Podcasts about anthropocene extinction

Simon & Schuster provided me with an advanced copy of the superb book After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People, scheduled for release on July 8, 2025. The University of Texas authors, Dean Spears and Michael Geruso, have written a mind-blowing book! It's my second favorite book of 2025! My favorite 2025 book is They're Not Gaslighting You. Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-JfpjJRkok Podcast   The Population Whimper When I was born, Paul R. Ehrlich's book, The Population Bomb, was a mega-bestseller. Although I never read the book, my generation believed the book's message that humanity is dangerously overpopulated. The book gave me one major reason not to have children. The book made intuitive sense, built on Thomas Malthus's observations, that if our population continues to expand, we will eventually hit a brick wall. However, Ehrlich, a Stanford biologist, made these stunningly wrong predictions in The Population Bomb: Mass Starvation in the 1970s and 1980s: The book opened with the statement, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."    England's Demise by 2000: He suggested that England would not exist by the year 2000 due to environmental collapse related to overpopulation.   Devastation of Fish Populations by 1990: He predicted that all significant animal life in the sea would be extinct by 1990, and large areas of coastline would need to be evacuated due to the stench of dead fish.   India's Famine: He predicted catastrophic food shortages in India in the 1990s that did not materialize.   United States Food Rationing by 1984: He envisioned the U.S. rationing food by 1984. Instead of all this doom and gloom, here's what happened: we went from 3.5 billion (when Ehrich wrote his doomsday book) to 8 billion people today, most of whom are fat. Today, our biggest problem isn't famine but obesity. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso's new book should have been called The Population Whimper because it says the opposite of what The Population Bomb said. Forget a catastrophic demographic explosion. We're going to suffer a catastrophic demographic implosion. The graph on the cover of After the Spike sums up the problem: during a 200-year time period, the human population will have spiked to 10 billion and then experienced an equally dramatic fall. Three criticisms of After the Spike For a book packed with counterintuitive arguments, it's remarkable that I can only spot three flaws. Admittedly, these are minor critiques, as they will disappear if we stabilize below 10 billion. 1. Wildlife lost The authors correctly argue that the environment has been improving even as the human population has been growing rapidly. For example: Air and water are now cleaner than they were 50 years ago, when the population was half its current size. Our per capita CO2 consumption is falling. Clean energy production is at an all-time high. There's one metric that authors overlooked: wildlife. As the human population doubled, we've needed more space for growing food. This has led to a decrease in habitat, which is why biologists refer to the Anthropocene Extinction. While fish farms are efficient, overfishing continues. The Amazon gets denuded to make space for soy and cattle plantations. The loss of African wildlife habitats is acute, as the African population is projected to quadruple in this century. I imagine that the authors of After the Spike would counter: National parks didn't exist 200 years ago. Green revolutions and GMO foods have made the most productive farmers ever. De-extinction may restore extinct species. And they're correct. There are bright spots.  However, as we approach 10 billion, wildlife will continue to suffer and be marginalized. The book should have mentioned that. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso would likely agree that if humans continue to grow nonstop, wildlife will continue to suffer. However, they aren't arguing for nonstop human expansion. They want stabilization. When you combine stabilization with technology (e.g., vertical farming and lab-grown animal products), we would reverse the downward trend in wildlife habitat. 2. Increased energy consumption Dean Spears and Michael Geruso celebrate humanity's progress in energy efficiency and productivity. However, they overlook these facts: 1. The Rebound Effect (Jevons Paradox): As energy efficiency improves, the cost of using energy services effectively decreases. This can lead to: Increased usage of existing services: For example, more efficient air conditioners might lead people to cool their homes to lower temperatures or for longer periods. More fuel-efficient cars might encourage more driving. Adoption of new energy-intensive activities: The increased affordability of energy services can enable entirely new consumption patterns that were previously too expensive to adopt. Think about the proliferation of data centers for AI and digital services, or the growth of electric vehicles. While individual electric vehicles (EVs) are more efficient than gasoline cars, the rapid increase in their adoption contributes to overall electricity demand. 2. Economic Growth and Rising Living Standards: Increased demand for energy services: As economies grow and incomes rise, people generally desire greater comfort, convenience, and a wider range of goods and services. This translates to greater demand for heating and cooling, larger homes, more personal transportation, more manufactured goods, and more leisure activities, all of which require energy. Industrialization and urbanization: Developing economies, in particular, are undergoing rapid industrialization and urbanization. This involves massive construction, increased manufacturing, and the expansion of infrastructure, all of which are highly energy-intensive. Even with efficiency gains, the sheer scale of this growth drives up overall energy consumption. Emerging technologies: The growth of data centers, AI, and other digital technologies is leading to a significant increase in electricity demand. 3. Population Growth: While efficiency might improve per unit of output, the overall global population continues to grow. More people, even if individually more efficient, will inherently consume more energy in total. 4. Shifting Economic Structures: Some economies are shifting from less energy-intensive sectors (like agriculture) to more energy-intensive ones (like manufacturing or specific services). Even within industries, while individual processes might become more efficient, the overall scale of production can increase dramatically. 5. Energy Price and Policy Factors: Low energy prices: If energy remains relatively inexpensive (due to subsidies or abundant supply), the incentive for significant behavioral changes to reduce consumption might be diminished, even with efficient technologies available. Policy limitations: Although many countries have energy efficiency policies, their impact may be offset by other factors that drive demand. Conclusion: While technological advancements and efficiency measures reduce the energy intensity of specific activities, these gains are often outpaced by the aggregate increase in demand for energy services driven by economic growth, rising living standards, population increases, and the adoption of new, energy-intensive technologies and behaviors. The challenge lies in achieving a proper decoupling of economic growth from energy consumption, and ultimately, from carbon emissions. Humanity's per capita energy consumption has been steadily increasing with each passing century, a trend that is unlikely to change soon. Therefore, humans of the 26th century will consume far more energy than those of the 21st century.  The authors of After the Spike would probably argue that in 2525, we'll be using a clean energy source (e.g., nuclear fusion), so it'll be irrelevant that our per capita energy consumption increases ten times.  Again, short term, we're going in the wrong direction. However, in a stabilized world, we won't have a problem. 3. Designer babies The authors of After the Spike never addressed the potential impact that designer babies may have. I coined the term "Homo-enhanced" to address our desire to overcome our biological limitations.  Couples are already using IVF to select the gender and eye color of their babies. Soon, we'll be able to edit and select for more complex traits such as height or even intelligence. It's easy to imagine a world like Gattaca, where parents collaborate with CRISPR-powered gene tools to create custom-made babies. One reason some people don't want to reproduce is that it's a crap shoot. Any parent who has more than one child will tell you that each of their children is quite different from the others. Given that they grow up in the same environment, it suggests that genetics is a decisive factor. Until now, we couldn't mold our children's DNA. Soon, we will.  If we were to remove the lottery aspect of having a child and allow parents to design their children, perhaps there would be a baby boom. Dean Spears and Michael Geruso would probably argue that this is unlikely or centuries away from happening. We'll be descending the steep population slope long before we are homo-enhanced. One trillion humans in this millennium? In the Bulgaria chapter of The Hidden Europe, I observed that Bulgaria is depopulating faster than any other European country. Having peaked at 9 million in the late 1980s, a century later, it will be half that size. Despite that, in that chapter, I predicted that in 500 years, we'll have one trillion humans in the solar system, with at least 100 billion on Earth. This video explains how and why that may happen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lJJ_QqIVnc Conclusion In 2075, will After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People look as stupid as The Population Bomb looks 50 years after publication? Does After the Spike make the same errors as The Population Bomb? Paul Ehrlich's underestimated technology and the continued collapse in fertility rates. As Dean Spears and Michael Geruso point out, fertility rates have been declining since they were first measured. Had Ehrlich extrapolated the trendline, he would have realized that our demographic collapse was imminent, not an explosion. Furthermore, technology solved many of the problems Ehrlich imagined. Is After the Spike making the same error? Fertility rates won't fall forever. They must stop. Otherwise, we'll become extinct. However, will fertility rates soar due to technology or some other reason? What could make our fertility rates return to three or more? Here are a few ideas: We master fusion energy, providing us with ultra-cheap energy and dramatically decreasing the cost of having children. Robots perform most jobs, leaving humans with ample time to raise large families.  As the negative effects of depopulation start rippling across the world, a global cultural panic erupts, prompting people to prioritize reproduction. Homo-enhanced humans, merged with artificial general intelligence, decide to proliferate to dominate the planet. Vertical farms and lab-grown cultured meat improve the environment so dramatically that humans feel less guilty about having three or more children, and generous subsidies offset the costs. Admittedly, these scenarios are unlikely to occur during the next 50 years, so After the Spike won't become the joke that The Population Bomb became in 50 years. Still, I predict that Ehrlich's great-great-granddaughter will write The Population Bomb II: Thomas Malthus Will Be Right Someday. Verdict 10 out of 10 stars! Excerpts The excerpts below are from an advanced copy, which may have undergone edits. Hence, some of these excerpts may have been reworded or deleted in the final print. The reason I am quoting them is that even if the excerpts are removed in the final edition, they illustrate the book's overall message.  It would be easy to think that fewer people would be better—better for the planet, better for the people who remain. This book asks you to think again. Depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges, nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. Despite what you may have been told, depopulation is not the solution we urgently need for environmental challenges like climate change. Nor will it raise living standards by dividing what the world can offer across fewer of us. To the contrary, so much of the progress that we now take for granted sprang up in a large and interconnected society. Part I's big claim: No future is more likely than that people worldwide choose to have too few children to replace their own generation. Over the long run, this would cause exponential population decline. Whether depopulation would be good or bad depends on the facts and depends on our values. We ask about those facts and values, building up to an overall assessment: Part II and Part III's big claim: A stabilized world population would be better, overall, than a depopulating future. Part IV's big claim: Nobody yet knows how to stabilize a depopulating world. But humanity has made revolutionary improvements to society before— we can do it again if we choose. We won't ask you to abandon your concerns about climate change; about reproductive freedom and abortion access; or about ensuring safe, healthy, flourishing lives for everyone everywhere. We won't ask you to consider even an inch of backsliding on humanity's progress toward gender equity. We insist throughout that everyone should have the tools to choose to parent or not to parent. This book is not about whether or how you should parent. It's about whether we all should make parenting easier. In 2012, 146 million children were born. That was more than in any year of history to that point. It was also more than in any year since. Millions fewer will be born this year. The year 2012 may well turn out to be the year in which the most humans were ever born— ever as in ever for as long as humanity exists. Within three hundred years, a peak population of 10 billion could fall below 2 billion. The tip of the Spike may be six decades from today. For every 205 babies born, human biology, it turns out, would produce about 100 females. Average fertility in Europe today is about 1.5. That means the next generation will be 25 percent smaller than the last. Birth rates were falling all along. For as long as any reliable records exist, and for at least several hundred years while the Spike was ascending, the average number of births per woman has been falling, generation by generation. In the United States in the early 1800s, married white women (a population for whom some data were recorded) gave birth an average of seven times. If life expectancy doubles to 150 years, or quadruples to 300 years, couldn't that prevent the depopulating edge of the Spike? The surprising answer is no. The story of the Spike would stay the same, even if life expectancy quadrupled to three hundred years. In contrast, if adults' reproductive spans also changed, so people had, say, one or two babies on average over their twenties, thirties, and forties and then another one on average over their fifties, sixties, and seventies, then that would stop depopulation— but it would be because births changed, not because later-adulthood deaths changed. Where exactly should humanity stabilize? Six billion? Eight? Ten? Some other number? This book makes the case to stabilize somewhere. Exactly where will have to be a question for public and scientific debate. So the extra greenhouse gas emissions contributed by the larger population would be small, even under the assumption here that the future is bleak and we go on emitting for another century. The environmental costs of a new child are not zero. Not by a long shot. Not yet. But they are falling. Each new person who joins the ranks of humanity will add less CO2 than, well, you over your lifetime. Humanity could choose a future that's good, free, and fair for women and that also has an average birth rate of two. There is no inescapable dilemma. In that kind of future, people who want to parent would get the support that they need (from nonparents, from taxpayers, from everyone) to choose parenting. The most plausible way humanity might stabilize— and the only way this book endorses— is if societies everywhere work to make parenting better. Globally, we now produce about 50 percent more food per person than in 1961. “endogenous economic growth.” Endogenous means “created from the inside.” Ideas do not come from outside the economy. They come from us. Because scale matters, a depopulating planet will be able to fill fewer niches. A threat with a fixed cost: A threat has arisen that will kill all humans (however many) unless a large cost is paid to escape it (such as by deflecting an asteroid) within a certain time period. Could a kajillion lives ever be the best plan? That question goes beyond the practical question that this book is here to answer. Between our two families, we have had three live births, four miscarriages, and three failed IVF rounds. Parenting will need to become better than it is today. That's what we, your authors, hope and believe. The opportunity cost hypothesis: Spending time on parenting means giving up something. Because the world has improved around us, that “something” is better than it used to be. In no case is there evidence that more support for parents predicts more births. Nobody— no expert, no theory— fully understands why birth rates, everywhere, in different cultures and contexts, are lower than ever before. I hope these excerpts compel you to buy the book. If you're still undecided, consider that the book features numerous graphs and illustrations that will rewire your brain. Buy After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. Connect Send me an anonymous voicemail at SpeakPipe.com/FTapon You can post comments, ask questions, and sign up for my newsletter at https://wanderlearn.com. If you like this podcast, subscribe and share!  On social media, my username is always FTapon. Connect with me on: Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram TikTok LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr   Sponsors 1. My Patrons sponsored this show! Claim your monthly reward by becoming a patron for as little as $2/month at https://Patreon.com/FTapon 2. For the best travel credit card, get one of the Chase Sapphire cards and get 75-100k bonus miles! 3. Get $5 when you sign up for Roamless, my favorite global eSIM! Use code LR32K 4. Get 25% off when you sign up for Trusted Housesitters, a site that helps you find sitters or homes to sit in. 5. Start your podcast with my company, Podbean, and get one month free! 6. In the United States, I recommend trading cryptocurrency with Kraken.  7. Outside the USA, trade crypto with Binance and get 5% off your trading fees! 8. For backpacking gear, buy from Gossamer Gear.  

Vi gik på jagt efter et moderne mesterværk og endte med black-death-grind-mesterværket "Death Atlas" med Cattle Decapitation. Aldrig er det lykkedes et grindband at lyde så episk, som Cattle Decapitation gør det på numre som "Be still our Bleeding Hearts" og kæmpenummeret "Bring back the Plague". Der blastes endnu hårdere end på forgængeren "The Anthropocene Extinction", men der er noget ved de trommer, der irriterer Trolle. Heldigvis får han en hånd af producer Andreas Linnemann (Baest, Hajn, Thus) til helt at forstå, hvorfor de trommer lyder lige som de skal. Konvent forsanger Rikke Emilie List er kæmpe Cattle-fan og giver sine bud på hvornår bandet er bedst og om det er svært, at have en så varieret vokal, som forsanger Travis Ryan har. Så der er dømt moderne heavy metal i Månedens Mesterværk, som på alle måder ikke er for sarte sjæle! Værter: Anders Bøtter og Jakob Trolle. Medvirkende: Andreas Lindemann (Producer) og Rikke Emilie List (Sanger, Konvent). Lyddesign og klip: Emil Germod. Produceret af: Bowie-Jett. Udsendelse nr. 639. Sort Søndag er Danmarks vigtigste metal podcast. Hver uge får du 1 times tonser tunge toner, i selskab med værterne Anders Bøtter og Jakob Trolle. Sort Søndags trofaste "Giro 666 lyttere" byder ind med både nye og gamle numre, "Musiknyt" sørger for at holde dig helt opdateret og hver måned gennemgås et klassisk metal album i "Månedens Mesterværk".

Welcome back to The Great Metal Debate podcast. Today we are looking at the album Terrasite released on May 12th via Metal Blade Records. A band's overall evolution can go in many directions but I feel Cattle have managed to outdo themselves with my personal favorite album Monolith of Inhumanity and they continued to kick ass with their 2015 banger The Anthropocene Extinction. 4 years we have become humanoid cockroaches trying to survive in a bleak uninhabitable world. The first track "Terrasitic Adaptation" is a decent openerbut doesn't really induce much head banging. Probably not a song I would choose to be on a live set list but it's okay. The next song "We Eat Our Young" has a very "Forced Gender Reassignment" feel to it but with a slowed chorus and even a slight soft spot moment when guitarist Josh Elmore clearly taps a foot pedal. Another thing to point out is how well the drums sound in the mix and I've noticed that David McGraw seems to really put those cymbals to great use. His capabilities are on full display in "Scourge of the Offspring" along with Travis showing off his full vocal range. "The Insignificants" begins with more blast beats and the traditional metal riff performed by the band's other guitarist Belisario Dimuzio. Traviscontinues to bludgeon us with his insane gutturals followed by a more haunting sounding spoken word section towards this song's conclusion. One of the heaviest songs on the albums is "The Storm Upstairs". I love how Josh and Belisario work together to bring us their chug riff and a guitar screech during the song's intro. Bassist Olivier Pinard helps to tie everyone's instruments together. The next song "... And The World Will Go On Without You" is a great song but despite the lyrics and vocals not being drastically different from a song from a popular hard rock band, Tell me it doesn't sound like the chorus from the song "Alone I Break" by Korn. The 3rd single and music video released for this album called "A Photic Doom". This song isn't quite as memorable as some of these other new tracks because the instruments have a cluster of noise structure as opposed to better riffs we've heard thus far. There's still no mistaking that this is indeed a Cattle Decapitation song but there's only one thing that seems to stand out about it. The classic stop and start moment during the halfway point followed by the first and only guitar solo on this entire album. I would like the spoken word section at the end of this song a lot more if it didn't sound so faded out. "Dead End Residents" is another track on this album that seems to be another filler track that lacks a lot of quality and disappointingly enough, the same can be said for the first half of the next track "Solastalgia" with the exception of Oliver's standout bass riff. However, there's a dark and gloomy redeeming point after that when the track suddenly emanates a sense of foreboding. The finale "Just Another Body" begins with an eerie vibe only to completely blow us all away with Cattle Decapitation giving us everything they got. Some of David's fastest drumming explodes on this one but obviously not for the entirety. There's a lot to unpack with this one with Travis further expanding his vocal prowess. From the mid-section to the conclusion, he manages to sound like a completely different person. Instead of giving this album a numerical score like I usually do, I have decided to go with a quick tier ranking list. Out of all ten of their studio albums, I would place this one at 7th place which beats out the previous album at 8th place. 9th and 10th place go to the first 2 grindcore albums. This isn't really a bad thing because the four albums I put before it are just my favorites that I have frequently revisited over the years. Terrasite is only worth a solid honorable mention.

We finally tackle our firt tr00 brvtal death metal album about how we're killing the Earth. Now with marginally less politics! Twitter/Instagram - @MBFrecordspod Amanda's Twitter/IG - @Amandamoonchild Amanda's Art/moth IG - @SpicyPiscesCrisis Jason's Twitter - @FrequencyShifts Jason's Discogs - https://www.discogs.com/user/FrequencyShift/collection  Theme music by SHADE08 x 80root on YouTube   

Summer arrives and we go into some classic Album Club territory with Sum 41's moodier metal turn Chuck, Blind Guardian's Nightfall In Middle Earth, Your Demise upset the windbreakers on The Golden Age, and Cattle Decapitation's boundary-crossing look into a dark future The Anthropocene Extinction.This episode was originally published June 2022 on patreon.com/thatsnotmetal.

It's not personal.But it manifests that way —Universally.* * *As promised in the last segment, we will finish this series of five by taking up the remaining pair of combinations — the intersection of the Personal from the Four Spheres, with the Cessation of suffering from the Four Noble Truths, which involves the Eightfold Path previously touched upon. Personal Cessation is the only kind there can be, it seems. Even the Natural Cessation of physical death is not considered the end of suffering in Buddhism, owing to the principle of rebirth. Social Cessation does not seem that germane, other than the relatively decreasing engagement that comes with aging. But ask anyone in assisted living, palliative or hospice care, and you will find most of the issues that arise are social in nature. It must be admitted that if Cessation of suffering can and does actually occur in the midst of life, it must be a Universal phenomenon, as well as Personal. But the only dimension that counts must be the Personal, i.e. how we actually experience and embrace it.The graphic illustrates the correlation of the Four Spheres of reality — the Personal, Social, Natural and Universal — with the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism — the Existence, Origin, Cessation, and Path to Cessation, of suffering, dukkha, a comprehensive model of lay Zen householder practice.The Personal sphere is the bubble in which we sit when we assume the zazen posture. As mentioned, we do not thereby totally leave behind the Social, any more than we can escape the Natural and Universal spheres of influence, notwithstanding ancient claims to the contrary for the powers of meditation. But we can establish some distance between ourselves and others in meditation. Master Dogen hints at this in Fukanzazengi [Principles of Seated Meditation], his early tract on zazen:Now, in doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships.The operative phrase here is “forsaking all delusive relationships,” which begs the question: Which, if any, of the many relationships we have are not delusive? In another teaching, Genjokoan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point], Dogen lays out four transitions in Zen practice in descriptive, but cryptic, terms:To study the Buddha way is to study the self To study the self is to forget the self To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things When actualized by the myriad things your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away No trace of realization remains and this no-trace continues endlessly Another translation says something like: “to forget the self is to be enlightened by all things; to be enlightened by all things is to remove the barrier between self and other and go on in traceless enlightenment forever.” This can be misinterpreted, I think, to indicate that this realization is a kind of “kumbaya” moment, where we see and embrace the fact that we are all alike, all in the same boat, et cetera, and why “Can't we all just get along?” In other words, a Social interpretation of self and others, plural, and removing any apparent barriers. But I do not think this is what Master Dogen is getting at.If instead we “remove the barrier between self and other,” singular, this identifies the fundamental relationship that we have to resolve, above and before all others. Like Bodhidharma alone in his cave, self-and-other are still present. This basic bifurcation in our apprehension of reality is akin to the Fall from Grace in Buddhism. It amounts to a kind of category error, one that develops in early childhood via the natural process called individuation, i.e. becoming aware of ourselves as individual beings separate from mom, the crib, and everything else. This is further reinforced by parents, teachers and peers, in conventional education. Which, in our culture, does not typically include meditation.Not that this growing awareness of separate individuality is not true; it is just that it is not complete. The rest of the story is that we are intricately interconnected to all of our relationships, including with other human beings, but also sentient beings of other species in the animal kingdom, as well as plant life, and the insentient world. In other words, the Personal cannot be isolated from the Natural and Universal, let alone the Social. Master Dogen goes on to suggest that in zazen, however, we suspend judgment about all of this for the moment, at least for the time we are on the cushion:Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right or wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, give up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.Note that “everything,” here, primarily entailing those judgment calls in the Social sphere, such as identifying “good and evil, right and wrong,” are to be set aside, in zazen. And that this kind of thinking represents the natural functioning of the mind, that is, the thinking or discriminating mind, known as citta in Sanskrit, the complement of bodhi, or wisdom mind. I think we can define these terms simply as analytical versus intuitive aspects of the total mind, or bodhicitta. This basic division of the mind into a dyad, or binary, we may take as the psychology or mind science of the times, as compared to the more complex models of the brain and its functions propounded by science today.The main point here is that the ordinary functions of the mind —which we advisedly tend to label as “monkey mind” — reach a point of diminishing returns, though I don't think we can literally stop them. Like a live monkey, citta will eventually wear itself out, lie down and take a nap. Trying to stop the functions of the mind intentionally only turns out to be more monkey business, as in the Ch'an poem Hshinshinming [Trust in Mind]:Trying to stop activity to achieve passivity, the very effort fills you with activityThis is one of the many catch-22s that we find in Zen practice. And not only on the cushion, as Dogen goes on to remind us:This holds true not only for zazen but for all your daily actions.So the Personal Cessation of suffering may be experienced not as a sudden, irreversible event, like a thunderbolt from the sky, but a series of gradual, incremental cessations of our knee-jerk reactions to events. Both in the Personal sphere, particularly in meditation, as well as interactions with others in the Social and Natural spheres. This attitude adjustment may extend to other forces in the Universal realm, such as the effects of climate change. Or something as simple, but potentially deadly, as a sunburn.One premise that has to be reinforced from time to time in Zen and other meditation circles, is that our practice does not, and cannot, reveal anything that is not already true. Meditation does not and cannot change anything, other than our personal apprehension and appreciation of our own reality. The revered Zen Buddhist saint, Bodhidharma, declared that it is not necessary to do zazen in order to “grasp the vital principle.” Which tells us that we do zazen for some other reason, namely to set aside all delusive relationships, for one example. Which suggests that we must be harboring a lot of delusive relationships, whether we are aware of them or not. Otherwise, why does zazen require so much time?As I mention in The Original Frontier, the first reason most people give as to why they cannot do meditation, is that they do not have time. This is mainly because they look for immediate results, and give up when the novelty wears off, and they cannot detect sufficient positive feedback to encourage them to continue. According to the principles of zazen, and Personal Cessation, meditation does not necessarily take any time at all to take effect. Since we are getting in our own way, all we have to do is stop. Aha, you say — but that's how they get you. Catch-22 déjà vu.If the Cessation of suffering writ large is dependent upon case-by-case Personal Cessation of all those habits of thought and behavior that are getting in the way, how do we recognize and identify them, and relinquish our attachments or aversions to them that keep dragging us down? I think one of the key attitude adjustments is to recognize that we are not only receiving, but interpreting, our experience, even at the near-subliminal level in zazen. If we can set aside any interpretation at all — let alone judgments of good and evil, right and wrong, at least while we are on the cushion — then maybe we can move that dharma gate a little.One last consideration before we leave this perhaps overly convoluted analysis of the intersection of the Four Noble Truths with my model of the Four Spheres of Influence, suggests another connection with the teachings of Buddhism. The spheres of internal and external reality correlate with the Three Treasures of classical Buddhism. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha track to the Personal, Universal and Social spheres. Briefly, Buddha — indicating practice on the cushion as a practical matter, but also our original nature, or birthright as human beings — is obviously a very Personal dimension of Zen practice. Of course, in light of its deeper connotations as “original nature,” it has Universal and Social implications. The study of and propagation of Dharma clearly involves a Social program of education — or “sharing the dharma assets,” expressed as a Precept — but also a Personal endeavor, climbing the Zen mountain. Again with Universal implications as Dharma, capital D, as the Way, or Tao, the law that governs the universe. Sangha is most obviously Social in character, but also Universal, representing the entirety of the human species from its origins hundreds of thousands of years in the misty past, to its current manifestation in facing the looming possibility of the Anthropocene Extinction, the sixth such global catastrophe on record. I could go on. But it is time to shift to another paradigm.Meanwhile, please continue practicing in the holistic context of the Four Spheres and the Four Noble Truths, as well as the Three Treasures. Climbing Zen Mountain, and then descending.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Anthropocene Extinction

Hello everybody and ITS TIME for the 5TH episode of Distorted Entertainment! In this installment, your Co-Hosts Mitchell Wade and Ethan Carpenter discuss Rob Zombie's and Gojira's new singles, Rob Halford and Nergal's possible Duet, Halloween Kills' New Trailer, Godzilla Singular Point, a lot of Anime, and of course Opeth's Blackwater Park and Ghost Reveries, as well as Cattle Decapitation's The Anthropocene Extinction and Death AtlasNext Episodes Album Choices:M to E: "Cockroach King" and The Virus by HakenE to M: Wrong One To Fuck With by Dying FetusOutro Song: "Nothing Ever Hits (Quite Like Your Kiss) by Cherry Saintshttps://www.facebook.com/cherrysaintsmusic/Intro Song: "Center of Gravity" by Perceive//Persist (Ft. Bradley Ditton)https://www.facebook.com/PerceivePersist/Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Distorted-Entertainment-Podcast-10156190502338

Extinction Rebellion https://rebellion.global (XR) is a non-violent civil disobedience movement that began in 2018 and has swept across the globe since then. In face of the ongoing climate emergency, they demand governments to tell the truth about how... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/amplifypodcast/message

On this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem, Lauren, Ashlyn, and Laura discuss the ongoing Holocene Extinction through the lens of four extinct species, and conservation through the lens of four endangered species. Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast that delves into issues of science, critical thinking, and secular … Continue reading Episode 150: The Anthropocene Extinction →

With Cattle Decap's newest album "Death Atlas" on the way, Kayle and OJ spend a bit more quality time with their 2015 epic "The Anthropocene Extinction".

We are joined by very special guest Mr. Brady Deeprose for this deep dive into the seventh studio album by San Diego deathgrind wizards Cattle Decapitation. Considered by many to be the band's best album, Steve, Remfry and Brady discuss the impact The Anthropocene Extinction had on extreme metal and the elements that contributed to this album's influence on the genre since it's release in 2015. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this (late, sorry) episode, Joe and Pete discuss the albums Shake, Shook, Shaken by French-Finnish duo The Dø and the much less catchy Anthropocene Extinction by San Diego deathgrinders Cattle Decapitation. Having already had this conversation once (on some unlistenable, corrupted files), it’s a bit rambly, but hopefully no less informative than usual. Please feel free to share, like, subscribe, all that guff, and help us provide a much needed white middle-class voice in a sea of white middle-class voices.

In this (late, sorry) episode, Joe and Pete discuss the albums Shake, Shook, Shaken by French-Finnish duo The Dø and the much less catchy Anthropocene Extinction by San Diego deathgrinders Cattle Decapitation. Having already had this conversation once (on some unlistenable, corrupted files), it's a bit rambly, but hopefully no less informative than usual. Please feel free to share, like, subscribe, all that guff, and help us provide a much needed white middle-class voice in a sea of white middle-class voices.

Anthropocene Extinction