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I’m nearly done with the huge, but interesting, story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and have really enjoyed learning about Washington Roebling, the chief engineer, who started his work on the bridge in his early 30’s and saw it through to completion 14 years later. After the bridge was finished, many people had […] Thankfully, I did not have a reading list for 2011, because there’s no doubt I would have failed to even come close to completing it. However, I did get through a few books this year, most of which were worth reading, and a few of which could be considered life-changing. They are (with minor spoilers): […] “…the promise of global capitalism, much like the promise of communism before it, ultimately demands an act of faith: that if we permit the destruction of certain things we value here and now we will achieve a greater happiness and prosperity at some unspecified future time.” What things is he talking about? Trust, transparency, community, […] “In nature health is the default. Most of the time pests and disease are just nature’s way of telling the farmer he’s doing something wrong.” – The Omnivore’s Dilemma. This makes perfect sense to me. So when (and why) did humans switch from living in cooperation with nature to attempting to dominate and control it? I had a revelation on my walk home from BART today. The world doesn’t need more technology, or inventions, or even (sadly) more engineering as much as it needs more reasonable, good-hearted, generous people. Technologically, we have the tools to pretty much create whatever life we want for ourselves. Hunger and poverty only continue to […] |