As industrial civilization unravels, the illusion of abundance is taking a hit. With destabilized agriculture, climate, and ecosystems, all sorts of supply chains will experience growing unpredictability at levels we have yet to imagine. Then we must choose what we consume far more carefully than we do now. The idea that the global industrial consumer … More Quality vs. Quantity in a World Out of Balance
If you knew all the details you might say that we had the road trip from hell over the holidays. Many things happened that were not part of the plan. Never mind the dampening effect of the near-constant rain once we entered California. Never mind the “collateral damage” due to the drunken rage of a … More Hilton Hell and Marriott Madness: Money Trumps Life
Searching for Certainty in a Complex World People often get caught up in the ideas that have come to define their identity, especially when they have little else to guide them. That is when they begin to lose their balance. We live in a complex world, much more complex and ever changing than before the … More Going the Wrong Way on a Two-Way Street
The tension between the economy and the people has never been quite as intense as it is now. I hear all sorts of explanations, and speculations as to why many people are not returning to low-wage jobs where they must confront the public—especially in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Even hiring bonuses don’t seem to … More Did the Rat Race take a Hit from the Virus?
The COVID-19 pandemic is not so much about the characteristics of a virus as it is about the organization of modern societies. The modern infrastructure of hyper-mobility allowed the virus to move rapidly all over the world. Without that infrastructure, the pandemic could not have happened. The Black Plague in the Middle Ages, when mobility … More Rethinking Modern Infrastructure: The Vulnerability of Complex Systems
Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder. It is very hard to make sense out of the behavior of so many fellow humans. Some say we live in a post-truth world. What does that mean? Others claim that “alternative facts” ought to have superior standing despite contradicting the actual facts for which the evidence is … More Masking Truth and Distancing Lies: Living in a Vacant Moral Universe
As new cases have surged over the past few weeks, some hospitals are already overrun with unvaccinated victims of the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Many find it hard to believe, since we thought we were so close to putting it all behind us. But this extremely transmissible and … More Denial Does Not Dodge Delta Danger
The tension seems to grow by the day. Anyone who steps into the limelight of media exposure is subject to death threats. Anyone who happens to be in a store or workplace when an “active shooter” begins to fire his semi-automatic combat weapon may die without the slightest sense of why. A teenager at a … More The American Way of Violence: Community or Chaos in Politics and Policing
Ideas can get away from us, even take control of our lives. Sometimes, a great idea can become destructive when taken to its most extreme form. Life is full of ambiguities and imperfections. If we take our great ideas out of this context, they can become dysfunctional, stupid, and even dangerous. So it is with … More Freedom, Responsibility, and the Absurdity of Autocracy
Last Saturday we decided to take a hike in the beautiful Frijoles Canyon of the Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos National Laboratory “up the hill” from Santa Fe. I had not experienced the pandemic claustrophobia that has caused so much anxiety; I guess I was just too busy. Anyway, it was a lovely cool … More Mask over Civility: The Indifference of Americans to Public Health
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 