Author: Crelis
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Good infinity
Cycles of growth and decline in ecology were famously revealed in so-called predator-prey relationships. As foxes eat chickens, chicken reproduction drops, which leaves fewer chickens for foxes to eat. Consequently, the fox population drops, which then allows the chicken population to rebuild. As its food source becomes available again, the fox population also rebuilds and the cycle starts again. Read more…
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Regional currency system
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How banks work
There’s a lot of confusion about how banks work and where money comes from. Very few members of the public really understand it. Economics graduates have a slightly better idea, but many university economics courses still teach a model of banking that hasn’t applied to the real world for decades. The worrying thing is that many policy makers and economist still work on this outdated model. In this video course we’ll discover how banks really work, and how money is created.
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Decoupling: a key fantasy of the SDG agenda
At the core of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the idea that economic growth (defined as money flow or market value) can be ‘decoupled’ from the physical growth of the economy (resource consumption) and the associated environmental pressures (degradation, pollution). Paradoxically, however, the concept’s main promoters admit that there is virtually no evidence that decoupling works, that the conceptual basis for it is weak, and that even if it were possible it is not politically feasible. Decoupling is, thus, a dangerous fantasy sustained by disavowal – the simultaneous admission and denial – of its impossibility in practice. Read more…
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Rural roads and inequality
In 1991, Cuba’s economy began to implode. “The Special Period in the Time of Peace” was the government’s euphemism for what was a culmination of 30 years worth of isolation. It began in the 60s, with engineers leaving Cuba for America. Ernesto Oroza, a designer and artist, studied the innovations created during this period. He found that the general population had created homespun, Frankenstein-like machines for their survival, made from everyday objects. Oroza began to collect these machines, and would later contextualize it as “art” in a movement he dubbed “Technological Disobedience.”