Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time is a work of history written by Carroll Quigley. The book covers the period of roughly 1880 to 1963 and is multidisciplinary in nature though perhaps focusing on the economic problems brought about by the First World War and the impact these had on subsequent events. While global in scope, the book focusses on Western civilization, because Quigley has more familiarity with the West.
The book has attracted the attention of those interested in geopolitics due to Quigley’s assertion that a secret society initially led by Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner and others had considerable influence over British and American foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century. From 1909 to 1913, Milner organized the outer ring of this society as the semi-secret Round Table groups.
Excerpt from Prof. Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950).
(Op.cit. p.99):
“The attitude common to the teachings of the founders of all great Eastern and Western religions is one in which the supreme aim of living is a concern with man’s soul and the unfolding of his powers of love and reason. Psychoanalysis, far from being a threat to this aim, can on the contrary contribute a great deal to its realization.” […]
(Op.cit. pp.100-102):
“The marketing orientation has established its dominant role as a character pattern only in the modern era. In the personality market all professions, occupations, and statuses appear. Employer, employee, and free-lance—each must depend for material success on personal acceptance by those who would use his services. Here, as in the commodity market, use value is not sufficient to determine exchange value. The “personality factor” takes precedence over skills in the assessment of market value and most frequently plays the deciding role. While it is true that the most winning personality cannot make up for a total lack of skill indeed, our economic system could not function on such a basis—it is seldom that skill and integrity alone account for success.
Success formulae are expressed in such terms as “selling oneself,” “getting one’s personality across,” and “soundness,” “ambition,” “cheerfulness,” “aggressiveness,” and so forth, which are stamped on the prize-winning personality package. Such other intangibles as family background, clubs, connections, and influence are also important desiderata and will be advertised however subtly as basic ingredients of the commodity offered. To belong to a religion and to practice it is also widely regarded as one of the requirements for success. Every profession, every field has its successful personality type.
The salesman, the banker, the foreman, and the headwaiter have met the requirements, each in a different way and to a different degree, but their roles are identifiable, they have measured up to the essential condition: to be in demand. Inevitably man’s attitude toward himself is conditioned by these standards for success. His feeling of self-esteem is not based primarily on the value of his powers and the use he makes of them in a given society. It depends on his salability on the market, or the opinion others have about his “attractiveness.” He experiences himself as a commodity designed to attract on the most favorable, the most expensive terms.
The higher the offered price the greater the affirmation of his value. Commodity man hopefully displays his label, tries to stand out from the assortment on the counter and to be worthy of the highest price tag, but if he is passed by while others are snapped up he is convicted of inferiority and worthlessness. However high he may be rated in terms of both human qualities and utility, he may have the ill-luck—and must bear the blame—of being out of fashion. From early childhood he has learned that to be in fashion is to be in demand and that he too must adapt to the personality mart. But the virtues he is taught ambition, sensitivity, and adaptibility to the demands of others—are qualities too general to provide the patterns for success.
He turns to popular fiction, the newspapers, and the movies for more specific pictures of the success story and finds the smartest, the newest models on the market to emulate. It is hardly surprising that under these circumstances man’s sense of his value must suffer severely.
The conditions for his self-esteem are beyond his control. He is dependent on others for approval and in constant need of it; helplessness and insecurity are the inevitable results. Man loses his own identity in the marketing orientation ; he becomes alienated from himself. If man’s highest value is success, if love, truth, justice, tenderness, mercy are of no use to him, he may profess these ideals but he does not strive for them. He may think that he worships the god of love but he actually worships an idol which is the idealization of his real goals, those rooted in the marketing orientation.”
Cf. The chapter on the marketing orientation in “Man for Himself” (Fromm, 1947).
A coup d’état also known simply as a coup, a putsch, golpe, or an overthrow, is an illegal and overt seizure of a state by the military or other elites within the state apparatus.[1]
A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors were associated with coups:
officers’ personal grievances
military organizational grievances
military popularity
military attitudinal cohesiveness
economic decline
domestic political crisis
contagion from other regional coups
external threat
participation in war
foreign veto power and military’s national security doctrine
“Bread and circuses” (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a figure of speech, specifically referring to a superficial means of appeasement. As a metonymic, the phrase is attributed to Juvenal, a Romanpoet active in the late first and early second century AD — and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.
In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace[1] — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).
Juvenal, who originated the phrase, used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.[2][3][4] The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.[5]
This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latinpanem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining interest of a Roman populace which no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of contemporary Romans, using a range of different themes including lust for power and desire for old age to illustrate his argument.[6] Roman politicians passed laws in 140 B.C. to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, “bread and circuses”, became the most effective way to rise to power.
… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.[7]
[…] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. […]
(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)
Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C.; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.
“Worship services are increasingly relying on a combination of products, services and technologies that result in the creation of what the late theorist, guy debord, referred to as the ‘spectacle’. the spectacle, according to debord, is unique to contemporary society, in that it reproduces an economic ideology that relies on consumer desire and an expectation for unabated pleasure, amusement or emotional gratification. not merely a lavish visual display that inspires feelings of transcendence or awe, the spectacle is a culturally and historically specific apparatus that is made possible through the integration of technologies, producers, a normative set of beliefs and values and consumer bodies. because the spectacle operates ultimately on a visceral, affective level, the valorisation of experiential forms of consumption is reinforced. this paper outlines a theory of the spectacle as it is increasingly articulated in worship services. the spectacle is most salient within seeker-sensitive churches and those…”
Bueno Bravo, I.. (2009). El sacrificio gladiatorio y su vinculación con la guerra en la sociedad mexicana. Gladius
“El siguiente trabajo analiza cómo el estado azteca-mexica rentabilizó el éxito de la guerra a través de las ceremonias públicas, centrándose en la fiesta de tlacaxipehualiztli, una de las más importantes del calendario, donde se daban cita los gobernantes de las provincias más poderosas, así como millones de personas venidas de todos los rincones del anahuac. este era el momento propicio para que el imperio desplegara toda su propaganda e hiciera ostentación de su poder. era el lado oscuro de la conquista, sangre y arena o parafraseando a juvenal panem et circenses.”
Ripoll López, G.. (1990). Panem et circenses. El circo y las carreras de caballos. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie I, Prehistoria
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“‘Múltiples son los artículos y libros científicos que se han escrito sobre el mundo del circo romano y sus espectáculos. había llegado el momento de hacer una reflexión conjunta sobre dicho tema. el director del museo arqueológico henri prados de lattes (montpellier), christian landes, tuvo la idea hace pocos años de hacer una serie de coloquios titulados spectacula. en esta idea fue asistido por varias instituciones pero particularmente por el centre archéologique de l’université de toulouse-le-mirail y por el museo saint raymond de tolosa, en la persona de daniel cazes. el primero de ellos fue celebrado en 1987 y trató el tema del anfiteatro y de los gladiadores, fruto del cual son un catálogo de la exposición ‘, las actas del congreso ^ y un magnífico libro ’ estos volúmenes citados junto con la gran obra, que es en realidad la tesis de estado de jean-claude golvin, lamphithéátre cubren un campo que hasta ahora podía parecer olvidado por los investigadores de la arqueología clásica romana’”
Logothetis, G., Matsaridis, A., & Kaimakakis, V.. (2012). The panem et circenses policy of the Regime of the Colonels in Greek sport, 1967-1974. Studies in Physical Culture & Tourism
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“‘Panem at circenses’ was the policy applied by the greek military junta between 1967 and 1973. the bread and circuses policy was a well-known recipe with its roots in the roman era. it included sport displays, rewarding athletes, formal participation of ‘the aprilians’ (the members of greek military junta) in sport games, along with the celebration of anniversaries of ‘the 21st of april 1967 revolution’ all over greece, which included gymnastic exhibitions. it must be pointed out that the april 21 regime shared a number of similarities with metaxas’s regime of august 4. because the ‘aprilians’ were advocates of metaxas’s ‘no’ response, they tried to imitate him and utilize cultural exhibitions, especially sports, as means of promoting the regime’s propaganda to acquire a social face. both regimes utilized mass celebrations based on traditions of ancient greece, the byzantine period and greek-orthodox culture. abstract from author”
“Human freedom is best understood as self-determination. free action consists of deliberation, decision, and action. the free human person deserves dignity, that is, we each deserve to be treated as a moral end and not merely as a means to someone else’s end. neurocentrist philosophy-a form of eliminative materialism-based on neuroscience, however, threatens the extinction of the human self and, thereby, threatens to turn our experience of freedom and dignity into a mere delusion. this evacuates the moral agenda of every activist liberation theology. one task of today’s public theologian is to protect cognitive liberty, because it conceptually undergirds political, economic, and social liberation.”
Sommaggio, P., Mazzocca, M., Gerola, A., & Ferro, F.. (2017). Cognitive Liberty. A first step towards a human neuro-rights declaration. BioLaw Journal
“This paper discusses the emerging debate concerning the concept of cognitive liberty and its connection with human rights. therefore, considering how recent developments of neurosciences are granting us an increasing ability to monitor and influence mental processes, this article aims to provide a clear definition of cognitive liberty understood as a necessary condition to all other freedoms that cannot be reduced to existing rights. in this regard, after presenting the most important positions on the issue, we introduce our point of view, according to which cognitive liberty allows us to lay the groundwork for building new neurorelated human rights.”
Weissenbacher, A.. (2018). Defending cognitive liberty in an age of moral engineering. Theology and Science
“In 2009, mark walker first proposed the genetic virtue project, advancing that science should explore using genetic engineering to eliminate moral evils just as it attempts to eliminate natural ones like disease. this seemed like an issue for the far future given the unique challenges. walker focused on the wrong aspect of personhood, however, as moral engineering of the brain appears to be a more likely possibility. as early aspects of moral engineering the brain are in development, especially through the manipulation of the neural correlates of religious and political beliefs, emotions, and behaviors, i consider several issues surrounding this project so as to protect individual rights and prevent future harms. i advance an internal criterion for the field called acceptability across ideologies to serve as a guide to protect against coercive and harmful technologies and analyze how current laws protecting cognitive liberty are lacking and in need of revision.”
Sommaggio, P., & Mazzocca, M.. (2020). Cognitive liberty and human rights. In Neuroscience and Law: Complicated Crossings and New Perspectives
“This chapter discusses the emerging debate regarding the relationship between the concept of cognitive liberty and human rights. for this reason, after briefly presenting some issues related to the development of recent neurotechnology, the different types of definitions of the concept of cognitive liberty, that have been recently proposed, are illustrated. starting from these last, this chapter aims to analyze how, the whole relationship between human rights and cognitive liberty can change depending on the legislative strategy that one prefers to undertake.”
Ienca, M.. (2017). The Right to Cognitive Liberty. Scientific American
“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”
Walsh, C.. (2010). Drugs and human rights: Private palliatives, sacramental freedoms and cognitive liberty. International Journal of Human Rights
Kraft, C. J., & Giordano, J.. (2017). Integrating brain science and law: Neuroscientific evidence and legal perspectives on protecting individual liberties. Frontiers in Neuroscience
“Advances in neuroscientific techniques have found increasingly broader applications, including in legal neuroscience (or ‘neurolaw’), where experts in the brain sciences are called to testify in the courtroom. but does the incursion of neuroscience into the legal sphere constitute a threat to individual liberties? and what legal protections are there against such threats? in this paper, we outline individual rights as they interact with neuroscientific methods. we then proceed to examine the current uses of neuroscientific evidence, and ultimately determine whether the rights of the individual are endangered by such approaches. based on our analysis, we conclude that while federal evidence rules constitute a substantial hurdle for the use of neuroscientific evidence, more ethical safeguards are needed to protect against future violations of fundamental rights. finally, we assert that it will be increasingly imperative for the legal and neuroscientific communities to work together to better define the limits, capabilities, and intended direction of neuroscientific methods applicable for use in law.”
Rainey, S., Martin, S., Christen, A., Mégevand, P., & Fourneret, E.. (2020). Brain Recording, Mind-Reading, and Neurotechnology: Ethical Issues from Consumer Devices to Brain-Based Speech Decoding. Science and Engineering Ethics
“Brain reading technologies are rapidly being developed in a number of neuroscience fields. these technologies can record, process, and decode neural signals. this has been described as ‘mind reading technology’ in some instances, especially in popular media. should the public at large, be concerned about this kind of technology? can it really read minds? concerns about mind-reading might include the thought that, in having one’s mind open to view, the possibility for free deliberation, and for self-conception, are eroded where one isn’t at liberty to privately mull things over. themes including privacy, cognitive liberty, and self-conception and expression appear to be areas of vital ethical concern. overall, this article explores whether brain reading technologies are really mind reading technologies. if they are, ethical ways to deal with them must be developed. if they are not, researchers and technology developers need to find ways to describe them more accurately, in order to dispel unwarranted concerns and address appropriately those that are warranted.”
Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2021). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and Neurotechnology. Analisis Filosofico
“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”
Wolpe, P. R.. (2017). Neuroprivacy and cognitive liberty. In The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics
“The term ‘‘cognitive liberty’’ has been used in a variety of ways. in general, it refers to the degree to which an individual has the right to control his or her own mental and emotional brain processes against the desires of external agents, especially the state, to control or access them. it is largely reflective of the value of neuroprivacy, the idea that privacy rights extend to a citizen’s brain, and that if privacy has any meaning at all, it must mean one’s right to protect the contents of one’s brain (i.e., one’s thoughts, emotions, and other subjective states). these terms are relatively recent concepts, reactions to the development of neurotechnologies that are beginning to allow unprecedented access to the inner workings of the brain. the values they reflect, however, have a long pedigree.”
Walsh, C.. (2014). Beyond religious freedom: Psychedelics and cognitive liberty. In Prohibition, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights: Regulating Traditional Drug Use
“This chapter will examine the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular when it comes to psychedelic experiences, and the inevitable ensuing arbitrariness involved in protecting some such rituals and not others. it will put forth the argument that there is a need to move beyond simply seeking exemptions from drug prohibition in the name of religious freedom; rather, there should be a broader right to ingest psychedelics as an aspect of cognitive liberty. cognitive liberty is the right to control one’s own consciousness. it is a concept that equates to freedom of thought, a right protected internationally by the universal declaration of human rights and enforceable in europe through article 9 of the european convention of human rights.”
White, A. E.. (2010). The lie of fMRI: An examination of the ethics of a market in lie detection using functional magnetic resonance imaging. HEC Forum
“The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed unattainable. elites, in the classical millsian sense of those taking tacitly coordinated ‘big decisions’ over the rest of the public, seemed absent. this article argues that the eradication of jurisdictional elites is an effect of neoliberalism, as articulated most coherently by hayek. it characterizes the neoliberal project as an effort to elevate ‘unconscious’ processes over ‘conscious’ ones, which in practice means elevating cybernetic, non- human systems and processes over discursive spheres of politics and judgement. yet such a system still produces its own types of elite power, which come to consist in acts of translation, rather than judgement. firstly, there are ‘cyborg intermediaries’: elites which operate largely within the system of codes, data, screens and prices. secondly, there are ‘diplomatic intermediaries’: elites who come to narrate and justify what markets (and associated technologies and bodies) are ‘saying’. the paper draws on lazzarato’s work on signifying vs asignifying semiotics in order to articulate this, and concludes by considering the types of elite crisis which these forms of power tend to produce.”
Foster, J. B., & Holleman, H.. (2010). The Financial Power Elite. Monthly Review
“The article presents an historical overview of the emergence of the financial sector within the u.s. banking system, focusing on the developments of the end of the 20th century which led to the formation of a financial elite. introductory comments are given noting the rise and fall of different regulatory regimes within the u.s. banking sector in the first half of the century up to 1980. in-depth discussion is then provided highlighting the concentration of the financial sector as a dominant force in the nation’s economy up to the events of the 2008 global financial crisis and the return of political demands for regulation.”
Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J., Ditto, P., & Haidt, J.. (2012). Understanding libertarian morality: The psychological dispositions of self-identified libertarians. PLoS ONE
“Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in u.s. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. as predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes.”
Boire, R.. (2000). On Cognitive Liberty. In Journal of Cognitive Liberties
“Mirando la pagina de este hombre resulta que es un abogado que dirige un centro por el derecho a la libertad cognitiva y dirigia una revista del mismo nombre que defiende el derecho a mi propio cerebro, especialmente en (a) nadie me puede obligar a tomar psicofarmacos (b) tengo todo el derecho a consumar las drogas que me de la gana (incluyendo marihuana, cannabis etc”
Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2017). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Life Sciences, Society and Policy
“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”
Shanker, S. G.. (2009). Three concepts of liberty. In After Cognitivism: A Reassessment of Cognitive Science and Philosophy
Rindermann, H.. (2012). Intellectual classes, technological progress and economic development: The rise of cognitive capitalism. Personality and Individual Differences
SENTENTIA, W.. (2006). Neuroethical Considerations: Cognitive Liberty and Converging Technologies for Improving Human Cognition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
“Developers of nbic (nano-bio-info-cogno) technologies face a multitude of obstacles, not the least of which is navigating the public ethics of their applied research. biotechnologies have received widespread media attention and spawned heated interest in their perceived social implications. now, in view of the rapidly expanding purview of neuroscience and the growing array of technologic developments capable of affecting or monitoring cognition, the emerging field of neuroethics calls for a consideration of the social and ethical implications of neuroscientific discoveries and trends. to negotiate the complex ethical issues at stake in new and emerging kinds of technologies for improving human cognition, we need to overcome political, disciplinary, and religious sectarianism. we need analytical models that protect values of personhood at the heart of a functional democracy-values that allow, as much as possible, for individual decision-making, despite transformations in our understanding and ability to manipulate cognitive processes. addressing cognitive enhancement from the legal and ethical notion of ‘cognitive liberty’ provides a powerful tool for assessing and encouraging nbic developments.”
Desai, A. C.. (2011). Libertarian Paternalism, Externalities, and the “Spirit of Liberty”: How Thaler and Sunstein Are Nudging Us toward an “Overlapping Consensus”. Law and Social Inquiry, 36(1), 263–295.
“In their 2008 book nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, andnhappiness, richard thaler and cass sunstein use research from psychologynand behavioral economics to argue that people suffer from systematicncognitive biases. they propose that policy makers mitigate these biasesnby framing people’s choices in ways that help people act in their ownnself-interest. thaler and sunstein call this approach “libertariannpaternalism,{’’} and they market it as “the real third way.{’’} in thisnessay, i argue that the book is a brilliant contribution to thinkingnabout policy making but that “choice architecture{’’} is not just ansolution to the problem of cognitive biases. rather, it is a means ofnapproaching any kind of policy making. i further argue that policynmakers must take externalities into account, even when using choicenarchitecture. finally, i argue that libertarian paternalism can best benseen as motivated by what sunstein has celebrated in his work onnconstitutional theory: a humility about the possibility of policy-makernerror embodied in learned hand’s famous aphorism about the “spirit ofnliberty{’’} and an attempt to reduce social conflicts by searching fornwhat john rawls called an “overlapping consensus.{’’}.”
Pustilnik, A. C.. (2012). Neurotechnologies at the intersection of criminal procedure and constitutional law. In The Constitution and the Future of Criminal Justice in America
“The rapid development of neurotechnologies poses novel constitutional issues for criminal law and criminal procedure. these technologies can identify directly from brain waves whether a person is familiar with a stimulus like a face or a weapon, can model blood flow in the brain to indicate whether a person is lying, and can even interfere with brain processes themselves via high-powered magnets to cause a person to be less likely to lie to an investigator. these technologies implicate the constitutional privilege against compelled, self-incriminating speech under the fifth amendment and the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure under the fourth amendment of the united states constitution. law enforcement use of these technologies will not just require extending existing constitutional doctrine to cover new facts but will challenge these doctrines’ foundations. this short chapter discusses cognitive privacy and liberty under the fourth and fifth amendments, showing how current jurisprudence under both amendments stumbles on limited and limiting distinctions between the body and the mind, the physical and the informational. brain processes and emanations sit at the juncture of these categories. this chapter proposes a way to transcend these limitations while remaining faithful to precedent, extending these important constitutional protections into a new era of direct access to the brain/mind.”
Various different start dates for the Anthropocene have been proposed, ranging from the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution 12,000–15,000 years ago, to as recent as the Trinity test in 1945. As of February 2018, the ratification process continues and thus a date remains to be decided definitively, but the latter date has been more favored than others.
The most recent period of the Anthropocene has been referred to by several authors as the Great Acceleration during which the socioeconomic and earth system trends are increasing dramatically, especially after the Second World War. For instance, the Geological Society termed the year 1945 as The Great Acceleration.[9]
Further References
Dirzo, R., Young, H. S., Galetti, M., Ceballos, G., Isaac, N. J. B., & Collen, B.. (2014). Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science
“We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species and population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundance. particularly, human impacts on animal biodiversity are an under-recognized form of global environmental change. among terrestrial vertebrates, 322 species have become extinct since 1500, and populations of the remaining species show 25% average decline in abundance. invertebrate patterns are equally dire: 67% of monitored populations show 45% mean abundance decline. such animal declines will cascade onto ecosystem functioning and human well-being. much remains unknown about this ‘anthropocene defaunation’; these knowledge gaps hinder our capacity to predict and limit defaunation impacts. clearly, however, defaunation is both a pervasive component of the planet’s sixth mass extinction and also a major driver of global ecological change.”
Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R.. (2007). The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment
“We explore the development of the anthropocene, the current epoch in which humans and our societies have become a global geophysical force. the anthropocene began around 1800 with the onset of industrialization, the central feature of which was the enormous expansion in the use of fossil fuels. we use atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration as a single, simple indicator to track the progression of the anthropocene. from a preindustrial value of 270-275 ppm, atmospheric carbon dioxide had risen to about 310 ppm by 1950. since then the human enterprise has experienced a remarkable explosion, the great acceleration, with significant consequences for earth system functioning. atmospheric co2 concentration has risen from 310 to 380 ppm since 1950, with about half of the total rise since the preindustrial era occurring in just the last 30 years. the great acceleration is reaching criticality. whatever unfolds, the next few decades will surely be a tipping point in the evolution of the anthropocene.”
Lewis, S. L., & Maslin, M. A.. (2015). Defining the Anthropocene. Nature
“The start of the period of large-scale human effects on this planet (the anthropocene) is debated. the industrial view holds that most significant impacts have occurred since the early industrial era (∼1850), whereas the early-anthropogenic view recognizes large impacts thousands of years earlier. this review focuses on three indices of global-scale human influence: forest clearance (and related land use), emissions of greenhouse gases (co2 and ch4), and effects on global temperature. because reliable, systematic land-use surveys are rare prior to 1950, most reconstructions for early-industrial centuries and prior millennia are hind casts that assume humans have used roughly the same amount of land per person for 7,000 years. but this assumption is incorrect. historical data and new archeological databases reveal much greater per-capita land use in preindustrial than in recent centuries. this early forest clearance caused much greater preindustrial greenhouse-gas emissions and global temperature changes t…”
Crutzen, P. J.. (2006). The anthropocene. In Earth System Science in the Anthropocene
“Human activities are exerting increasing impacts on the environment on all scales, in many ways outcompeting natural processes. this includes the manufacturing of hazardous chemical compounds which are not produced by nature, such as for instance the chlorofluorocarbon gases which are responsible for the ‘ozone hole’. because human activities have also grown to become significant geological forces, for instance through land use changes, deforestation and fossil fuel burning, it is justified to assign the term ‘anthropocene’ to the current geological epoch. this epoch may be defined to have started about two centuries ago, coinciding with james watt’s design of the steam engine in 1784.”
Douglas, I.. (2018). Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. In Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene
“OBJECTIVE: contraction of cardiac myocytes is initiated by ca(2+) entry through the voltage-dependent l-type ca(2+) channel (ltcc). previous studies have shown that phosphatidylinositol (pi) 3-kinase signaling modulates ltcc function. because pi 3-kinases are key mediators of insulin action, we investigated whether ltcc function is affected in diabetic animals due to reduced pi 3-kinase signaling. research design and methods: we used whole-cell patch clamping and biochemical assays to compare cardiac ltcc function and pi 3-kinase signaling in insulin-deficient diabetic mice heterozygous for the ins2(akita) mutation versus nondiabetic littermates. results: diabetic mice had a cardiac contractility defect, reduced pi 3-kinase signaling in the heart, and decreased l-type ca(2+) current (i(ca,l)) density in myocytes compared with control nondiabetic littermates. the lower i(ca,l) density in myocytes from diabetic mice is due at least in part to reduced cell surface expression of the ltcc. i(ca,l) density in myocytes from diabetic mice was increased to control levels by insulin treatment or intracellular infusion of pi 3,4,5-trisphosphate pi(3,4,5)p(3). this stimulatory effect was blocked by taxol, suggesting that pi(3,4,5)p(3) stimulates microtubule-dependent trafficking of the ltcc to the cell surface. the voltage dependence of steady-state activation and inactivation of i(ca,l) was also shifted to more positive potentials in myocytes from diabetic versus nondiabetic animals. pi(3,4,5)p(3) infusion eliminated only the difference in voltage dependence of steady-state inactivation of i(ca,l). conclusions: decreased pi 3-kinase signaling in myocytes from type 1 diabetic mice leads to reduced ca(2+) entry through the ltcc, which might contribute to the negative effect of diabetes on cardiac contractility.”
Hughes, T. P., Barnes, M. L., Bellwood, D. R., Cinner, J. E., Cumming, G. S., Jackson, J. B. C., … Scheffer, M.. (2017). Coral reefs in the Anthropocene. Nature
“The question at once arises, how is it that even the stoutest corals, resting with broad base upon the ground, and doubly secure from their spreading proportions, become so easily a prey to the action of the same sea which they met shortly before with such effectual resistance? the solution of this enigma is to be found in the mode of growth of the corals themselves. living in communities, death begins first at the base or centre of the group, while the surface or tips still continue to grow, so that it resembles a dying centennial tree, rotten at the heart, but still apparently green and flourishing without, till the first heavy gale of wind snaps the hollow trunk, and betrays its decay. again, innumerable boring animals establish themselves in the lifeless stem, piercing holes in all directions into its interior, like so many augurs, dissolving its solid connexion with the ground, and even penetrating far into the living portion of these compact communities. l. agassiz (1852) abstract bioerosion, involving the weakening and breakdown of calcareous coral reef structures, is due to the chemical and mechanical activities of numerous and diverse biotic agents. these range in size from minute, primarily intra-skeletal organisms, the microborers (e.g., algae, fungi, bacteria) to larger and often externally-visible macroboring invertebrate (e.g., sponges, polychaete worms, sipunculans, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoids) and fish (e.g., parrotfishes, acanthurids, pufferfishes) species. constructive coral reef growth and destruc-tive bioerosive processes are often in close balance. dead corals are generally subject to higher rates of bioerosion than living corals, therefore, bioerosion and reef degradation can result from disturbances that cause coral mortality, such as sedimentation, eutrophication, pollution, temperature extremes, predation, and coral diseases. the effects of intensive coral reef bioerosion, involving el niño-southern oscillation, acanthaster predation, watershed alterations, and over-fishing, are re-examined after ~20 years (early 1990s–2010). we review the evidence showing that the biologically-mediated dissolution of calcium carbonate structures by endolithic algae and clionaid sponges will be accelerated with ocean acidification. the caco 3 budget dynamics of caribbean and eastern tropical pacific reefs is reviewed and provides sobering case studies on the current state of coral reefs and their future in a high-co 2 world.”
Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P., & Mcneill, J.. (2011). The anthropocene: Conceptual and historical perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
“The human imprint on the global environment has now become so large and active that it rivals some of the great forces of nature in its impact on the functioning of the earth system. although global-scale human influence on the environment has been recognized since the 1800s, the term anthropocene, introduced about a decade ago, has only recently become widely, but informally, used in the global change research community. however, the term has yet to be accepted formally as a new geological epoch or era in earth history. in this paper, we put forward the case for formally recognizing the anthropocene as a new epoch in earth history, arguing that the advent of the industrial revolution around 1800 provides a logical start date for the new epoch. we then explore recent trends in the evolution of the anthropocene as humanity proceeds into the twenty-first century, focusing on the profound changes to our relationship with the rest of the living world and on early attempts and proposals for managing our relationship with the large geophysical cycles that drive the earthâ€TMs climate system.”
Smith, B. D., & Zeder, M. A.. (2013). The onset of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene
“For centuries, biogeographers have examined the factors that produce patterns of biodiversity across regions. the study of islands has proved particularly fruitful and has led to the theory that geographic area and isolation influence species colonization, extinction and speciation such that larger islands have more species and isolated islands have fewer species (that is, positive species–area and negative species–isolation relationships). however, experimental tests of this theory have been limited, owing to the difficulty in experimental manipulation of islands at the scales at which speciation and long-distance colonization are relevant. here we have used the human-aided transport of exotic anole lizards among caribbean islands as such a test at an appropriate scale. in accord with theory, as anole colonizations have increased, islands impoverished in native species have gained the most exotic species, the past influence of speciation on island biogeography has been obscured, and the species–area relationship has strengthened while the species–isolation relationship has weakened. moreover, anole biogeography increasingly reflects anthropogenic rather than geographic processes. unlike the island biogeography of the past that was determined by geographic area and isolation, in the anthropocene—an epoch proposed for the present time interval—island biogeography is dominated by the economic isolation of human populations.”
Malhi, Y., Gardner, T. A., Goldsmith, G. R., Silman, M. R., & Zelazowski, P.. (2014). Tropical Forests in the Anthropocene. SSRN
“The anthropocene is characterized as an epoch when human influence has begun to fundamentally alter many aspects of the earth system and many of the planet’s biomes. here, we review and synthesize our understanding of anthropocene changes in tropical forests. key facets include deforestation driven by agricultural expansion, timber and wood extraction, the loss of fauna that maintain critical ecological connections, the spread of fire, landscape fragmentation, the spread of second-growth forests, new species invasion and pathogen spread, increasing co, and climate change. the patterns of change are spatially heterogeneous, are often characterized by strong interactions among different drivers, can have both large-scale and remote effects, and can play out through ecological cascades over long timescales. as a consequence, most tropical forests are on a trajectory to becoming altered ecosystems, with the degree of alteration dependent on the intensity and duration of the current bottleneck of human-induced pressures. we highlight the importance of this understanding to develop the strategies necessary for shaping the transition of tropical forests through the early anthropocene, as well as highlight the opportunities and challenges for the tropical forest science community in the coming decades.”
Corlett, R. T.. (2015). The Anthropocene concept in ecology and conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution
“The term ‘Anthropocene’ was first used in the year 2000 to refer to the current time period in which human impacts are at least as important as natural processes. it is currently being considered as a potential geological epoch, following on from the holocene. while most environmental scientists accept that many key environmental parameters are now outside their holocene ranges, there is no agreement on when the anthropocene started, with plausible dates ranging from the late pleistocene megafaunal extinctions to the recent globalization of industrial impacts. in ecology, the anthropocene concept has focused attention on human-dominated habitats and novel ecosystems, while in conservation biology it has sparked a divisive debate on the continued relevance of the traditional biocentric aims.”
Paul J. Crutzen, & Eugene F. Stoermer. (2000). The “Anthropocene”. Global Change Newsletter
“The international geosphere–biosphere programme (igbp): a study of global change of the international council for science (icsu) sustaining earth’s life support systems – the challenge for the next decade and beyond”
Van Loon, A. F., Gleeson, T., Clark, J., Van Dijk, A. I. J. M., Stahl, K., Hannaford, J., … Van Lanen, H. A. J.. (2016). Drought in the Anthropocene. Nature Geoscience
“Drought management is inefficient because feedbacks between drought and people are not fully understood. in this human-influenced era, we need to rethink the concept of drought to include the human role in mitigating and enhancing drought.”
Lorimer, J.. (2012). Multinatural geographies for the Anthropocene. Progress in Human Geography
“The recent diagnosis of the anthropocene represents the public death of the modern understanding of nature removed from society. it also challenges the modern science-politics settlement, where natural sci- ence speaks for a stable, objective nature. this paper reviews recent efforts to develop ‘multinatural’ alter- natives that provide an environmentalism that need not make recourse to nature. focusing on biodiversity conservation, the paper draws together work in the social and natural sciences to present an interdisciplinary biogeography for conservation in the anthropocene. this approach is developed through an engagement with the critiques of neoliberal natures offered by political ecology.”
Biermann, F., Abbott, K., Andresen, S., Bäckstrand, K., Bernstein, S., Betsill, M. M., … Zondervan, R.. (2012). Navigating the anthropocene: Improving earth system governance. Science
“Science assessments indicate that human activities are moving several of earth’s sub-systems outside the range of natural variability typical for the previous 500,000 years (1, 2). human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change (3). this requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective earth system governance and planetary stewardship.”
Zalasiewicz, J. A. N., Williams, M., Steffen, W., & Crutzen, P.. (2010). The new world of the anthropocene. Environmental Science and Technology
“The anthropocene, following the lost world of the holocene, holds challenges for both science and society.”
Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J., Summerhayes, C., Barnosky, A. D., Poirier, C., Gałuszka, A., … Wolfe, A. P.. (2016). The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science
“Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on earth. vigorous debate continues about whether this warrants recognition as a new geologic time unit known as the anthropocene.we review anthropogenic markers of functional changes in the earth system through the stratigraphic record. the appearance of manufactured materials in sediments, including aluminum, plastics, and concrete, coincides with global spikes in fallout radionuclides and particulates from fossil fuel combustion. carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles have been substantially modified over the past century. rates of sea-level rise and the extent of human perturbation of the climate system exceed late holocene changes. biotic changes include species invasions worldwide and accelerating rates of extinction. these combined signals render the anthropocene stratigraphically distinct from the holocene and earlier epochs.”
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Haywood, A., & Ellis, M.. (2011). The anthropocene: A new epoch of geological time?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
“Anthropogenic changes to the earthâ€TMs climate, land, oceans and biosphere are now so great and so rapid that the concept of a new geological epoch defined by the action of humans, the anthropocene, is widely and seriously debated. questions of the scale, magnitude and significance of this environmental change, particularly in the context of the earthâ€TMs geological history, provide the basis for this theme issue. the anthropocene, on current evidence, seems to show global change consistent with the suggestion that an epoch-scale boundary has been crossed within the last two centuries.”
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Ivar do Sul, J. A., Corcoran, P. L., Barnosky, A. D., Cearreta, A., … Yonan, Y.. (2016). The geological cycle of plastics and their use as a stratigraphic indicator of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene
“The rise of plastics since the mid-20th century, both as a material element of modern life and as a growing environmental pollutant, has been widely described. their distribution in both the terrestrial and marine realms suggests that they are a key geological indicator of the anthropocene, as a distinctive stratal component. most immediately evident in terrestrial deposits, they are clearly becoming widespread in marine sedimentary deposits in both shallow- and deep-water settings. they are abundant and widespread as macroscopic fragments and virtually ubiquitous as microplastic particles; these are dispersed by both physical and biological processes, not least via the food chain and the ‘faecal express’ route from surface to sea floor. plastics are already widely dispersed in sedimentary deposits, and their amount seems likely to grow several-fold over the next few decades. they will continue to be input into the sedimentary cycle over coming millennia as temporary stores – landfill sites – are eroded. plastics already enable fine time resolution within anthropocene deposits via the development of their different types and via the artefacts (‘technofossils’) they are moulded into, and many of these may have long-term preservation potential when buried in strata.”
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Williams, M., Barnosky, A. D., Cearreta, A., Crutzen, P., … Oreskes, N.. (2015). When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quaternary International
“We evaluate the boundary of the anthropocene geological time interval as an epoch, since it is useful to have a consistent temporal definition for this increasingly used unit, whether the presently informal term is eventually formalized or not. of the three main levels suggested – an ‘early anthropocene’ level some thousands of years ago; the beginning of the industrial revolution at ~1800 ce (common era); and the ‘great acceleration’ of the mid-twentieth century – current evidence suggests that the last of these has the most pronounced and globally synchronous signal. a boundary at this time need not have a global boundary stratotype section and point (gssp or ’golden spike’) but can be defined by a global standard stratigraphic age (gssa), i.e. a point in time of the human calendar. we propose an appropriate boundary level here to be the time of the world’s first nuclear bomb explosion, on july 16th 1945 at alamogordo, new mexico; additional bombs were detonated at the average rate of one every 9.6 days until 1988 with attendant worldwide fallout easily identifiable in the chemostratigraphic record. hence, anthropocene deposits would be those that may include the globally distributed primary artificial radionuclide signal, while also being recognized using a wide range of other stratigraphic criteria. this suggestion for the holocene-anthropocene boundary may ultimately be superseded, as the anthropocene is only in its early phases, but it should remain practical and effective for use by at least the current generation of scientists.”
Lewis, S. L., & Maslin, M. A.. (2018). Welcome to the anthropocene. IPPR Progressive Review
“The term anthropocene, proposed and increasingly employed to denote the current interval of anthropogenic global environmental change, may be discussed on stratigraphic grounds. a case can be made for its consideration as a formal epoch in that, since the start of the industrial revolution, earth has endured changes sufficient to leave a global stratigraphic signature distinct from that of the holocene or of previous pleistocene interglacial phases, encompassing novel biotic, sedimentary, and geochemical change. these changes, although likely only in their initial phases, are sufficiently distinct and robustly established for suggestions of a holocene–anthropocene boundary in the recent historical past to be geologically reasonable. the boundary may be defined either via global stratigraphic section and point (‘golden spike’) locations or by adopting a numerical date. formal adoption of this term in the near future will largely depend on its utility, particularly to earth scientists working on late holocene successions. this datum, from the perspective of the far future, will most probably approximate a distinctive stratigraphic boundary.”
SANDERSON, E. W., JAITEH, M., LEVY, M. A., REDFORD, K. H., WANNEBO, A. V., & WOOLMER, G.. (2002). The Human Footprint and the Last of the Wild. BioScience
“Discusses the impact of human influence on ecosystems. consumption demands of the human population; reference to the cumulative effect of local changes on nature as the ‘anthropocene’ geological epoc; negligence by the human community of its influence on nature; presentation of a ‘human footprint map’ that illustrates the global phenomenom of human influence on nature; data used to develop the map, including human population density, land transformation, human access, and power infrastructure.”
Verburg, P. H., Crossman, N., Ellis, E. C., Heinimann, A., Hostert, P., Mertz, O., … Zhen, L.. (2015). Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system: A global land project perspective. Anthropocene
“Land systems are the result of human interactions with the natural environment. understanding the drivers, state, trends and impacts of different land systems on social and natural processes helps to reveal how changes in the land system affect the functioning of the socio-ecological system as a whole and the tradeoff these changes may represent. the global land project has led advances by synthesizing land systems research across different scales and providing concepts to further understand the feedbacks between social-and environmental systems, between urban and rural environments and between distant world regions. land system science has moved from a focus on observation of change and understanding the drivers of these changes to a focus on using this understanding to design sustainable transformations through stakeholder engagement and through the concept of land governance. as land use can be seen as the largest geo-engineering project in which mankind has engaged, land system science can act as a platform for integration of insights from different disciplines and for translation of knowledge into action.”
