Marketers and Corporatists Still Don’t Get It: An article in the NYT previews companies that try to analyze web data to assess consumer demand for their products and their brand reputation. If you really want evidence that marketing will soon be dead once and for all, read what these losers are trying to do. They still don’t understand that in the new world, every customer is a market of one, communicating peer to peer with other markets of one. The use of secondary research to look for patterns and meaningful buzz in these millions of individual context-rich conversations is the modern-day equivalent of alchemy. But it’s no surprise that the corporatists, who know no better, lap it up. Children of Men: A Movie About Environmental Apocalypse: “Beset by racial intolerance, continental pandemics, rising international terrorism and environmental chaos, writer-director Alfonso Cuaron’s fictitious world has managed to render itself infertile. Loosely based on the book by British mystery writer P.D. James, Cuaron says he uses global infertility as a metaphor for the fading sense of hope that he — and countless others — seem to be feeling these days.” An ironic way to depict a world that will be plagued by too many people, but it sounds interesting. Watch for it. Thanks to Jon Husband for the link. Exploring the Nature of Conversation: The Co-Intelligence Institute presents a variety of points of view on the nature of dialogue and conversation, and how to make it more effective. A great overview. Thanks to Siona van Dijk for the link. The Future’s So Bright They’ve Gotta Wear Shades: A website allowing people to predict the future and then bet on it with others (the proceeds going to charity) is so replete with technophilia and devoid of predictions of environmental and social catastrophe, I’ve gotta wonder what planet these people are living on, ’cause it sure isn’t the one I know. Thanks to John Maloney for the link. Climate Change Roadmap for New England and Eastern Canada: An interesting partial implement of George Monbiot’s (Heat) prescription, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for this area by 75% by mid-century (Monbiot says we need to reduce them by 90% by 2030). But definitely dreaming in technicolour, since it would require massive foresight and collaboration from a majority of politicians and citizens. Thanks to Craig De Ruisseau for the link. German City Tries to Live Without Cars: Well, with fewer cars, anyway. Thanks to Cindy Hoong for the link. Ontario Power Generation (formerly Ontario Hydro) is Canada’s Worst Polluter: No surprise that most of the country’s worst polluters are energy utilities, with the top few alone accounting for over 15% of the country’s greenhouse gases. Understand the Present Before You Try to Change It: An interesting article in Core77 suggests that one of the keys to innovation is better detective work on why things have evolved to be the way they are now. Thanks to Innovation Weekly for the link. Iraq Slides from Civil War to Genocide: Time magazine suggests the corollary to the civil war will be attempts by each faction to exterminate the rest. Thanks to Dale Asberry for the link. Thought for the Week: Something I said I three years ago: If you were to ask me if, at age 52, I would be willing to give up the rest of my life for the chance to experience five years as a songbird (an average lifespan for such birds — though crows and geese live 15-20 years and parrots 80 or more), to give up the security and intelligence and property I have accumulated and live free of the demands of human life, to live in Now Time, spending an hour or four each day finding food, and the rest of the day simply living, just being alive as part of this wonderful, magical world, to be completely free of any demands orrestrictions, to be able to fly, I would say: In a heartbeat.
I still feel the same way. |
Navigation
Collapsniks
Albert Bates (US)
Andrew Nikiforuk (CA)
Brutus (US)
Carolyn Baker (US)*
Catherine Ingram (US)
Chris Hedges (US)
Dahr Jamail (US)
Dean Spillane-Walker (US)*
Derrick Jensen (US)
Dougald & Paul (IE/SE)*
Erik Michaels (US)
Gail Tverberg (US)
Guy McPherson (US)
Honest Sorcerer
Janaia & Robin (US)*
Jem Bendell (UK)
Mari Werner
Michael Dowd (US)*
Nate Hagens (US)
Paul Heft (US)*
Post Carbon Inst. (US)
Resilience (US)
Richard Heinberg (US)
Robert Jensen (US)
Roy Scranton (US)
Sam Mitchell (US)
Tim Morgan (UK)
Tim Watkins (UK)
Umair Haque (UK)
William Rees (CA)
XrayMike (AU)
Radical Non-Duality
Tony Parsons
Jim Newman
Tim Cliss
Andreas Müller
Kenneth Madden
Emerson Lim
Nancy Neithercut
Rosemarijn Roes
Frank McCaughey
Clare Cherikoff
Ere Parek, Izzy Cloke, Zabi AmaniEssential Reading
Archive by Category
My Bio, Contact Info, Signature Posts
About the Author (2023)
My Circles
E-mail me
--- My Best 200 Posts, 2003-22 by category, from newest to oldest ---
Collapse Watch:
Hope — On the Balance of Probabilities
The Caste War for the Dregs
Recuperation, Accommodation, Resilience
How Do We Teach the Critical Skills
Collapse Not Apocalypse
Effective Activism
'Making Sense of the World' Reading List
Notes From the Rising Dark
What is Exponential Decay
Collapse: Slowly Then Suddenly
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Making Sense of Who We Are
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Post Collapse with Michael Dowd (video)
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Requiem for a Species
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
If We Had a Better Story...
Giving Up on Environmentalism
The Hard Part is Finding People Who Care
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
A Short History of Progress
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture / Ourselves:
A CoVid-19 Recap
What It Means to be Human
A Culture Built on Wrong Models
Understanding Conservatives
Our Unique Capacity for Hatred
Not Meant to Govern Each Other
The Humanist Trap
Credulous
Amazing What People Get Used To
My Reluctant Misanthropy
The Dawn of Everything
Species Shame
Why Misinformation Doesn't Work
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis
The Right to Die
CoVid-19: Go for Zero
Pollard's Laws
On Caste
The Process of Self-Organization
The Tragic Spread of Misinformation
A Better Way to Work
The Needs of the Moment
Ask Yourself This
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
May I Ask a Question?
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
Learning From Nature
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
Making Sense of Scents
An Age of Wonder
The Truth About Ukraine
Navigating Complexity
The Supply Chain Problem
The Promise of Dialogue
Too Dumb to Take Care of Ourselves
Extinction Capitalism
Homeless
Republicans Slide Into Fascism
All the Things I Was Wrong About
Several Short Sentences About Sharks
How Change Happens
What's the Best Possible Outcome?
The Perpetual Growth Machine
We Make Zero
How Long We've Been Around (graphic)
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
Loren Eiseley, in Verse
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self, and Free Will:
No Free Will, No Freedom
The Other Side of 'No Me'
This Body Takes Me For a Walk
The Only One Who Really Knew Me
No Free Will — Fightin' Words
The Paradox of the Self
A Radical Non-Duality FAQ
What We Think We Know
Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark
Healing From Ourselves
The Entanglement Hypothesis
Nothing Needs to Happen
Nothing to Say About This
What I Wanted to Believe
A Continuous Reassemblage of Meaning
No Choice But to Misbehave
What's Apparently Happening
A Different Kind of Animal
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
How Our Bodies Sense the World
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
Mindful Wanderings (Reflections) (Archive)
A Prayer to No One
Frogs' Hollow (Short Story)
We Do What We Do (Poem)
Negative Assertions (Poem)
Reminder (Short Story)
A Canadian Sorry (Satire)
Under No Illusions (Short Story)
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Improv (Poem)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Enough (Lament)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites