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The lure of imperial dreams: What are our leaders going to do to us?

September 10, 2020

The lure of imperial dreams: What are our leaders going to do to us? Donald Trump is often represented wearing some kind of imperial garb. Actually, his presidency may have been less imperial than that of his predecessors. Yet, his style as president is very much “imperial” and his winning slogan in the 2016 elections, […]

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How Poor Leadership can Create Collapse or Make It Faster: Lessons from European History

September 6, 2020

How Poor Leadership can Create Collapse or Make It Faster: Lessons from European History The damage that a bad leader can generate is simply fearsome, especially if that leader has a lot of power and he is nearly impossible to remove from his position. If then that leader controls a large military apparatus, even including […]

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The Triumph of Catastrophism. How Greta Thunberg Carried the Day

August 25, 2020

The Triumph of Catastrophism. How Greta Thunberg Carried the Day Disclaimer: I am NOT saying here that the Covid-19 does not exist nor that people didn’t die because of it. If you react with the term “denialism” you are only showing that you have no rational arguments to produce. Do you remember that weird girl […]

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Gaia, the Return of the Earth Goddess

August 20, 2020

Gaia, the Return of the Earth Goddess Temple worship in Ur, from Sumerian times. Note in the lower panel people are bringing all sort of goods to the temple represented as the abstract structure on the right. House founded by An, praised by Enlil, given an oracle by mother Nintud! A house, at its upper […]

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How does it feel living in a crypt? Impressions after one year

August 10, 2020

How does it feel living in a crypt? Impressions after one year In “The Outsider” (1926), H. P. Lovecraft tell the story of someone who lives underground and who discovers his true nature only when he comes out of his crypt and sees his own image in a mirror. That’s not exactly my case, but […]

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The Corona Crisis: Fighting the Authoritarian Response

The Corona Crisis: Fighting the Authoritarian Response At least 20 thousand people (some say many more) marched in Berlin on August 1st 2020 to protest against the restrictions imposed by governments against the Covid-19 epidemic. Unanimously branded as “criminals,” “neo-nazis,” and “idiots” by the Western media, their presence is nevertheless an indication of a growing […]

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What if your government has decided to kill you? An interpretation by Antonio Turiel

What if your government has decided to kill you? An interpretation by Antonio Turiel “Necroeconomics” is a concept used by some economists to describe the results of the collapse of the Soviet Economy, in the 1990s. Apart from the pure economic disaster, the collapse led to a trend of population decrease that, in some cases, […]

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The End of an Age: The Failure of Catastrophism

The End of an Age: The Failure of Catastrophism The considerations below originate from a post by Michael Krieger where he describes how he is so dismayed by the reaction of the public to the current epidemic that he is closing his blog to rethink the whole matter over. You can read of similar feelings in a […]

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On the Edge of the Cliff: We need a new way of seeing the world

On the Edge of the Cliff: We need a new way of seeing the world A new blog by Ugo Bardi, “The Proud Holobionts”Long-term predictive models don’t have a very good record, but some turned out to be prophetic. One case is that of Hubbert’s 1956 prediction of a peak in the production of fossil energy […]

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The Energy Transition: Who has the right to speak?

The Energy Transition: Who has the right to speak? Italy is not a windy country and it relies mainly on the sun for its renewable energy. Nevertheless, some spots of the Appennini mountains are swept by enough wind to make it possible to build wind plants. In the picture, you see the wind farm of Montemignaio, […]

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The ten worst predictions in history: learning from past mistakes

The ten worst predictions in history: learning from past mistakes Ugo Bardi experiments with new predictive methods. This post was inspired mainly by the shock I had with the various failed attempts to predict the outcome of the Covid-19 epidemic. It was truly a sobering experience: bad predictions, clueless politicians, arrogant scientists, idiotic journalists, and […]

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A question you always wanted to ask but you never had the time to: Is the “EROI” of energy studies the same as the R factor in epidemiology?

A question you always wanted to ask but you never had the time to: Is the “EROI” of energy studies the same as the R factor in epidemiology? There is a certain logic in the way the universe works and so it is not surprising that the same models can describe phenomena that seem to […]

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How catalytic events change the course of history: From the 9/11 attacks to the coronavirus pandemic

How catalytic events change the course of history: From the 9/11 attacks to the coronavirus pandemic The 9/11 attacks of 2001 are classic examples of “catalytic events” that change the course of history. They can be seen as triggers for “Seneca Collapses,” sudden and catastrophic, they are well described by Seneca’s words, “the way to […]

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The Great EROEI Scam: Are renewables a good idea?

The Great EROEI Scam: Are renewables a good idea? The cheetah in the figure knows very well that it cannot spend more energy in chasing the impala than the impala can provide once eaten (in other words, the cheetah needs an energy return on the investment (EROEI) >1). Carnivores make no calculations about that question, they […]

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The downfall of ‘Professor Lockdown’: triumphs and failures of science based policies

The downfall of ‘Professor Lockdown’: triumphs and failures of science based policies Scientists normally think that a scientific theory can be good or bad independently of the moral status of the person who proposes it. But in politics, the messenger can be blamed. That was the probable reason for the downfall of Dr. Neil Ferguson, […]

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