We have arrived today in a totally bizarre epoch. Contemporary society is oriented towards means (things that are desirable because they achieve something else), while increasingly estranged from ends (things that are desirable in-themselves (an sich)). We pursue means to achieve further means in an infinite chain with no consummating end. To do so constitutes […]
Tag: power
The Power Outage That’s Breaking a Nation
On 25 September, at dusk, Antananarivo went dark. Mothers lit candles to cook dinner; children did their homework by phone light. By midnight, thousands were in the streets, demanding power — the kind that runs lights and governs nations. Years of neglected infrastructure, mounting debt, and mismanaged fuel supplies had finally caught up with the […]
Solving Japan’s Energy Crisis
The Fukushima disaster was a traumatic experience for Japan: in March 2011, an earthquake and the subsequent tsunami it triggered led to the meltdown of a vital power plant that left the country in a toxic state. The country’s forty-eight nuclear reactors, once symbols of Japan’s advancement, were shut down immediately. Now, three years later, […]