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Recent Posts
- Deep Sea Oil
- Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”
- The conveyor belt may be slowing down — Yikes!
- Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial
- New war and energy alliances over next resource wars
- Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
- Why do people vote for Trump?
- Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”
- The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism
- Why some people are conservative and others liberal
- Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America
- Book review: How Democracies Die
- Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean
- Book review of “The Power Worshippers. Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism”
- Fox news estranges millions of families and instills hate and fear in its cult members
Category Archives: Human Nature
A Strong Case for the Anthropocene: no other species has ever consumed so much of earth’s resources so quickly
Figure 1. Produced energy and the pattern of human population growth from 1750. Utilization of these energy sources, together with the energy used by humans from net primary production, is now approaching the entire energy available to the global ecosystem … Continue reading
Native American enslavement
Preface. This is a book review of “The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America” by Andrés Reséndez Slavery is an important postcarbon topic because given our past history, future wood-based civilizations will certainly return to slavery, … Continue reading
A book review of “Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America“ by David J. Silverman
Preface. This is a book review of “Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America“ by David J. Silverman 2016. I found this book hard to put down. It should be read because it tells the role guns played … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Military, guns, Slavery, Social Disorder, Violence, War Books
Tagged guns, Indians, Native Americans, slavery, violence, war
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Book Review of “Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States”
Preface. Energyskeptic.com is ultimately about the rise and fall of civilizations, although I didn’t know that when I first started writing this as an energy and resource blog. Our civilization too will fail as fossil fuels decline, and then we’re … Continue reading
Were other humans the first victims of the 6th mass extinction?
Preface. This article makes a good case that we did indeed wipe out other hominids. “…Yet the extinction of Neanderthals, at least, took a long time—thousands of years. While Neanderthals lost the war, to hold on so long they must … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature
Tagged extinction, human nature
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The carbon trap by Paul Chefurka
Preface. We are caught in the carbon trap — we utterly depend on fossils that don’t have an electric replacement. Someday people will figure this out the hard way, but Chefurka compassionately points out that there is no one to … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Interdependencies, Paul Chefurka
Tagged Carbon trap, Chefurka, fossils
13 Comments
Rare Earth: Why complex life is uncommon in the universe
Preface. So much research on why complex life is rare in the universe has come out since this book I’ve created another post: Rare Earth updates: recent research on why intelligent life is probably rare in the Universe. And intelligent … Continue reading
Book review of Hillbilly Elegy and why hillbillies voted for Trump
Source: David Horsey / Los Angeles Times Preface. I bought “Hillbilly Elegy: A memoir of a family and culture in crisis” because I’d like to understand why anyone would vote for Donald Trump. Before the election, it was well-known that … Continue reading
Posted in (Auto)biography, Human Nature, Politics
Tagged book review, hillbilly elegy, Republican, Trump
1 Comment
The dangers of relativism, of not being able to criticize anyone or anything because all of our beliefs are equal
[ I’ve been criticized for attacking right-wing Republicans, fundamentalist Christians, astrology, medicinal quackery, and so on. This is dangerous nonsense. It means I can’t criticize Hitler, because after all, he was a product of his times. I can’t tell my … Continue reading
Posted in Critical Thinking, Human Nature, Politics, Religion
Tagged critical thinking, relativism
5 Comments
Fantasyland 9. Myths and infotainment
Preface. This is the last of the Fantasyland review series. Links to the 9 parts of this book review: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the … Continue reading
Posted in Critical Thinking, Critical Thinking and Scientific Literacy, Human Nature
Tagged critical thinking, delusions, fantasyland, infotainment
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