Wandering Wonderings

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Thomas Howell

📍 Melbourne, Australia http://thomashowell.au

The "population problem"

There is no problem. As far as I can see, ecological concerns about overpopulation are both overblown and dangerous. Despite this, many environmental organisations continue to stress that there are too many of us, most prominently the Global Footprint Network, which publishes the Ecological Footprint Calculator (which has its own

Silvia Federici's "Marxism, Feminism, and the Commons"

I don't usually buy books from Amazon, but I did for Silvia Federici's Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons - tempted by the low price and cheap next-day delivery. It's ironic because Amazon represents the complete opposite of everything Federici

Conversations with Robyn Eckersley

There is a resonance dilemma in environmental activism, where NGOs are inner-city progressive suit-wearers, and have a lack of connection with the majority of citizens in the suburbs or regions. We need to find ways of bridging this difference.

Bächtiger & Dryzek: "Deliberative Democracy for Diabolical Times"

Democracy is under threat by a range of "diabolical" actors and forces... Bächtiger & Dryzek call for the construction of a deliberative culture with a range of institutions forming a cohesive deliberative system.

Mark Fisher’s "Capitalist Realism"

Today’s subject of late capitalism is the “debtor-adddict”, coerced into wage-labour to pay off debts and rents, with little more to comfort them than consumption outside the home and technology within it.

Now on Bluesky!

Here's to the open internet.

A few notes on democracy and journalism

Journalism happens, first and foremost, for democracy. The function of journalism is to hold those with power to account, and inform the public. It can also entertain, and be a venue for opinion and debate.

Wendy Brown's "Undoing the Demos"

"The perpetual treadmill of a capitalist economy that cannot cease without collapsing is now the treadmill on which every being and activity is placed, and the horizons of all other meanings and purposes shrink accordingly." - Wendy Brown

What is politics?

The academic year has started again, so I'm back to studying. Today I had the first class of a subject on contemporary political theory, and a key theme was the crisis in identity that political theory is experiencing. This is especially in respect to its supposed object, politics.

Obligation, Obedience, Legitimacy

"Unjust laws exist, shall we be content to obey them ... or shall we transgress them at once?" - H. D. Thoreau.