Square Puddle
Well, OK, a not-quite-square puddle, nobody’s perfect …
Hello and welcome to Square Puddles.
The motto of this blog could be an updated version of Polonius’s advice to his son Laertes in Hamlet, except here the advice is as much for myself as for anyone else:
“Neither a doomer nor a cornucopian be,
for doom oft loses both itself and friend
and cornucopianism dulls the edge of husbandry.”
The substitution concerns of course putting ‘doomer’ and ‘cornucopian’ in place of the words ‘borrower’ and ‘lender’ in the original. That is to say, fleeing to one extreme or the other on a spectrum of options is not necessarily a good idea. On the one hand, as Calderon de la Barca put it: “No siempre lo peor es cierto. In English: “Worst outcomes aren’t always a sure bet.” (NB – All translations on this blog are my own unless otherwise indicated).
On the other hand, neither are ‘best’ outcomes a sure bet.
In other words, there is in my view little probability that the end of the world is for next Tuesday, though come it will some day. Conversely, the evidence for saying something like: “Next Tuesday, everything’s gonna be all right,” is equally scant.
The purpose of these posts is to shine some light on evidence indicating how loudly alarm bells should be ringing on key issues that humanity faces today. Despite the first quote above, I realize there is a better-than-average chance that some might suspect that these writings are the products of a ‘crypto-doomer.’ To dispel any such notions, I will say once and for all now that doomsterism has become, for me, the equivalent of an apocalyptic vision of the future, or even the present for that matter. That tends to lead to extreme views such as ‘Raptures,’ various forms of alien visitation or wild orgies to ‘get it while it’s there,’ etc, none of which are my thing. The end of the world is not nigh. Considerable upheaval is – and I won’t be pretending to see reality through rose-colored glasses.
Square Puddle with the flash left on inadvertently
In the process of examining developments on topics such as Economy & Finance, Environment & Biodiversity, Resource Depletion, Climate Change etc, the plan here is to tease enough reliable information out of the news-hash that readers may find assistance in prioritizing individual or collective options.
Back soon,
Jim
