The Distortion Field of Fame
The Age of the Educated Idiot
When the Global Sheriff Goes Home
The Return of Gravity
The Civilization of Useful Lies
The Desolation of the Real
The Discipline of Being Free
Empire of Sunk Costs
The Market Isn’t Broken. It’s Hollow.
Strength Without Metabolism
The Futility of Reform
The More China Stages Strength, the More Fragile It Looks
The narrative machine is working overtime now. Not merely in the subtle way all modern states shape perception. No, this…
Gas Has Grown Up—But It Hasn’t Taken the Throne
Has gas gained ground over the last twenty years relative to oil? Yes. Unequivocally. Has the case for gas become…
Why Japan Can’t Pretend Like Germany
Japan cannot do what Germany does. That is not a political statement. It is geography. And geography, unlike policy, does…
Fusion: Always Tomorrow, Never Today
Oh yes. Nuclear fusion. The perennial miracle just over the horizon. When I was a boy, we spoke of it…
When Megaprojects Start Bending the Earth—and the Mind
The Three Gorges Dam is a monster. Not in the poetic sense. In the literal one. Scale that borders on…
The Landscapes We Sacrifice in the Name of Saving Them
I find it a curious inversion of moral theater that those most loudly proclaiming themselves guardians of the planet so…
The Glittering Mirage After Oil
OPEC has become a very strange club. Not merely because its members differ culturally, politically, and strategically—but because many of…
