Is lowering people’s expectations really the way to go? Apparently the UK has a “social mobility tsar”, and she seems to think that people at the bottom of the ladder should lower their expectations. This seems rather defeatist to me. It’s true that disappointment lies in the gap between reality…

Dystopian Fiction or Dystopian Fact? Even though Stephen Fry reads every audiobook like it’s a bedtime story, even his mellifluous tones can’t conceal what an utterly depressing book George Orwell’s 1984 is. I last read it in, well, 1984. …

Of Boris and Brexit and Broken Systems If you think our present government is doing an excellent job, our politicians are above reproach, and the British political system can’t possibly be improved, then you probably won’t enjoy reading Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK…

This is not about how we can save the trees. This about how the trees might save us. John Muir said: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” Suzanne Simard is proving that this is quite literally true…

What will humanity do with its time, come the revolution? I’m curious about industrial revolutions from the perspective of workers, and I’d like your input. We are now supposedly going through the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and initially it seems to be the first one that has little use for humans…

Do we conveniently underestimate non-human animals so we can exploit them? I’ve just finished reading Carl Safina’s wonderful and eye-opening book, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. It has left me in no doubt that elephants, wolves, and orcas (aka killer whales — but rest assured, they have never killed a human) have complex emotional and social lives. …

Can human beings ever change without a shock to the system? We talk about wakeup calls — a bereavement, a diagnosis, discovering an uncomfortable truth, a breakup or crisis of some sort — but are we able to proactively change course before the flashing red danger lights and blaring alarms…

Disaster capitalism in New Orleans Two very different perspectives of Hurricane Katrina appear in the book I’ve just finished, The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, and a book I read a while ago, A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit. While Rebecca focuses on the generosity and altruism of…

Some people think suicide is an act of consummate selfishness. I disagree. Some people think suicide is an act of consummate selfishness, that the person who took their own life failed to think about the impact on their friends, family, and whoever might find their body. I’ve been thinking about…