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Subscribe now Ruth Gordon's excellent, The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything is a wonderful account of the history and politics of technology. Gordon documents the adoption of burning coal in English homes and its eventual impact on the houses, diet, culture,
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Life in the 21st Century is a reader-supported publication. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. "Accelerated change invokes the gyroscopic or principles of rigidity. Also, to high-speed change no adjustment is possible. We become spectators only, and must escape into understanding. This may be why the conservative has an
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Subscribe now Continued from (I) In answering this question it's helpful to begin with historian Fernand Braudel's understanding of geography's essential role in shaping the history of Homo sapiens — “humanity's relation with the inanimate.” Additionally, this can be understood as the relationship
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Subscribe now Modern republicanism is failing. Initiated two centuries ago with the founding of the United States, modern republicanism resurfaced ancient ideas and institutions of democratic self-government. In word, if not always in deed, republicanism swept the globe. At the end of the 18th century, monarchies were in place across
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Subscribe now With your feet on the air and head on the ground Try this trick and spin it Your head will collapse when there's nothing in it And you'll ask yourself, where is my mind? (Pixies via M.I.A.) A dozen years ago, a
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Subscribe now This old airport’s got me down It’s no earthly good to me I’m stuck here on the ground As cold and drunk as I can be You can’t jump a jet plane Like you can a freight train So I best be on my
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Subscribe now Science is inherently political. This is not meant in anyway to degrade science, but reveals a most desperate need to reform politics by incorporating science into politics, while simultaneously developing an understanding of the politics of science. The other day some of our Tech Priests were evangelizing a
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MO’ MONEY — MO’ MONEY — MO’ MONEY A lovely Sunday Spring Morning Sisters and Brothers, I can report the last Board Meeting of Life in the 21st Century was a rollicking and not very pleasant affair. The Board cast more than few disparaging comments and I can relay they wanted to
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Subscribe now History is the medium of politics. Without knowledge of history, politics becomes untethered, suspect, of little worth. History will never be a science as it cannot be reset and repeated to prove any given theory. It's impenetrable to the scientific method, the very process that created
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Subscribe now I apologize about this, first and foremost to myself. I try very hard not to comment on the politics that be. I’m not getting anywhere near enough money to express any opinion on such matters. But sometimes I can’t help myself, especially in regards to truly
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Subscribe now No corporation better represented 20th century industrialism than ExxonMobil. Birthed from the breakup of the Standard Oil Trust, Exxon had previously been Standard Oil of New Jersey, the seat of John D. Rockefeller’s oil empire. Exxon emerged from the breakup as the world's largest oil
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Please become a paid subscriber. Continued from Artificial Intelligence (II) From information technology's brief history, it can be concluded this new generation of technology, valued exclusively by established industrial economic worth, will continue along these same worn paths at an ever accelerated pace. However, just as concerning is