Tweet In Part One of this series, we ended with a question of when life begins. It can be argued that the answer affects moral and ethical principles of not just the individual but the collective organization called society. Buried in this perspective is another ill-defined term – a society. Is it private or public, […]
Integrity – Part One
Tweet When starting the World Futures Institute, I created a list of 18 areas that need to be addressed for the future of earth and humanity. If you examine the list it is clear that every area is undergoing change and evolution. Item 16 on the list is “in transformation, how do we maintain integrity?” […]
Electricity and Other Energy – Part Two
Tweet In part one of this series we identified, in broad terms, two forms of energy available to us: arriving energy and stored energy. The arriving energy comes from the sun and, if not stored, must be used right away. Of course, it must be transformed into a useful form of energy except, perhaps, for […]
Electricity and Other Energy – Part One
Tweet If we, as humanity, are concerned about our environment and the survival of the human life form as we know it, the sources of energy we use need to be controlled. Immediately the discussion becomes cloudy because of the myriad of definitions that can enter and influence the conversation. But we all know what […]
The Distribution of Stuff – Part Three
Tweet In the previous posts we looked at food as part stuff. Food is the most collectively massive element in our usual interpretation of stuff and it takes energy to transport it and control the food environment (through refrigeration or cooling) during transit. But there are two other components of stuff that are massive and […]
The Distribution of Stuff – Part Two
Tweet We finished the last post briefly looking at the movie East of Eden and the loss suffered by Adam Trask when he tried to move lettuce packed with ice in a rail car in 1917. The ice melted and the lettuce rotted. Essentially, the rail car was not insulated, allowing for the rapid melting of […]
Some Definitions or Lack Thereof – Part Four
Tweet In the previous post we asked how do we pay for capitalism and socialism. To delve into this question it is good to start, again, with what is the difference between them. Is it about the individual and his or her existence or is it about a collective body of people, a community, a […]
Some Definitions or Lack Thereof – Part Three
Tweet In the last column we finished with the question “Are we capitalists or socialists?” This question was posed after we (at least I) concluded we are all liberals and we all want progress. We use the words capital, social, liberal, conservative, progressive and others with the “ism” attached. Rewriting the words gives us capitalism, […]
Some Definitions or Lack Thereof – Part Two
Tweet In the previous post, differences between capitalism and socialism were discussed, both viewed as formal economics. The perception of both is how to operate the state or nation and the balance between economic freedom, personal choice and economic growth or social freedom and reduced business fluctuations. In 1776, Adam Smith viewed the world as […]
Some Definitions or Lack Thereof – Part One
Tweet Welcome to another year on planet Earth. It is the annual time period when we look forward to either new opportunities or suffer the pessimism of not seeing any. Where are we going as a planet (our life supporting environment) or as humanity (the order of our existence and how we work together)? For […]
