Reading Time: 5 minutes In their feverish and violent response to Donald Trump’s indictment, MAGA Republicans are acting like they believe their doomsday is imminent—and they might just be right.
Apocalypse Soon
Posted inClimate Crisis
Bad sky, gods angry
Reading Time: 4 minutes The unnatural sight of a smoke-clouded sky triggers a primeval instinct in us. We don’t have to cower from nature as our ancestors did, but we should treat it as a sign that we need to change course.
Posted inBiology
The Svalbard seed vault: A survival bunker for civilization
Reading Time: 5 minutes How could we reengineer civilization to be resilient against catastrophe? A vault of seeds slumbering in Arctic permafrost suggests one way.
Posted inReligion
Following Jesus’s rules isn’t so hard
Reading Time: 4 minutes What’s impossible about following Jesus’s rules? Sure, they’re strict, but we only have to follow them for a year or two … right?
Posted inPsychology
Against doomism
Reading Time: 4 minutes Doom-laden scenarios get the most attention, but slow, bumpy progress toward a better world has always been more likely.
Posted inGeneral
Green Energy Makes Civilization Resilient
Reading Time: 5 minutes Green energy will make civilization more resilient, and fiction and popular imagination hasn’t caught up with this change.
Posted inGeneral
Not the Apocalypse They Wanted
Reading Time: 5 minutes Gun nuts and white supremacists were eagerly anticipating a crisis, but they’re infuriated to discover that one has actually arrived that can’t be solved with bullets.
Posted inGeneral
Agog Over Gog and Magog
Reading Time: 3 minutes [Editor’s Note: If the wild incompetence and racism of the Trump administration makes you feel nostalgia for George W. Bush – a thought I’ve caught myself having a few times – then today’s post is a useful corrective. —Adam] By James A. Haught Incredibly, when President George W. Bush was stampeding the Iraq invasion in […]
Posted inGeneral
TV Review: Good Omens
Reading Time: 4 minutes A joyous and long-overdue adaptation, even if it tries a little too hard to be faithful to the book.
Posted inGeneral
The Story Behind Waco’s Tragedy
Reading Time: 4 minutes By James A. Haught Most Americans remember the historic 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian cult compound at Waco, Texas, which left eighty cultists and four federal officers dead. But did you know that the story actually began 150 years ago with a famous fiasco? Since watching weird religion is my hobby, I’ll tell you […]