APRIL 2024 MAGAZINE

Eco-suicide is far easier to do and more predictable than we had once thought.  Indeed, our entire history as a species provides a cautionary tale.  The archeological record is littered with examples of ancient human societies that have vanished – many of them as victims of ecological disasters – from the very first city, Ur, to the Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians, Old Kingdom Egypt, the Hittites, Minoans, Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, Olmecs, Teotihuacan, the Anasazi, the Carthaginians, the Khmer Empire, and others. 

The Democratic and Republican parties have flipped their basic philosophies since being founded. Currently, we strongly associate each with being conservative or liberal. We often assume that conservatives are Republicans and Democrats are liberals. But it was the opposite for approximately the first 80 years of our nation’s founding. 

This month we explore education. We are swamped with information, but the problem is we have so little time to filter what is true from what is not true. We spend at least five hours a day on our phones—and that is a conservative estimate. Ten hours a day of screen time is not unusual. In any interaction we have with a white screen, especially with a phone, we are passive recipients of a digital experience. Are we becoming mindless blobs?