Decline of the Empire

Chris Arnade Takes The Plunge

Do you want to provoke a "deer in the headlights" look from a contemporary human? Here's a sure-fire strategy for getting one.

Simply bring up the question of human morality, perhaps by citing some version of The Golden Rule. Be sure to point out that contemporary humans typically don't have any moral sense whatsoever. If you want to see a deer in the headlights, that should do the trick.

This Poor Guy Didn't Know Humans Are Fucking Idiots Until He Found Out About Upworthy

From The Atlantic—

Today, Upworthy is a million-hit machine for heartfelt, progressive content, and it is trying to use this alchemy—spinning hearty fiber into viral gold—on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. On Tuesday, the company announced it is launching a global health and poverty section backed with Gates money, suggesting a future for not only the site's editorial strategy but also for its business.

Happy Fucking Idiots

Callum Roberts On Hopelessness

Today I ran across this interview with marine conservationist Callum Roberts of the University of York (UK). Roberts has written two books, The Unnatural History of the Sea (2007) and Ocean of Life (2012), which was the subject of the interview. A few years back I quoted Roberts in Learning From The Aquacalypse (June 14, 2011), which was one of my early efforts to tell people the truth about things.

U.S. Surpasses 8 Million Barrels Per Day

I happened to look at the latest This Week In Petroleum (EIA). Here is what I saw.

4-week averages above. The latest is 7.958 million barrels per day. Production in the week ending November 22, 2013 was 8.019 million barrels per day.

Back in 2005-2006, when I first started writing about the world's oil supply, it didn't seem like there was any way in Hell this could happen. I was pretty worried back then.

It's Not Completely Crazy

OK, this is it, the best "geo-engineering" solution I've heard yet for fixing the climate.

It's not even geo-engineering, it's lunar-engineering.