“Adam Smith, it was true, treated material wealth as a separate field of study; to have done so with a great sense of realism made him the founder of a new science, economics. For all that, wealth was to him merely an aspect of the life of the community, to the purposes of which it remained subordinate; it was an appurtenance of the nations struggling for survival in history and could not be dissociated from them. […] There is no intimation in his work that the economic interests of the capitalists laid down the law to society; no intimation that they were the secular spokesmen of the divine providence which governed the economic world as a separate entity. The economic sphere, with him, is not yet subject to laws of its own that provide us with a standard of good and evil.”

–Karl Polanyi in “The Great Transformation”

In other words, Smith did not see economics and markets as something separate from human affairs and human purposes; unlike modern economists he did not equate economic “law” with natural laws and likely would’ve thought it absurd to hold a demand curve equivalent with the law of gravity.

One must understand, then, that the supposed commensurate status of economic precepts and suppositions with naturally-occurring laws is an ideology, and an effective one at that.

Scientists Say Ocean Circulation Is Slowing. Here’s Why You Should Care.

Climate change is going to be a lot of “small” disasters happening all at once that add up to something much larger. It’s dispiriting that even many on the left are so clueless about their utter and complete reliance on the biotic and non-biotic processes. The effects will also be multiplicative, not additive as most people imagine.

I single out the left as that is my side, and most of them are almost as ignorant on all of this as the most ardent climate change deniers. The vast majority have no idea at all about and scoff at the mention of how dependent they are on ecosystem services, and believe we can geo-engineer or tech our way into some better state.

I don’t think this is true at all — at least without precipitating other major disasters as bad if not worse than climate change.

Most people think all these Central/East European neofascist “populists” sprang out of nowhere, or concocted by Putin sorcery. In fact throughout Cold War, Nazi collaborators were funded & nurtured by US/UK intelligence in order to subvert Soviet rule. https://t.co/oK2xyQcwlx

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) October 20, 2018

Putin is such an evil genius that he traveled back in time to force the US/UK and their intelligence operatives to subvert Soviet rule by supporting neo-Nazi and neo-fascist movements way back in the 1960s-1980s.

Has any super-villain ever been any more super-villainous? It’s almost unbelievable the lengths Putin will go to for his cause — inventing time machines, forcing Trump to make decisions massively harmful to Russia to throw off the scent that Trump is secretly (somehow) still a Russian stooge, and all with a budget that the NSA and CIA would call “couch findings.” It’s amazing.

Of course, maybe it’s all paranoia and Democracts avoiding the real issues?

Nah, couldn’t be.

The Haunting of Hill House is really great.

I know many people won’t watch it because they think it’s horror, but it’s no more horror than The Leftovers is. In many ways — to its great benefit — it resembles The Leftovers as it’s all about the stories we tell each other, why they matter, and how we exist in other people’s minds and memories and understandings. We are, to paraphrase and expand on something Nell said in the story, confetti that’s spread out across the universe, a confetti of discontinuous moments and cognizances and ideas that equal our totality — a totality that is not just held within us but is contained in other people and in our actions radiating into the world.

The show is also about our interiority and our perceptions as they relate to others — how one moment and one experience can be one thing to one one person and something completely different to someone else and that it’s probably worth more of our effort to consider that, to attempt to understand that — that this comprehension might be the key to some deeper reality.

The show is also about something I’ve been thinking about a great deal lately, and that Shirley Jackson (the author of the novel on which the series is based) was also considering in the novel: that the irrational is absolutely critical to exist in this universe as sane beings. Jackson’s “absolute realism” or as the show changes it “absolute reality” is inimical to our continued existence; depressives and the suicidal experience that absolute reality, and react to it rationally. The show, then, expands on this and essentially says that the darkness is inevitable, yes, but we still can string lights in that darkness and even if oblivion is our fate, there is value yet in those lights, those moments — they don’t diminish in worth because they are evanescent, but rather are worth all the more for their transience.

And, finally, Hill House is all about how the past sometimes — oftentimes — is just as actual and as real as the present or the future. That even when you think it’s not, the past is right there with us, standing just behind us, holding our hand in the dark and whispering in our ears. It never goes away and those moments of the past (to paraphrase Nell again) fall all around us all the time like snow.

The ending is gutting and elegant and really just perfect. No spoilers here; just watch. It is very much worth your time to hear all of their stories and why they matter. Then you’ll know more of your story, too.

Sears, the Amazon of its day, files for bankruptcy. It was grievously wounded by Walmart, but e-commerce struck the killing blow.

No, wrong. It was wounded by Wal-Mart, no doubt. However, it was killed by finance and financial engineering. E-commerce was ancillary and a convenient scapegoat, just as it was with Toys ‘R’ Us.

Imagine, instead, a different future. Sears could’ve been Amazon. They had the distribution network. They had the warehouses. They had 1,500 stores — thus the space for sales and showrooms. They had the experience. Those chose not to do this and instead engage in real estate schemes and financial shenanigans.

Why does the press never report the real story in these cases? You know why. Not in their financial best interest to do so. The real story of Sears is should-be criminal financial schemes doomed them, just as was the case with many other retailers.