Stories tagged with "Jay Hanson"

America 2.0 By Jay Hanson

Posted by Nate Hagens on October 25, 2009 - 10:30am in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: jay hanson [list all tags]

Below the fold is the latest essay from Jay Hanson, which goes, how should I put it ... a bit beyond modern media discussions on the newest details of the economic stimulus program, whether the stock market is overvalued or whether carbon sequestration is a good idea. I don't concur with all of his prescriptions, and the mention of state control of anything makes me viscerally squirm, but Jay has usually been ahead of the curve in grasping the bigger picture - and compared to general business as usual thinking, way ahead. As a Campfire post I'd hope people discuss/debate his ideas, which center around removing personhood for corporations, making lobbying illegal, and having scientists and engineers inform policy, all enabling less waste of energy and other natural resources per unit time, for a longer time.

Though it may not be apparent to most, we are in the social crisis of our era. It is becoming increasingly clear we won't be able to service our large and growing debts in relation to the existing infrastructure and geopolitical landscape. How this and the myriad social, environmental and energy related issues get prioritized will require incredibly tough decisions, ones that will only get tougher the longer we delay.

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Transitioning to A Society of Sloth?

Posted by Nate Hagens on May 9, 2009 - 1:32pm in The Oil Drum: Campfire
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: campfire, consumption, emergy, jay hanson, original [list all tags]

Yesterday I posted an academic introduction to the issues surrounding an energy/sustainability transition. Since Saturday pm is The Oil Drum "Campfire" 'tough questions' slot, I thought I'd follow if with something less politically correct. (Campfire guidelines here)

10 years ago**, Jay Hanson, of www.dieoff.org notoriety, wrote an essay titled "The Society of Sloth". In it he likens our satisficing of wants (as opposed to needs), to a giant Rube Goldberg resource consumption machine. His prescription is that in order to avert future suffering, we replace our present social sin of avarice with one of 'sloth'. The essay is below the fold, as well as part of a related recent email thread, (and the usual Campfire questions).




(**I should point that in 1999 I was an oblivious playboy financial manager who had never heard of Limits to Growth or Peak Oil and had quite different notions about what sexual selection meant. IOW, Jay has been ahead of curve thinking on these issues)

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Jay Hanson and Warsocialism.com

Posted by Nate Hagens on November 2, 2008 - 12:18pm
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: dieoff.org, human nature, jay hanson, net energy, original, politics, reality report, warsocialism.com [list all tags]

Monday at 12 EST Jay Hanson, of dieoff.org 'fame', will be Jason Bradford's guest on Global Public Media's "The Reality Report". It can be heard live at www.kzyx.org. (The last few times we advertised a guest, the station had bandwidth issues but we will post a link on TOD to the archived version in a week or so for those who want to hear it.)

Dieoff.org, despite it's unwelcoming moniker, was (is?) one of the biggest clearinghouses on the internet for referenced work on general resource depletion and likely human responses to it and probably the first to attempt to 'connect the many dots'. As many of you know, I got my own exposure to some of the issues related to overpopulation, our biological underpinnings and peak oil from perusing dieoff.org, which Jay Hanson constructed during many years of solitary reading and research. I highlighted Jay Hansons 'farewell address' to his listserv as one of my first posts on this site.

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