My style icon is anyone who makes a bloody effort
Authenticity is about where it comes from; validity is about whether it works.
Science, at its core, is simply a method of practical logic that tests hypotheses against experience. Scientism, by contrast, is the worldview and value system that insists that the questions the scientific method can answer are the most important questions human beings can ask, and that the picture of the world yielded by science is a better approximation to reality than any other.
It's still popular to. . . insist that globalization is a rising tide that lifts all boats, but the hard reality is that the last thirty years have seen America's once proud and prosperous working class thrown to the wolves, so corporations could keep boosting their quarterly profits and the middle class could maintain a filmy illusion of wealth through access to cheap consumer goods.
. . . the future is under no obligation to wait patiently while we get ready for it.
EROEI [energy returned on energy invested, or net energy] is to a civilization what gross profit is to a business, the source of the surplus that supports the entire enterprise.
I've long suspected that one of the reasons why human beings haven't yet figured out how to carry on a conversation with bottlenosed porpoises, African gray parrots, et al. in their own language is quite simply that we're terrified of what they might say to us - not least because it's entirely possible that they'd be right.
Work harder, work longer, and earn less because the mafia needs your money.
I maintain that the existing corn laws are bad, because they have given a monopoly of food to the landed interest over every other class and over every other interest in the kingdom.
In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done. " And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.
Every journey has a secret destination of which the traveller is unaware.