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There is a difference between a student and a customer. Yet universities, driven by profit motives, and doubting their own values, often treat students as customers. This comes with "the customer is always right" fallacy, that actually precludes and prevents...

Instead of trying to force drugs down people's throats, why don't we address smoking, diet, and lobby against air pollution. Especially if you're a drug company. #Demarketing What these tricksters can do is put all their money into upstream prevention, not try to get...

https://www.eur.nl/en/events/eur-university-press-it-needed-2023-10-25

Every time I encounter people afraid of scientists being 'alarmist' I see fear masquerading as 1001 justification for negligence, false moral superiority, and license to check out and deflect responsibility. If you are an archer and trying to hit the bullseye, and you...

Searching for oracles to take the responsibility of judgment off our shoulders is as old as humankind itself. Whether it is the ergot-infused Oracle at Delphi, reading the tea leaves, the stars and their astrologics, the Tarot, ayahuasca and a tribe's totem animal...

Energy poverty is a consequence of our unjust energy transition. Last winter, when gas prices spiked 4x their 'normal' previous levels, those who had poorly insulated houses and were still using gas paid a premium. Many of these people in low quality housing stock,...

Coping in the Polycrisis: Homer-Dixon and Hendlin March 15, 2023 – Systems & security expert Thomas Homer-Dixon: situation update and battered hope. From Rotterdam, Dr. Yogi Hendlin, exploring the brains of fossil fuel lovers, as the house is on fire. Homer-Dixon...

(This is a contribution to the Great Transitions Initiative's discussion - this month, on Eileen Crist's essay on animals.) What we have done to animals is a crime with a motive that has nothing to do with animals. It has to do with what we have done to each...

A new review article out in the journal of Biosemiotics "And the Flesh in Between: Towards a Health Semiotics," by Devon Schiller takes Jonathan Hope and my edited volume as an opportunity to review the history of medical semiotics and health semiotics. Our book, Food...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s12KMTj1RE Image all these resources were actually used to make the world a better place. This company would be out of business. To apocalypse, no Oppidum. Self-fulfilling prophecy to the max. “They are places of serenity and absolute...

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We have a handful of transnational corporation more powerful than almost every single government in the world. Amazon, Google, Facebook (I refuse to call them by their wannabe name), not to mention Vanguard and Blackrock, the ginormous hedge funds that control most of...

At Erasmus University Rotterdam, there appears to be a gap in the official rule about smoking on campus. This environmental pollution from littered butts is an indicator of both the environmental and health costs of smoking. Right behind the building where I work, I...

If you've been keeping up with my work, I'm into upstream solutions. Here's an example from The Ocean Cleanup which is a very necessary, but very downstream solution. While I applaud such actions, why do these get so much airplay (and funding)? While getting rid of...