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I must admit, that I feel quite passionate about this subject. It all started for me 5 years ago, when I read "Empty Planet, the Shock of Global Population Decline" by two Canadian researchers. I had no clue before of the speed of this decline. Thus, with more figures and details, the "Sciences Po" professor David Duhamel elaborates on this theme in "Un Monde sans Enfants" that was published in '24 and that I strongly recommend as it's not only very very interesting but also very well written... Sorry if it's a bit of a long summary, but it's just the reflection about how interested I am about the subject... Enjoy!

K has sent this interesting podcast to kick start this category with a direct connection between the economy and Europe's political situation...

Let's start easy... The famous naturalist David Attenborough is probably one of the earliest crusaders in favor of the environment and biodiveristy. His book (and subsequent film), "A Life on Our Planet" is a must read, to take a step back and get a more holistic view to the climate change problems that we read about everyday.
Check the trailer of his film, that you can watch on Netflix :
https://www.ourplanet.com/en/video/david-attenborough-a-life-on-our-planet-trailer/

Further down, let's have a look at how critical our Earth condition is with 6 of 9 Plantary boundaries breached...

Let's start by taking a look at what has made civilisations fail and empire collapse... Two books have meant a lot to me in ploughing through these topics : "After Tamerlane, The Rise and Fall of Global Empires 1400-2000" by John Darwin and "Immoderate Greatness, Why Civilizations fail" by William Ophuls. I have chosen some excerpts below

RAGE AND TIME, Peter Sloterdijk
November 2025

In "The End of History and the Last Man," written in 1992, Francis Fukuyama builds a significant portion of his explanation for the evolution of our societies on the eminently strategic and complex notion of thymos. This concept, borrowed from Hegel but not invented by him (see below), proves to be as old as political philosophy itself. Thymos refers to that by which humankind has differed from animals from the very beginning: the desire for recognition. This is a driving force as powerful as the instinct for self-preservation. One could also translate this notion as pride, self-esteem, or the quest for dignity. Here we have the part of the personality that is at the root of emotions such as pride, anger, or shame.
In Rage and Time (or Zorn und Zeit, published in 2006), the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk analyzes the Homeric, biblical, Leninist, and anarchist forms of anger to demonstrate how this initially instinctive emotion has developed into a global reservoir of vengeance, where the feelings of the oppressed serve as a springboard to power. He concludes with the latest major movement to harness anger (at the time of the book's publication…), namely political Islam, and finally announces the conditions for the advent of a world without Resentment.

The last time I felt real anger was about fifteen years ago, when my partners literally kicked me out of the company we had built together. One of them didn't stop there; he also implied that I'd be better off giving up business development, my profession for the past 25 years, for administrative tasks that would suit me better. It felt like being kicked in the gut when I was already down. In short, for many months afterward, I would wake up at night imagining myself ripping them apart one after the other… My anger stemmed from the humiliation I felt, as well as a strong sense of injustice. In retrospect, I now think it was certainly one of the most formative and transformative episodes of my life.

Suffice it to say, this book captivated me, not only for the insight it provided into my own experience, but also for its historical analysis of anger in society and throughout history. After defining the physiological origins of anger, Peter Sloterdijk traces the history of the concept of thymos back to its Greek origins, elaborating on the channeling of anger as a structuring element of society in Christianity, Communism, and then political Islam, without neglecting a look at its driving forces and its explosions in revolutions or acts of vandalism. Twenty years have passed since "Rage and Time" was written. It naturally remains highly relevant, although new movements that capture anger, primarily fueled and channeled by populism and the far right, have exacerbated the polarization of Western societies. These are themes often explored in this blog…

Below you will find excerpts and passages that I found most relevant.

But first, a quick reminder with the Larousse French dictionary’s definition of anger : A violent and temporary emotional state resulting from a feeling of aggression or unpleasantness, expressing strong dissatisfaction and accompanied by harsh reactions. The Oxford English Dictionary is more straight to the point… ): a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. Funny enough (or ?) it also says that anger is a borrowing from early scandinavian.
Enjoy!

Why are our democracies in danger ?

Just as an intro to this section, a quick view on religion by a French sociologist, Edouard Bohler in his essay "Où est le Sens?" To be followed...

As a first thematic, I have chosen the difficult and quite "French" subject of "Laïcité" which is translated by "secularism". The anglo-saxon world is not very familiar with this notion, as the choice has been made in those societies to allow for more liberty in expressing one's religious beliefs.

AI : Demystifying the Technology and Diving in to its Moral Dilemmas and Future Trajectory

L’Empire de l’Ombre (The Shadow Empire)
Guerre et Terre au temps de l’IA (War and Earth in AI times)

Le Grand Continent is a recent online magazine focusing on Geopolitical questions, being edited by the « Groupe d’Etudes Géopolitiques », an independent research center based at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and recognized as being of general interest.

They edit and print an annual review on specific topics, based on articles, written by specialists, of which this one came out in 2025.

Its main focus is on the development of the alliance between Big Tech and the US government under Trump with outspoken plans, that send shivers in your back. In this review, introduced by Giuliano da Empoli (author of « Le Mage du Kremlin », « Les Ingénieurs du Chaos », and « The Hour of the Predators »), several authors, economists, and key figures of today’s technological developments give their views on general or more specific factors of this development. Among others, one of Silicon Valley’s main investors, Perter Thiel (on his libertarian views), Sam Altman (founder of Open AI) on the future of AI, or Marc Andreessen, another heavy weight Silicon Valley investor on the techno-optimist movement…

In the magazine, you will also read excerpts from Mario Draghi’s big research, published last year on Europe’s needs to reform and other contributions on the threats for Europe of the American « Techno-Cesars ». I strongly recommend to read it.

Below, some excerpts that struck me…