David Pennington

But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted half a century ago that the role of the writer is “to lift people up, not lower them down” — a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society.

The “Silurian Hypothesis” is a fun thought experiment.

It posits Earth may have had advanced civilizations in the deep past that we are, today, unaware of. Why wouldn’t we know about them? Because if they existed millions of years ago and died out, their architecture would be long gone. “No ruins of ancient football stadiums, highways or housing... See more

Perhaps the immutable error of parenthood is that we give our children what we wanted, whether they want it or not.”

This is all, unfortunately, a microcosm of the problems we face. We’re up against a system that views and treats hyper short-term profits as more important than our collective future. We’re up against corporations and ways of doing business that would ignite the planet before letting their profits fall – and that’s exactly what they’re doing. We,... See more

“Right now, we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and the practice of an art.”

“People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.”

Two years later, I’m still asked about them. People want to know: Did they stay on the Luddite path? Or were they dragged back into the tech abyss?