protectivearts

Soylent Green

Soylent Green, based on a Harry Harrison novel [1], was released in 1973 and set in the distant future of 2022! This dystopian future is one ruined by overpopulation and ecological destruction.[2] The plot revolves around a murder investigation that leads to the discovery of a corporate report, “Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015–2019” that concludesContinue reading “Soylent Green”

Financial Warfare Redux

I was unimpressed by Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Its conclusions were juvenile, a moralist’s wish to abolish the machinery that sustains civilization. Debt is not an aberration of justice; it is its ledger. The financial edifice may be flawed, but it is constructed and destroying it is not an option. Even sovereign adversaries,Continue reading “Financial Warfare Redux”

Rewind the Clock

Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History is a 12-volume monster. I have read only the two-volume abridgement (many years past), which preserves Toynbee’s central thesis that there is a pattern to history. Civilizations rise and fall primarily in response to specific challenges; whatever those challenges are will be defining, and they must also be of the right pressure.Continue reading “Rewind the Clock”