Category Societal Collapse
COVID-19 | A VERY BRITISH TYRANNY
The principal reason I write about anything at all is to help shape my understanding of topics of interest to me. If in so doing your own understanding of the topic in question is also shaped in some way – possibly not in the same direction as mine – then that’s a good thing. The […]
CORONAVIRUS | WEIGHING THE RISKS
This is an interim post in the mini-series of three that I’m publishing on coronavirus contingency planning. I felt compelled to publish this in-between post after an exchange on Facebook between a doctor-friend and me. In this post I’m questioning whether exhorting one’s family, friends and acquaintances to ‘stay safe’ is in fact inimical to […]
CORONAVIRUS CONTINGENCY PLANNING | WORST-CASE SCENARIO
This is another mini-series of three posts looking at contingency planning for the Covid-19 pandemic should the health, socio-economic and geopolitical situations deteriorate. This first post describes what could be a Covid-19 worst-case scenario. The second post will look at the positive side of the pandemic and how our quality of life could conceivably be […]
CORONAVIRUS | WHERE’S THIS HEADING (PART 3)?
A Long Read This post is the final one in a series of what’s turned out to be four parts (1, 2A, 2B and 3) contemplating the economic, political and social implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. The perspective I’m sharing here is held by people whom I refer to as ‘alt-economists’; I suppose I’m one […]
CORONAVIRUS | WHERE’S THIS HEADING (PART 2B)?
This is Part 2B of what will now be a four-part series of posts; things are changing rapidly. We’re interested in the extraordinary impact of governments’ reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of us consider that, as grim as Covid-19 could be (and for now that remains arguable without meaningful data and in the context […]
CORONAVIRUS | WORST CASE PLANNING
This is an in-between post, breaking up the series of three posts I’ve been writing on the economic implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. Incidentally the two main reasons I write are (a) to shape my understanding of subjects and (b) because I enjoy the pleasure of prose. That’s it really. If I can share these […]
CORONAVIRUS | WHERE’S THIS HEADING (PART 2A)?
This post is Part 2A of what will now be a three-part series. The thrust of my argument from here on is that for nations to strive to return to globalised business-as-usual post-Covid-19 would be a mistake; indeed, it may not even be possible. Some of us argue that life won’t and, indeed, shouldn’t be […]
CORONAVIRUS | WHERE'S THIS HEADING? (PART 1)
Last night at 2030 hrs GMT the Prime Minister, The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP, made a statement to the British people. He told us that freedom of movement in the UK was terminated. We’re now confined to quarters, enforceable by law. You can go to work (but only if you absolutely cannot work from […]
LONDON BRIDGE: OH COME ON, NOT ANOTHER ONE, PLEASE
Warning: this post contains black/military humour I know we live in an era when to offend is to all but commit a crime, but I’m going to risk offending a few folk anyway (stuff it, I’m too old to care). If the ongoing incident on London Bridge turns out to be a terrorist incident then I […]
POWERING CIVILISATION (PART ONE)
‘Energy is vital to civilisation. In fact, all of human history can be viewed through the lens of energy’ Dr Michio Kaku, ‘Physics of the Impossible’ ‘Ultimately, the economy is, and always has been, a surplus energy equation. As such, it is governed by the laws of the thermodynamics, and not by the man-made ‘laws’ […]
Moraymint Chatter 