LifeItself

The subjects of the previous blog are complex and warrant further explanation. A friend of mine and I have had a lively discussion on several issues I brought up in that blog.  With his permission, I have decided to publish some of his comments with slight edits. Let us start from this comment: "You lumped Internet, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple (FAGMA) into one lot. This is not entirely accurate. These companies have different business models and different degrees of abuse. You also did not include Twitter, Netflix, eBay, and a myriad of companies that probably are more intrusive than, say, Apple or Microsoft." Here is my reasoning. I have used annual revenues of the FAGMA oligopoly and other companies to compare their relative sizes. FAGMA dominates their respective markets so much so that all other runners up simply do not compare. Twitter is tiny (2018 revenue of $3 billion); and Netflix (2018 revenue of $14 billion) only deals in movies, however b...

Dr. Erle C. Ellis is an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where he teaches environmental science, landscape ecology and biogeochemistry.  He would remain anonymous to most of us, had he not written a New York Times editorial, " Overpopulation is not the problem ."  Later, Dr. Ellis attempted to explain himself in more detail as a guest blogger for Andrew C. Revkin. Upon reading this rare gem of technobabble, I asked the students in my class, E4: Earth, Environment, Energy, and Economics , to read it and express their own thoughts in up to 740-word essays.  I never commented on Ellis' editorial, so as not to influence opinions of my class.  Just like Revkin, I have encouraged some of the students to publish in my blog. The New York Times, September 14, 2013. The image is by Katherine Streeter. What follows is a sample of the students' essays. Not all is lost yet... Brien Allen is from Ker...