Lance Armstrong was the best cyclist in an era rife with doping
It’s the eve of the Tour De France, one of cycling’s most famous and gruelling grand tours. It would appear on the surface that cycling has overcome its darkest hour when during the nineties and early noughties, a toxic culture of doping had become rife. Lance Armstrong is a symbol of that culture. Having won an unprecedented seventh Tour De France in 2005, he finally admitted to doping in 2013.
Disgraced, those titles are no more — wiped from the history books. Cycling was putting an end to a dark episode everyone would rather forget, or though it seemed. …
The hypocrisy at the heart of the environmental movement is maddening
The poor have little time to be concerned about the environment. Their thoughts and actions are focused on providing for their basic needs. Life for the middle class is very different. With needs easily met, the middle-class has the luxury to think about aspects outside of their own day to day needs. Environmentalism is a Western movement inspired on the whole by white middle-class people.
The irony is that those very same white middle-class people are a symbol of how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place.
Middle-class people have disposable income. As well as living comfortably…
Travel. Healthcare. New York. USA.
The bill was the least of his worries.
Tom never leaves the UK without travel insurance. For him, it’s more important than his passport.
“The thing that I will never, ever, do, like, ever, is go away without travel insurance. And I will always go for the premium option,” Tom said emphatically as we sipped a beer in a hostel in Buenos Aires.
‘Why’s that?” I replied with a smirk on my face.
You could never quite work out if Tom was joking or not, as he always said everything with a slight smirk.
“All you need to know is that premium travel insurance saved me a $100,000…
We live in a culture that values money as a means to an end rather than an end to a means
In 1930 the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren. He argued that continued increases in productivity would allow us to make more with less effort. In other words, people would be able to work fewer hours and still have their needs met.
Keynes argued if the rate of productivity increases continued on their current trajectory, a 15-hour workweek, comprising 3-hour shifts, was a distinct possibility. Keynes was correct about productivity increases. The thing he was wrong about is that productivity increases did not create a 15-hour workweek. …
Travel. Thailand. Drugs. South East Asia.
A full moon party that went downhill fast reveals why.
It was the evening after a full moon party on the majestic island of Ko Pha-ngan. The full moon party is a non-stop party of debauchery, excess, and decadence. My head was still throbbing, I was bleary-eyed, and I could think of nothing worse than touching a drop of alcohol.
A friend and I were sitting at the hostel bar whiling the evening away, feeling sorry for ourselves. The only other people at the bar were a couple we had met briefly the night before. The boyfriend looked to be in a catatonic shock, while the girlfriend was chain-smoking at…
A Silent Revolution has created a movement of disillusioned people who want change
The term ‘woke’ is used figuratively to refer to someone who is ‘aware’ or ‘well informed’ in a political or cultural sense. They know and understand the world in ways few others could imagine, and it is their awareness of the truth that has led to an awakening. Like they’ve had a lightbulb moment and everything starts to make sense. Social media has become the perfect platform for all these lightbulbs to communicate with one another. And yet, the thing about this term is that the work generation represents something far more powerful than some tribe of awoken individuals.
The…
Nerds have come into their element in the age of technology
Brutally powerful, hyper agile, enormously strong, the king of the jungle is a force to be reckoned with. Lions are synonymous with power; they are the leaders of the pack and have all the attributes needed to protect a pride of lions. Nerds don’t come to mind as natural-born leaders. While being hyper-intelligent, they are socially awkward and do not inspire confidence in others. Yet, many of the founders of technology giants are nerds who have enormous power and influence.
There is a danger with so many nerds wielding so much power. The reason?
If you look at Amazon, Google…
We are facing challenges unparalleled in human history — how we deal with them will define our future as a species
The brutal civil war in Syria that exploded into life in 2011 resulted in millions of people fleeing their homes for their safety, creating a humanitarian crisis. The Syrian refugees contribute to the 79.5 million refugees forced to leave their homes as of 2019.
That’s a lot of people.
And it has resulted in a refugee crisis, where many people have become nomads. Not able to stay in their own country, but not being accepted in other countries. …
This trend has become a form of censorship that violates people’s freedom of speech
Over the last few years, it’s become commonplace for accusations of antisemitism to be thrown at anyone criticising Israel. What makes this trend bizarre is that criticising a country's actions or policies is entirely different from spreading hate about the dominant religion in a country. The UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, a well-known supporter of Palestine's cause for a free independent state were attacked ferociously with this most toxic of labels.
It was working too. To the point where you imagine many people bit their tongue, uneasy with the idea of others pointing fingers.
Big business pull the strings while politicians maintain a veil of legitimacy
There was a time when politics mattered, when who you voted for did change the direction a country went in. Clement Attlee's victory for the Labour Party in the 1945 post-WWII general election is a case in point. The Labour Party created the National Health Service, and with it, universal free health care became a right. That the government implemented this radical change during recovery from the bitter struggle of WWII was a magnificent achievement.
Today, the idea a government would nationalise any sector (let alone a health service) is unthinkable. …
Paul Abela, MSc
Blogger and systems thinker | Place a lens on the social, economic and political causes of the climate crisis | Visit my website and blog at transformatise.com
