Editor's Note: The past week or two has been particularly challenging for me. I want to point in part at the election raging around us---those of us in America, anyway---as a source of those challenges, but it goes deeper than that. I think of late I've been struggling with my own perceptions of myself, my … Continue reading Patience in an Emergency
Author: Joel Caris
Former publisher and editor of Into the Ruins, a quarterly magazine of deindustrial science fiction, Joel Caris is an author and essayist who cuts across genres, engaging elements of science fiction, magical realism, horror, weird fiction, and literary fiction. Recurrent themes in his work include ecology, environmentalism, farming and gardening, appropriate technology, mythology, polytheism, the occult, and more. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Kate, and can be found at joelcaris.com.
Closed System Economics: An Introduction
Back when I worked on different farms, I spent a good deal of time observing my working environments and considering the degree to which each farm I worked for was a closed or open system. I did this out of a curiosity to better understand what it would take to run any single farm as … Continue reading Closed System Economics: An Introduction
Insidious Consequences
The sort of bad habits of thought I wrote of in last week's post, "Less is Better," do not just manifest themselves in dysfunction at the individual level. Unfortunately, they also manifest in dysfunction at the collective level, and it's these sort of dysfunctional, collective habits of thought that are one of the driving forces … Continue reading Insidious Consequences
Less is Better
It has become a matter of some faith in our society that more is better. A good majority of us tend to want more money, more stuff, more energy, more information, and so on down what can turn into a very long list. If some is good, after all, more is better. It's a common … Continue reading Less is Better
A Life in Debt
Last week's post didn't end up exactly where I intended it to, veering closer to polemic than I first envisioned. I'm okay with that; part of figuring out a response to your predicament includes identifying the problems, and part of motivating others to stay on an alternate path is reiterating the devastating consequences of the … Continue reading A Life in Debt
Figuration Press 