True history
Art
After a freewheeling, decade-long “vacation from history” at the tail end of the 20th century, the opening decade of the 21st abruptly returned us to a world fraught with fragility and surprise. And this new context is here to stay.
Each week, it seems, brings some unforeseen disruption, blooming amid the thicket of overlapping social, political, economic, technological and environmental systems that govern our lives. They arrive at a quickening, yet erratic pace, from unexpected quarters, stubbornly resistant to prediction. The most significant become culture touchstones, referred to in staccato shorthand: Katrina. Haiti. BP. Fukushima. The Crash. The Great Recession. The London Mob. The Arab Spring. Other nameless disruptions swell their ranks, amplified by slowly creeping vulnerabilities: a Midwestern town is undone by economic dislocation; a company is obliterated by globalization; a way of life is rendered impossible by an ecological shift; a debt crisis emerges from political intractability. If it feels like the pace of these disruptions is increasing, it’s not just you: it took just six months for 2011 to become the costliest year on record for natural disasters*, a fact that insurance companies tie unambiguously to climate change. Yet nobody can be sure where the next disruption will come from: in our densely and globally interconnected world, the ‘black swans’ are baked in.
In the face of such unavoidable volatility, what factors cause some communities, individuals, ecosystems, institutions and economies to break down, and which enable them to bounce back?
That simple, and increasingly central question is at the heart of a new field, and an important new strategic conversation, centered on resilience.
Image via Thai Flood Hacks
TIME’s 2011 Person of the Year is The Protester
“As soon as you cross the line of fear it just happens,” explained Shima’a Helmy (PopTech 2011) in detailing how she began protesting in Egypt and has become one of the country’s youngest activists who led that country’s uprising.
Now a full-time human rights activist, Helmy joined filmmakers and friends Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carlton onstage at PopTech to talk about their collaboration on an upcoming documentary film If. The film will explore what it’s like being a young revolutionary through the eyes of four different Egyptian women (including Helmy), although as Garen states, their story is far from over.
Belfast December Meetup
The Tumblr community in Northern Ireland likes to get together in a big way, and they’ve just created a blog that proves it: NI Tumblr Family. They’ve already posted more than 100 meetup photos in just a few days!
On that note, several others have created Meetup blogs for their own towns and universities. Here are some of our favorites:
![poptech:
Lightning bolts strike around the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain near southern Osorno city [in Chile], on June 5, 2011. (Reuters/Ivan Alvarado)
(via The Atlantic’s Year in Volcanic Activity slideshow)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwgxm0eck21qziqyeo1_500.jpg)
Lightning bolts strike around the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain near southern Osorno city [in Chile], on June 5, 2011. (Reuters/Ivan Alvarado)
Amazing account of an encounter with a 45-foot whale under the Antarctic ice. Talk about getting the picture.
Holy hannah!
Henning Larson - Harpa concert hall and conference center, Reykjavik 2011.
This where we’re having our conference in Iceland!
