apocalypse
gregladen | April 20, 2017This is alarming and sobering. I was already alarmed and sober, but in case you were not, take heed.
milhayser | November 21, 2016The new film Arrival, based on a story by Ted Chiang, is unlike most any science fiction blockbuster at the box office these days. It's a tense, thoughtful, somber meditation on the human condition and the nature of a higher reality. In many ways, it is a religious film that deals with eschatology (the end times or judgment day).
Unlike Chad Orzel, I haven't read the source material, so I experienced the film with fresh eyes. I was immediately reminded of Philip K. Dick and his real-life experience of being 'touched by an angel.' Dick, both a life-long Christian and prolific author of…
tsmith | October 28, 2013(Spoilers. And things.)
After the start of season 4 of the Walking Dead and the introduction of a new nemesis: a fast-spreading, deadly infectious disease that seems to be a strain of influenza, I was looking forward to the plot arc of this season.
And then episode 3, "Isolation", happened. From an infectious disease standpoint, I say, bah.
At the end of the previous episode, "Infected", the group had decided to lock up anyone who was showing signs of the infectious disease within the death row cellblock, so that they would not further spread the disease, and to put the children and elderly (…
gregladen | August 11, 2013I do not have an unquestioned respect for Edwared Snowden or those other guys who swore an oath of secrecy in service of their government and then stole piles of secrets and gave them away. I'm also not especially impressed with the uncritical crush so many people have on them for doing what they did. We've discussed this before in relation to State Department cables. While so many others seemed to assume that all State Department cables were evil secrets that must see the light of day, I was thinking of a number of probable State Department cables that I have reason to believe might exist…
illconsidered | August 25, 2010As in the example I just highlighted, we climate mitigation advocates are frequently attacked for alledgedly not wanting to do anything to promote or help people adapt to changes that are after all already underway.
This post is meant to change that lack of balance on A Few Things Ill Considered.
To all and sundry, I bring to your attention the definitive guide to adaptation in the face of global climate disruption:
(This is a real book, by the way!)
For those who like to skip to the end, here is the back cover. And speaking of skip, thanks to him for bringing this to my attention, a good…
sastyk | August 3, 2010Now it is no secret that I think that we are facing a major shift in our society, and one that will not be entirely fun, to put it mildly. It should also be no secret that while I love to write jokingly about when zombies come, I don't actually believe we're facing an apocalypse of any kind. Indeed, as I've written many times, part of the problem with addressing our situation is that we flit wildly between assumptions of techno-utopianism and absolute apocalypticism. I think what we are facing is serious enough without turning it into a cartoon, unless, of course, there are actual zombies…
sastyk | March 4, 2010Note: This is another lightly revised version a piece I wrote some years ago at the oldest incarnation of this blog. It answers a question I get a lot - if people have been saying that the oil is going to run out for years, and if 30 years ago people thought we were going to have an ice age, why should I believe you that peak oil and climate change are real problems.
A lot of what I write works from the assumption that we all agree that peak oil and climate change are happening and going to be life-changing events. And yet, some people who read this blog don't necessarily agree on this…
