Category Archives: Critical Thinking

Some of the posts are examples of critical thinking, rather than being about critical thinking

Fantasyland 5. Why Americans are so prone to believing in conspiracies

Preface. This is the fifth of nine posts about this very important book on how and why a large percent of Americans have has been irrational for 500 years. Links to the 9 parts of this book review:  1 2 … Continue reading

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Fantasyland 4. American churches go from crazy to insane and unhinged: 1800 to present

Preface. This is the fifth of nine posts about Fantasyland. This is a very important book on how and why a large percent of Americans have has been irrational for 500 years. Evangelism threatens to create a non-democratic, authoritarian government, … Continue reading

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Fantasyland 3. History of increasing craziness of U.S. religion from 1517 to 1800

Preface. In another post about critical thinking, “What percent of Americans are rational?”, I list the results of 10 polls about what Americans believe. Here are the questions about Christianity.  When there’s more than one figure, they’re from different polls: … Continue reading

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Fantasyland Part 2. How America Went Haywire. A 500-Year History.

Preface. This is the second of nine parts about the book “”Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.  A 500-Year History”, mostly the introduction. Links to the 9 parts of this book review:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … Continue reading

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Fantasyland Part 1. How America Went Haywire. A 500-Year History.

Preface. This a review of the “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.  A 500-Year History”. If you want to understand what’s wrong with America, and be highly entertained at the same time, this is the book for you, one of my … Continue reading

Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Critical Thinking, Critical Thinking and Scientific Literacy, Human Nature, Religion, Social Disorder | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Korowicz: A study of global system collapse

Preface. I’ve extracted about half of Korowicz’s paper, left out the references, math, charts, and tables, so you might want to read the original document yourself. This is a great explanation – one of the best – of the intertwined … Continue reading

Posted in 2) Collapse, Cascading Failure, Critical Thinking, David Korowicz, Interdependencies, Liebig's Law, Social Disorder, Supply Chains | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Richard Heinberg: Systemic change driven by moral awakening is our only hope

[ Although this was written over a year ago on August 14, 2017 by Richard Heinberg on Ecowatch, it’s as true today as it was then, and worth republishing since people forget what they’ve read in the past Alice Friedemann   … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Critical Thinking, Overpopulation, Overshoot, Population, Richard Heinberg | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Why facts don’t change our mind

Preface. Below are excerpts from this article.  Longish descriptions of various studies at Stanford and elsewhere lead to conclusions such as that once formed, impressions are remarkably perserverant, and even after the evidence for their beliefs has been totally refuted, … Continue reading

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Rob Mielcarski: You know you are in trouble when…

[ This is from the outstanding blog by Rob Mielcarski (un-denial.com) which you can see here.  I cant think of anything he’s left out… Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, … Continue reading

Posted in Conserve Energy, Critical Thinking, Population, What to do | Tagged , | 11 Comments

No, we’re not going to make ethanol out of CO2 and stop global warming

Preface.  In the article below Robert Rapier debunks the research paper proposing to convert CO2 into ethanol.  The researchers were honest and said “that the process is unlikely to be economically viable.” But the press spun it into a major … Continue reading

Posted in Biofuels, Biomass EROI, Critical Thinking, Far Out, Other Experts | Tagged , , | 2 Comments