Image source. The Long Now Foundation, a society devoted to human flourishing on a millennial timescale, has started a project named the “Manual for Civilization.” The idea behind the Manual is not unlike that of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a seed bank built deep beneath the ice of a remote Norwegian island that […]
As Lexington Green says, if you are not reading John Robb‘s new website, then you should be.Mr. Robb has a unique biography. Titles like USAFA cadet, SERE school grad, Yalie, astronautical engineer, counter-terrorism operator, military theorist, tech analyst, software executive, and best selling author have been given to Mr. Robb at one point or another. […]
Scott Reinhard, Expert Button (February 2010). Print at Scott Reinhard Co. Image source. Last month Tom Nichols, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a well regarded authority on Russian foreign policy and American nuclear strategy, published a thought-provoking essay on his blog titled “The Death of Expertise:” […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. This is the first “Notes From All Over” I have written this month, so this list is a long one. TOP BILLING When We Lose Antibiotics, Here’s Everything Else We’ll Lose TooMaryn McKenna. Wired. 20 November 2013. If we really lost antibiotics to advancing drug resistance […]
It is unusual for me to read a book aimed at popular conservative audiences. I am something of a disaffected conservative. Crony capitalism and government overreach have proved to be bipartisan endeavors, and I have long lost faith that the Republican party can ever be more than an organ of America’s governing elite. [1] Outside […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit – abridged addition this time around. DEMOGRAPHICS The Wheel of History Turns to The Gods Razib Khan. Gene Expression. 10 October 2010. An extremely important survey of global demographic trends over the next forty years.The post focuses on the difference between the birth rates of […]
Today I ran across Louis Menard’s review of Philip Tetlock’s book Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Do We Now? The bulk of Dr. Tetlock’s book concerns a 18 year experiment designed to test the forecasting skills of pundits and analysts. Having gathered some 284 experts in international politics, he asked them to […]
The following is my contribution to the Afghanistan 2050 Roundtable hosted by the proprietors of ChicagoBoyz. The opening post of the roundtable – which explains its purpose and methods – can be found here. My piece is cross-posted at ChicagoBoyz with the rest of the submissions. The great challenge with interpreting the future is that […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING: Haiti, Disaster Sociology, Elite Panic, and LootingGary Peterson. Resilience Science. 2010 January 30. This is one of the more compelling defenses of decentralization to be found under 2,000 words. Looking at disaster situations, Mr. Peterson does not find the disorder and chaos of […]
Earlier this month Antoly Karlin (of Sublime Oblivion) wrote an interesting post outlining several possible trajectories India may take in the near future. A fair amount of the post is devoted to comparing India with Asia’s other billion-person behemoth, China. The two giants are likely to remain engaged in intense strategic competition for the next […]
