Dave Pollard

me with my latest creation These days I try not to think about the future — it only creates anxiety and there’s no way to predict it, or really even prepare for it. And I’ve long given up trying to … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 5 Comments

CoVid-19: The Long Road Ahead

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Dave Pollard

As we head into another winter season of the pandemic, there are a number of scenarios that might play out from here. We are still enormously ignorant about many important facts about the virus and the pandemic, but some things … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 5 Comments

History is Just Another Story

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Dave Pollard

image by Neil Howard on flickr CC-BY-NC2.0 As its etymology suggests, history and story are really the same thing — “a narrative of what was seen and known”. A narrative is a form of sense-making, “connecting” the threads of what … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 2 Comments

What the “Supply Chain Problem” is Really About

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Dave Pollard

One of the promises of unregulated extreme capitalism is that problems of supply and demand will always “work themselves out” in an unregulated market, and hence that any market regulation will necessarily make things worse. The idea is that where … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Preparing for Civilization's End | 6 Comments

Links for the Month: October 2021

Posted on October 15, 2021 by Dave Pollard

cartoon by the amazing Will McPhail (his new book’s now out) It’s very strange regularly being triggered into a state of anxiety, while “knowing” intuitively and intellectually that there is nothing to be anxious about. It’s very strange dealing regularly with … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves, Preparing for Civilization's End | 5 Comments

Bad News

Posted on October 14, 2021 by Dave Pollard

cartoon by Bill Bramhall in the NY Daily News I confess: I am easily seduced into fear over the vast amount of, and seeming power of, misinformation and disinformation in our modern world. As the US and other parts of … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works, Our Culture / Ourselves | 2 Comments