The Wayward Axolotl

I just visited the place where I did my undergraduate degree about 20 years ago: Simon Fraser University, aka “SFU”. It is located on top of a small mountain in the Greater Vancouver area. It is in Burnaby, which is part of the metropolis consisting of Vancouver and its satellite cities. SFU is a beautiful place, with great views of the city to the south and the mountains to the north. The architecture is unusual. It was built in the 1960s, in a style that I guess could be called “brutalist” or “hypermodern”. It’s blocky with a lot of exposed concrete. Some people find the architecture to be gloomy or oppressive, but I like the retro-futuristic aesthetic. The interior has some equally strange features, such as ribbed rubber flooring and odd little nooks and crannies in the concrete. It is a unique place. So, that’s the setting: a weird university on a mountain in the metropolis of Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the year of 2018. Walking around the campus, I ...

The van attack of Alek Minassian in Toronto has suddenly pushed the concept of “incels” into mainstream consciousness. Most of the jabbering class are responding in a predictable way. They are defending status quo assumptions by portraying incels as dangerous misogynists. In this narrative, incels are sexual losers who blame their failure on society, when it is their own fault. Incels are portrayed as disgusting, evil, ugly monsters who are fully responsible for their plight. Despite this predictable spin, the discussion of incels is raising awareness about the sexual problems of the modern world. A large number of men have no access to love and sex. This was not supposed to happen. Sexual liberation was supposed to create a sexual utopia. Instead, it has created a sexual dystopia in which many people are denied love and sex. The existence of a large sexual underclass poses problems for the left and the establishment. Supposedly, the left is about helping the disadvantaged, b...

I was reading an article on zerohedge, Big Mac Index suggests America in decade-long depression , about a decline in GDP when it is adjusted for the price of a McDonald’s Big Mac. The article showed a net decline in GDP from 2007 to 2017. An obvious thought occurred to me: what about per capita GDP? So, I looked up the population statistics and plugged them in. Here is the result: Year Nominal GDP Big Mac Price Adjusted GDP Per Capita GDP Trillions US $ US $ Trillions BM BM 1987 4.9 1.60 3.06 12,629 1997 8.6 2.42 3.55 13,023 2007 14.5 3.41 4.25 14,092 2017 19.4 5.06 3.83 11,759 I don’t think GDP is a very good measure of economic output, even when it has been adjusted for inflation. Unfortunately, there is no good measure of economic output, nor is there an ideal wa...

Modern civilization has given us abundance. It allows us to easily satisfy many of our desires. When we are hungry, it is easy to get food. When we feel cold, we can turn up the thermostat, or put on a sweater. When we feel hot, we can turn on the air conditioning, or get a cold drink from the refrigerator. Few of us do hard labor for a living. We don’t come home exhausted after a long day’s work in the fields. We don’t have to worry about predators. Interpersonal violence is rare. We have homes that are safe, comfortable and convenient. Most of our basic desires are satisfied. Yet, we are not happy. Abundance has made it easy to satisfy many of our desires, but we are not satisfied. If we can easily satisfy a desire, such as hunger, then it fades into the background. We still feel hunger, but it isn’t a major driver of our thoughts and actions, because it is easily satisfied. When we feel hunger, we simply eat and it is gone. We don’t experience the depths of hunger that our a...

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Recently the UK denied entry to Brittany Pettibone, Martin Sellner, and Lauren Southern, all of whom are right-wing activists/commentators. Martin and Brittany were going to give a speech at Speaker’s Corner in London, a supposed haven for free speech. Brittany was also going to interview Tommy Robinson, a UK citizen and right-wing activist. Lauren was going to meet with Tommy, Brittany and Sellner. The grounds were as follows: Martin: Member of Generation Identitaire, might disturb “local communities”. Brittany: Going to speak with known “extremist” Tommy Robinson. Lauren: Past “racism” in the UK, consisting of a social experiment in which she distributed flyers saying “Allah is gay” (an attempt to expose hypocrisy). I don’t know the exact process by which it occurred, but I can make some guesses. Probably “anti-hate” groups (left-wing, of course) informed government bureaucrats and/or politicians that Martin, Brittany, and Lauren were coming to the UK. Then, either bureaucrats ...

We live in strange times. In many ways, things have never been better. The world is mostly peaceful. Poverty has decreased in most parts of the world. Globally, most children live to adulthood, probably for the first time in human history. In developed societies, such as the US, almost everyone has adequate food and shelter. The kings of old would have boggled at the array of food in a typical grocery store. We have little gadgets that allow us to easily communicate with friends, family and strangers around the world in less than a second. We live in an era of relative peace and prosperity that, by almost any measure, is the best of times. And yet, it feels as if we are living in end times. In many ways, the future has never seemed so bleak. The engines of progress have stalled. New problems are emerging that humanity seems unable to understand and acknowledge, let alone solve. These new problems include population growth, dysgenics, finite resources, and the mismatch between huma...