All this talk of Trump getting revenge is puzzling, at least on the surface. What could have possibly befallen the presumed multi-billionaire that could cause him to seek political revenge? Could it be that he actually knows he lost the election and resents the fact so much that he wants to inflict revenge by destroying … More Resilience vs Resentment and Revenge
As you may have noticed from prior posts here and/or from the Hopeful Realist Newsletter, I consider myself a ‘hopeful realist.’ The reason is twofold. First, neither optimism nor pessimism make any sense to me. I guide my thinking by what I know and do not know about the world. Since both optimism and pessimism … More Realism: The Only Hope
The obvious can be very difficult for people to see. That is because people are self-correcting systems. They are self-corrective against disturbance, and if the obvious is not of a kind that they can easily assimilate without internal disturbance, their self-corrective mechanisms work to sidetrack it, to hide it, even to the extent of shutting … More Madness or Method: We Know What to Do, But Not How to Do It
I am now a member of that not-so-exclusive global social network that I always intended to avoid. I guess you could call it the ‘COVID Club.’ Clearly, we are not able to control everything that confronts us in our lives, especially the invisible threats. I had done everything ‘right,’ such as getting the vaccine and … More On Joining the Club I Kept Trying to Avoid
Humans are an odd lot. We fret over the future, we lionize the past, and we are in denial about the present. Or, it might not really be about human nature, but rather about the present spot in the devolution of the dominant culture of our time. I think it is the latter. It seems … More Looking Forward: Doom Loop or Hope Spiral
Well, here we go again. The twenty-eighth United Nations “Conference of the Parties” (COP28) began last week in Dubai, the oil-rich city in the nation of the United Arab Emirates, led, believe it or not, by Sultan al Jaber, first CEO to ever serve as COP President. Dr. al Jaber directs Adnoc, the national oil … More Twenty-Eight Conversations Late: Words Without Deeds
I hear a lot of talk these days about the “Laws of War.” I always found that a strange concept. Certain legal principles of what is acceptable killing and destruction prescribe what is and is not included in the presumptive moral basis for proper and improper behavior by troops and their leaders in the conduct … More Thanks, But No Thanks: Morality and War
My thoughts here were stimulated by a ‘Letter from the Director’ by Beth Sawin, Director of the Multisolving Institute, which I read last month. In that letter, she rightfully struggled over the ‘bad news’ that six of the nine key planetary boundaries between Earth System health and systemic danger had by then been breached. That, … More To Do or To UN-do: Is That the Question?
Well, that title sounds a bit ominous I guess. Nevertheless, we have seen various events, some quite catastrophic, which indicate that our ability to ‘hold it together’ is, well, fragile. We have also seen evidence of remarkable human resilience in confronting catastrophe, which I observed directly a couple of weeks ago. The Pandemic as Prolog … More Our Tenuous Hold on Reality
I read an article on Medium.com the other day “proclaiming that we have waited too long and the tipping point beyond which we can no longer stop the progression of climate chaos has passed. The author, “indi.ca,” is a good writer and he made a compelling case for the severity of the climate/ecological emergency that … More What if It Really IS Too Late?
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 