As the human world succumbs to the grip of autocracy, we are never short of examples from the natural world where nature itself successfully revolted against power. Today I bring you another story of a failed coup: the failed domestication of the hyacinth. The dominant logic of plant breeding has always been to maximize the most monetizable quality … Continue reading Genomic Autocracies: How Hyacinths Resisted Human Domestication
My first job out of graduate school was also my first and only job offer. I jumped at the opportunity of becoming a manager at a fungal microbiology laboratory, specializing on indoor mold: people would bring me samples from their blackened shower wall, their carpet, or their basement, and I would analyze them. I would … Continue reading Biology Lessons In Degrowth: The Three Stages of Civilisation
Systems never change. First, they fail the people, and then they are demolished by the people. America is becoming witness to its own painful, but beautiful demolition. People are refusing to buy. They are seeing through exploitative employers. They are waking up to a rotten system than never “had their back”. And they are resisting … Continue reading The Myth of System Change. And The Heroes That Actually Make It Happen
Societies were formed not to evolve, but to obey, and what we tend to affectionately call “social evolution” was merely the aftermath of succumbing, and then adapting to, ever changing forms of oppression. Much like farm animals on growth hormones, humans can easily live the entirety of their existence sustained by the distractions of a … Continue reading End-Stage Necrocapitalism: Fumbling Towards The Exit
I normally don’t expect a nature hike in the clean suburban air of my beach town to turn into a back-to-the future, post-apocalyptic excursion into the remnants of an extinct society. But hey ho, after we had climbed up the hill, enjoyed spectacular views and traversed a forest that was literally dying for a drink of October … Continue reading They Came. They Danced. They Went Extinct
Humans were not corrupted by capitalism. They created it because they were corrupt in the first place. Capitalism has been accused of creating today’s selfishness, individualism and narcissism, but these vices pre-existed. Capitalism merely came along to monetize them. Greed was there from the start. Capitalism was the app that codified, amplified, digitized and weaponized it. It … Continue reading A 400-Word History of Capitalism
How The Freest Slaves In The World Got Duped The best moment to rob someone of their freedom is when they have taken it all for granted; or better yet, when they have forgotten what freedom was in the first place. This is precisely what has happened to Americans over the past century: consumerism replaced … Continue reading Oh Say, Can You See, We Have Never Been Free
The world is being turned into a dystopia of extreme inequality by those determined to blackmail 8 billion humans into destitution. The collusion between power and wealth has new precision tools, an upgraded game plan, and a new vision for an oppressive society none of us will be able to opt out of. So far, … Continue reading Don’t Eat The Rich! Abolish Them For Good
Humans would like to believe that they represent the forefront of evolution, but there are other forms of life on Earth, both natural and artificial, that supersede them. The most terrifying life form on the planet right now is our economic system: a logistical network originally developed by humans to serve humans, but which now … Continue reading Is This Where The Human Evolution Journey Ends?
All power corrupts, brain power being no exception. As it enlarged over millions of years, the human brain eventually became big enough to constitute a formidable weapon of mass destruction. Humans became an existential threat to the planet, now that nothing could stand in their way. The tremendous competitive advantages of our large brain led … Continue reading A Brief History Of The Human Brain: How We Got It All Wrong
George Tsakraklides 