How do we value a person? How should we value a person? The first question concerns what is, the second what ought to be. But to ask them together suggests a hidden third: what is our duty in the face of this question? It is not enough to analyze. The…
Category: Making Money
Interesting ways to make money
Will We Come Together Again?
The Great Depression taught Americans many things, but one lesson really stands out, not in the numbers or charts, but in the stories that passed from grandparents to grandchildren around dinner tables and porches. It’s the story of people who had very little, and yet gave anyway—of soup kitchens that…
Flotsam; the remains of a shipwrecked life
The sea does not care. It takes what it wants and leaves the rest to drift. A man can build something strong, something that holds against the wind and the waves, but one good storm can take it all away. Then he is left with what floats—broken beams, a splintered…
The Lonely Crowd and White Collar: A Mirror to the American Soul
David Riesman’s The Lonely Crowd and C. Wright Mills’ White Collar sit on the shelf like a pair of old photographs—faded, perhaps, but still revealing. They capture America at a moment when the country had stepped into its new postwar prosperity, blinking at the bright lights of mass media, corporate…
Why Economic Collapse Might Be Just What We Need to Survive – Long-Term
Economic collapse is a phrase that brings to mind images of breadlines, shuttered factories, and desperate faces. It is spoken of as a catastrophe, a specter that must be avoided at all costs. But history has shown that collapse, while painful, is often the necessary breaking point before something better…
From Self-Sufficiency to Community-Sufficiency: Rethinking Preparedness
I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos about homesteading and prepping lately. Partly because I find the whole idea fascinating—growing your own food, living off the land, being prepared for whatever the world throws at you. But also because, let’s be honest, things are looking shaky out there, and…
Living Beyond Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of a Non-Monetary Life
Modern life is so entangled with money that imagining an existence without it feels radical, even impossible. We measure success in dollars earned, hours billed, and possessions acquired. Yet, beneath this financial scaffolding, a quieter, deeper economy persists—one of time, relationships, skill, and purpose. Stepping outside the monetary system, even…
“The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,” by Shoshana Zuboff – a review
Shoshana Zuboff’s seminal work, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power,” explores the emergence of a new economic order where human experience is commodified for data extraction and profit. Zuboff, a professor emerita at Harvard Business School, meticulously examines how…
The Tyranny of Too Much
No one would argue that having enough is a bad thing. It’s good to know where your next meal is coming from, to have a roof over your head, to live without constant worry over basic survival. In fact, for most of human history, people dreamed of abundance. More food,…
Gamifying Minimalism – The More You Lose, The More You Win
What if we made a game where the goal is not to accumulate, but to shed. Not to own, but to free oneself. Not to conquer, but to master the art of enough. In our lives driven by consumption, such a game might seem radical, even subversive. But, it is…