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2019: Are you Ready for a New World War? A Statistical Analysis

December 31, 2018

2019: Are you Ready for a New World War? A Statistical Analysis Detail from Picasso’s “Guernica” – 1937 With the end of 2018, also the centennial of the end of the Great War (or WWI) is past. It passed remarkably in silence: a few celebrations, but little or no discussion of the reasons and the […]

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When Jerusalem was in Tuscany. The Last Gasps of a Dying Empire

December 23, 2018

When Jerusalem was in Tuscany. The Last Gasps of a Dying Empire Did you know that in Italy there is a place called “Jerusalem in Tuscany?” In the monastery of “San Vivaldo,” you can find a 16th-century sanctuary structured in such a way to make pilgrims go through an experience similar to that they would […]

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Not Even a Blip: The Great Flop of Climategate #3

December 21, 2018

Not Even a Blip: The Great Flop of Climategate #3 The results of a “Google Trends” examination of the number of searchers for the term “Climategate.” The large peak in 2009 was generated by the wave of interest created by the release of the first batch of e-mails exchanged among climate scientists. A few weeks […]

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Peak Diesel or no Peak Diesel? The Debate is Ongoing

December 17, 2018

Peak Diesel or no Peak Diesel? The Debate is Ongoing In a recent post, Antonio Turiel proposed that the global peak of diesel fuel production was reached three years ago, in 2018. Turiel’s idea is especially interesting since it takes into account the fact that what we call “oil” is actually a wide variety of […]

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Why is it so Easy to Lie to Us? The Case of Russia and Climategate

December 13, 2018

Why is it so Easy to Lie to Us? The Case of Russia and Climategate Our media feed us routinely with lies and the story of the involvement of the Russian Secret Service with the Climategate hack is just one of them. I thought it was worth discussing it here in light of the fact […]

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When Fake News Kill: The 6 Most Stubborn (and Dangerous) Legends in History

December 3, 2018

When Fake News Kill: The 6 Most Stubborn (and Dangerous) Legends in History Gary Larson’s interpretation of the legend that Queen Marie Antoinette of France proposed that the people of Paris could eat cake when she was told that they had no bread. It highlights the absurdity of a legend which is, nevertheless, still widely […]

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The Seneca Effect in Six Easy Steps

November 30, 2018

The Seneca Effect in Six Easy Steps Image by Roman Pfeffer

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For Whom is Peak Oil Coming? If you own a Diesel Car, it is Coming for you!

November 26, 2018

For Whom is Peak Oil Coming? If you own a Diesel Car, it is Coming for you! At the beginning, the idea of “peak oil” seemed to be relatively uncomplicated: we would climb from one side and then go down the other side. But no, the story turned out to be devilishly complex. For one […]

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How to See the World with Different Eyes: Read “Oil, Power and War” by Matthieu Auzanneau

November 23, 2018

How to See the World with Different Eyes: Read “Oil, Power and War” by Matthieu Auzanneau Folks, this book, Oil, Power, and War, is truly unbelievable: Matthieu Auzanneau did an enormous amount of work in digging out and reporting the whole story of the first half of the oil age, from its beginning all the […]

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Peak Oil, 20 Years Later: Failed Prediction or Useful Insight?

November 19, 2018

Peak Oil, 20 Years Later: Failed Prediction or Useful Insight? 20 years ago, Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere published an article on “Scientific American” that was to start the second cycle of interest on oil depletion (the first had been started by Hubbert in the 1950s). Their prediction turned out to be too pessimistic, at […]

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Should we Prepare for a New World War? Answers from the Patterns of Past

November 11, 2018

Should we Prepare for a New World War? Answers from the Patterns of Past I know that I have crammed together too many ideas here: Tolstoy, St. Francis, critical phenomena, thermodynamics, and more, – it is contrary to the rules of blog posts. But the centennial of the end of the Great War gave me […]

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Will we Ever be Able to End Wars? How the Wise are Confused

November 9, 2018

Will we Ever be Able to End Wars? How the Wise are Confused One hundred years after the end of the war that was to end all wars, the First World War, we still don’t understand what wars are, why we fight wars, why we can’t stop fighting them. We are surrounded, it seems, by […]

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Epistemology of a Dying Empire: How do Our Leaders Make Choices?

November 6, 2018

Epistemology of a Dying Empire: How do Our Leaders Make Choices? Recently, Michael Liebreich published an article titled “The Secret of Eternal Growth.” I have been mulling over in my head if it is appropriate to spend time discussing one more mishmash of legends, including the one that’s by now a classic, the “errors” that […]

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The Seneca Rebound: why Growth is Faster after Collapse. Explaining the European World Dominance

October 29, 2018

The Seneca Rebound: why Growth is Faster after Collapse. Explaining the European World Dominance Lisbon: the monument to the European sailors of the age of explorations, starting with the 15th century. What made Europeans so successful in this in this task? My interpretation is that it was the result of periodic “Seneca Collapses” of the […]

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Why is Overpopulation Ignored by the Media? The Reasons of a Historical Failure

October 26, 2018

Why is Overpopulation Ignored by the Media? The Reasons of a Historical Failure Some people think there exists a conspiracy that prevents the media from ever mentioning the charged word, “overpopulation.” Conspiracies do exist but, in this case, my impression is that population is such a charged issue simply because it has to do with […]

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