Elisabeth Robson·Oct 24The Panopticon Has Come for My CountyIn May, my county published a resolution adopting a policy for the use of generative artificial intelligence. The document presents AI as a…
Elisabeth Robson·Oct 17The Opportunity We Won’t Take: Collapse, Complexity, and the Small CommunityIn a recent essay, Steve Bull examines a recurring pattern in the history of complex societies: as the costs of maintaining complexity rise…A response icon3A response icon3
Elisabeth Robson·Aug 16Nanuk’s Last CountryIn “The Emptiness We Call Abundance,” I wrote about chapter 3 of Farley Mowat’s Sea of Slaughter — the story of the Eskimo curlew, a bird…
Elisabeth Robson·Jul 31The emptiness we call abundanceOn shifting baseline syndrome, Farley Mowat’s Sea of Slaughter, and the extinction of memory.A response icon3A response icon3
Elisabeth Robson·Jul 26What Remains of Thacker PassI used to be able to lie down on a rocky outcrop at Thacker Pass, and listen. Not to anything in particular — that was the point. Wind…
Elisabeth Robson·Jul 25Remaking the World in an Age of OvershootWhat happens when a civilization that has already transformed the living world on an unprecedented scale responds to the consequences of…A response icon6A response icon6
Elisabeth Robson·Jul 5Beyond Climate Change Alarmism: The Crisis Both Sides Are MissingA recent spiked article argues that “eco-hysteria” around climate change poses a greater threat to humanity than climate change itself…A response icon25A response icon25
Elisabeth Robson·Jul 3The Invisible Systems Holding Industrial Civilization TogetherI learned something extraordinary today.A response icon23A response icon23
Elisabeth Robson·Jun 15Missing the pointMy inbox is filled daily with articles and emails from people complaining about AI’s energy use, or AI’s water use, or AI data center noise…A response icon4A response icon4
