Is it just me, or is the world in general just in a bad mood? I keep hoping that we have to bottom out at some point and start climbing back up. The cycle from trough to peak seems to be 20 years or so.

Most frightening and/or depressing story: The use of small nuclear weapons is becoming more thinkable. Just a reminder that nuclear war is truly insane. Assuming we manage to avoid nuclear war, food insecurity might be our biggest near- to medium-term issue. One lesson of World War II is worries about food security played a role in the diseased minds of both Hitler and Stalin. And food prices right now are experiencing a “giant leap” unprecedented over the last couple decades. Food security, natural disasters, sea level rise, migration, and geopolitical stability all can form ugly feedback loops. And no, I couldn’t limit myself to just one depressing story this month!

Most hopeful story: While we are experiencing a disturbing homicide wave in U.S. cities, violent and overall crime are not necessarily at historical highs and are more or less flat. And yes, this was the most uplifting story I could come up with this month. Brave politicians could use the Ukraine emergency to talk about arms control, but if anybody is talking about that I am missing it.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: We might be able to use windmills to control the weather.

Here I am writing in late December, and it seems I forgot to do a November in review. In current events, the “Omicron” coronavirus tidal wave is breaking over the Northeast U.S. as we speak. But plenty of people have plenty to say about that, and I do not have much to say, and even if I did it would be outdated by the time I said it. One thing that is slightly amusing is that we just stopped naming hurricanes after Greek letters because most of the public lacks the “benefits of a classical education”. Months later, we are naming mutant viruses after Greek letters. Anyway, here goes the November review:

Most frightening and/or depressing story: Freakonomics podcast explained that there is a strong connection between cars and violence in the United States. Because cars kill and injure people on a massive scale, they led to an expansion of police power. Police and ordinary citizens started coming into contact much more often than they had. We have no national ID system so the poor and disadvantaged often have no ID when they get stopped. Everyone has guns and everyone is jumpy. Known solutions (safe street design) and near term solutions (computer-controlled vehicles?) exist, but are we going to pursue them a a society? I guess I am feeling frightened and/or depressed today, hence my choice of category here.

Most hopeful story: Urban areas may have some ecological value after all.

Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: Peter Turchin continues his project to empirically test history. In this article, he says the evidence points to innovation in military technologies being driven by “world population size, connectivity between geographical areas of innovation and adoption, and critical enabling technological advances, such as iron metallurgy and horse riding“. What does not drive innovation? “state-level factors such as polity population, territorial size, or governance sophistication“. As far as the technologies coming down the pike in 2022, one “horizon scan” has identified “satellite megaconstellations, deep sea mining, floating photovoltaics, long-distance wireless energy, and ammonia as a fuel source”.