Via BoingBoing, comes this great assessment of the state of the world by Bruce Sterling in Seed magazine. As you know, I love a good apocalypse, and I’ve been watching this one coming for a while.
Sterling focuses on seven reasons we should all be panicking: the climate; intellectual property; currency speculation; the insurance market; the ageing population; the increasing irrelevance of nation states; the flight from reason/science, with refuge taken in superstition and religionism.
Snip:
No flag, no currency… People no longer have to believe in these effigies. Why do they persist? The benefits of believing in nations are slim. The planetary slum-dwellers of failed states may find the rollicking life of a Somali pirate far more attractive than the hard work of state-building. The nation-state is torn from both above and below. The global guerrilla and the Davos globe-hopper are cousins.
So. If Sterling’s article doesn’t make you panic, try this slideshow on the Guardian’s site, which explains – with graphics – just how fucked the world’s economy is.
And now, having spread doom and gloom for the evening, I’m off to have a Pukka pie. Or maybe some pasta.
Things will look better in February. My school is having some kind of inspection visit review thing next week. Not an OFSTED, but some kind of county council goon squad. Everyone is madly stressed and sleepless. I’m spending the weekend faking paperwork. Don’t panic!
Filed under: Baby Boomers, Climate, Conspiracy Theories, Culture, anxiety, being chippy, climate change, omens and portents, paranoia | Leave a Comment
Tags: apocalypse, panic
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