by Angela Garcia Calvo in New Political Economy…In the second half of the 1990s, the commercial internet emerged as a remarkable connectivity tool that promised ever tighter integration of economies and societies. The desirability of internet use meant that it diffused globally with astonishing speed. In the US, technological leadership, enormous sums of venture capital, a large, single market, and a neoliberal, laissez-faire political economic environment, unleashed an ongoing process of entrepreneurship that resulted in the emergence of what became the global platform leaders.
Combining AI and Crispr will be transformational
by Jennifer Doudna in Wired.com…The genome-editing technology can be supercharged by artificial intelligence—and the results are already being felt.
Dancing with a permanent emergency
by Jonathan Rowson in The Joyous Struggle…In the real world, there is scope to change the opponent (whether that is fossil fuel companies, politicians, or ourselves), the goal(we can do so much better than GDP), and the rules of the game (climate litigation) and some of those transformative possibilities are where my work is now focussed.
FBI warns Americans to start using encrypted messaging apps
by Matt Novak in Gizmodo.com…It’s all about protecting against China, but there’s the added benefit of protecting against Trump.
Three-quarters of the Earth has gotten permanently drier
by Jeffrey Kluger in Time…By century’s end, up to 20% of all Earth’s land could experience abrupt ecosystem transformation, such as forests becoming grasslands, with attendant extinction and collapse of ecosystems. Farming could suffer too.
Using emergence to take social innovations to scale
by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze on Margaretwheatley.com…Emergence is the fundamental scientific explanation for how local changes can materialize as global systems of influence. As a change theory, it offers methods and practices to accomplish the systems-wide changes that are so needed at this time. As leaders and communities of concerned people, we need to intentionally work with emergence so that our efforts will result in a truly hopeful future.
Big tech’s class war politics
by John Ganz in Unpopularfront.news…I think we are in a crisis of hegemony moment: neoliberalism is dying, but its replacement is yet to be born. And, as in pre and post-hegemonic times, the field of politics is fragmented and incoherent, there’s no hegemonic class or portion of a class that’s able to lead, so everything reverts to “the economic-corporate phase,” when different social interests seek their own short-term benefits rather than coalescing behind a vision of social development.
A ‘doom loop’ of climate change and geopolitical instability is beginning
by Laurie Laybourn in The Conversation…It is a common refrain to say that geopolitics gets in the way of climate action. From the war in Ukraine to trade tensions, each year seems to bring another immediate priority that diverts focus from the imperative to act on climate change.
Collaboration and empathy as evolutionary success stories
by Daniel Christian Wahl in Medium.com…Spreading the story of why we care about life and the health of the whole and sharing the narrative of interbeing is culturally creative meta-design. By sharing the new and ancient story of interbeing we facilitate the emergence of diverse regenerative cultures scale-linked by empathy and cooperation.
Does talking about climate ‘tipping points’ inspire action — or defeat?
by Kate Yoder in Grist…Kopp said that the emphasis on climate tipping points might have made sense as a call to action 20 years ago, when the consequences of climate change weren’t so obvious. But in 2024, the hottest year ever recorded, its effects are apparent, with floods, fires, and heat waves noticeably worse than they used to be.
More in this tag
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...
Jul
10
2025
Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage
by United Nations press release…Food, water, energy crises, human tragedies in 2023-2025 detailed in sweeping analysis by U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center...
Jul
09
2025
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian…Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdown
Jul
08
2025
Thinking long-term about infrastructure
by School of International Futures…75 years is a long enough period of time for the world to change in ways that are unanticipated. For this reason, scenarios...
Jul
07
2025
They asked an A.I. chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling.
by Kashmir Hill in The New York Times…Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some...
Jul
03
2025
On r/collapse, people are ‘kept abreast of the latest doom’. Its moderators say it’s not for everyone
by Sam Wolfson in The Guardian…‘This is the idea of catabolic collapse: that what we’re living through is a series of crises … It’s not going to be a sudden...
Jul
02
2025
The business of betting on catastrophe
by Susan Erikson in MIT Press…World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn...
Jul
01
2025
Can we see our future in China’s cameras?
by Megan K. Stack in The New York Times…It’s not that our government is using the surveillance infrastructure in the same manner as China. It’s that, as far as...
Jun
16
2025
Global wheat yields would be ‘10%’ higher without climate change
by Orla Dwyer in Carbon Brief…Climate science has “done a remarkable job of anticipating global impacts on the main grains and we should continue to rely on this...
Jun
12
2025
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...