Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement

Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement

by Dr. Michael Lawrence at The Cascade Institute….. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or more fast-moving trigger events combines with slow-moving stresses to push a global system out of its established equilibrium and into a volatile and harmful state of disequilibrium. We then identify three causal pathways—common stresses, domino effects, and inter-systemic feedbacks—that can connect multiple global systems to produce synchronized crises.

Q&A with Jason Pruet

by Kyle Dickman in Los Alamos National Laboratory…For a variety of reasons, government support for big science has been eroding since then. Now, AI is starting to feel like the next great foundation for scientific progress. Big companies are spending billions on large machines, but the buy-in costs of working at the frontiers of AI are so high that no university has the exascale-class machines needed to run the latest AI models. We’re at a place now where we, meaning the government, can revitalize that pact by investing in the infrastructure to study AI for the public good.

The impunity of the unscathed: Risk, elite security, and the rage of MAGA populism

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately offloaded onto them, while the beneficiaries of the modern system — the “elites” — remain largely untouched. Consider the climate change debate: for many in the MAGA base, the imposition of green policies is perceived as a direct attack on their livelihoods, a demand by scientific and intellectual elites that they make personal sacrifices for a problem they feel they did not create (and which may not even exist, according to many of them) and which are not a burden for those advocating for the changes.

Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change

by Shady Grove Oliver in AfroLAnews.org…Through her writing, Butler models the concept of having a found family – people one chooses to surround themself with for security and companionship. She demonstrates how small acts of kindness and acceptance can have a ripple effect.

Critical responses to global systemic risk in an era of polycrisis

by Ruth Richardson in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science…As grand challenges intensify and intersect across the globe, policymakers and decision makers at all levels continue to face mounting pressures. Increasing fiscal and financial constraints, cognitive overload, and a persistent lock-in to crisis response modes prevent—or, indeed, derail—the development of long-term policies and actions needed to move toward a safer, more just, and sustainable future.

Big tech and the US digital-military-industrial complex

by Andrea Coveri, et al, in Intereconomics…The link between Big Tech and the military apparatus brings back traditions of economic thought too often forgotten or intentionally removed, such as the twentieth century theories of imperialism and monopoly capital (Hobson, 1902; Baran & Sweezy, 1966). The debate on the military-industrial complex, a concept associated with President Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1961, also regains relevance. However, it seems to have been transformed into a digital-military-industrial complex where the key actor, Big Tech, share the peculiarity of being, at the same time, big market players, controllers of technologies essential to citizens’ lives and indispensable partners of the military apparatus. This makes the integration of state and private capital even closer and more complex than in the past.

The planetary politics of everyday life

The planetary politics of everyday life

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…In conclusion, the analysis provided by La Fabrique Écologique powerfully argues that the ecological transition in France, and likely elsewhere, is stalled not because the science is unclear or the public unwilling, but because the dominant strategies have ignored the fundamental prerequisites of social justice and economic security.

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Jul 06 2023

Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement

by Dr. Michael Lawrence at The Cascade Institute….. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or more fast-moving trigger events combines with...
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Q&A with Jason Pruet

by Kyle Dickman in Los Alamos National Laboratory…For a variety of reasons, government support for big science has been eroding since then. Now, AI is starting to...
Jun 11 2025

The impunity of the unscathed: Risk, elite security, and the rage of MAGA populism

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately...
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Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change

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Critical responses to global systemic risk in an era of polycrisis

by Ruth Richardson in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science…As grand challenges intensify and intersect across the globe, policymakers and decision...
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Big tech and the US digital-military-industrial complex

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‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday

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Chartbook 380 Trump’s futurism: Elon’s rockets and fewer dolls for “baby girl” – Part I.

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From polycrisis to metacrisis: a short introduction

by Rufus Pollock and Rosie Bell in Life Itself.org…Our new white paper on the polycrisis and metacrisis: what they are, how they are distinct, how they are...
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The planetary politics of everyday life

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…In conclusion, the analysis provided by La Fabrique Écologique powerfully argues that the ecological transition in France, and...