biz as usual limits growth

vice’s take on the club of rome’s limits to growth modeling from the 1970’s. there are a number of interesting take aways from the article. but the punchline is, we’re doing very little to align towards a sustainable model of operation, though it’s obviously within our power. this will quite likely require a massive shift (socially) in terms of what we value and a rewiring of our motivations. i wonder if late stage capitalism can make these changes....

July 18, 2021 · steve ulrich

don't take the bet

this new yorker article requires a bit of pause. there’s a fair amount to embrace within this and a tacit call to pause your most angsty reactions to the past 4 years. “Never play a guy at his own game; nobody makes up a game in order to get beat at it.” … He didn’t say as much as he might have or as many might have wanted. But this was surely due to his conviction, and the conviction of his circle, that an atmosphere of aggravation can only work to the advantage of the permanently aggrieved....

July 12, 2021 · steve ulrich

america as a racist country

this does not speak well of us as minnesotans. To escape the circle of racism, Floyd moved to Minneapolis, Minn., where the Black poverty rate is more than four times the white poverty rate; where the Black incarceration rate is 11 times the white incarceration rate; where the Black-white income gap is second-to-last among the 100 largest cities in America. Had George Floyd done nothing but be white, he would have been living in the second-highest ranked state for opportunity, according to U....

May 31, 2021 · steve ulrich

the doomsday invention

I arrived before he did, and waited in a hallway between two conference rooms. A plaque indicated that one of them was the Arkhipov Room, honoring Vasili Arkhipov, a Soviet naval officer. During the Cuban missile crisis, Arkhipov was serving on a submarine in the Caribbean when U.S. destroyers set off depth charges nearby. His captain, unable to establish radio contact with Moscow, feared that the conflict had escalated and ordered a nuclear strike....

May 8, 2021 · steve ulrich