Policy and Critique

The political corruption and water theft that fueled the development of the American West.

An exploration of the American West's water crisis, from early explorers to modern engineering disasters, revealing the hubris of trying to remake a desert into farmland.

Explore the early explorers who understood the American West's arid nature and the folly of trying to settle it like the East.

Despite repeated disasters, societies fail to learn. This isn't forgetfulness—it's a political choice with predictable beneficiaries.

Pandemics expose fault lines in society and often catalyze lasting political change—for better or worse.

Earthquakes don't just destroy buildings—they expose the quality of governance and often catalyze profound political change.

Famines are never purely natural. Every famine is shaped by political decisions—who controls food, who gets access, and who is allowed to starve.

Disasters devastate the many but enrich the few. Understanding elite disaster strategies reveals how catastrophe reinforces rather than challenges existing power structures.

Every disaster forces brutal choices about who to save and who to abandon. These decisions—explicit in crisis, implicit in policy—reveal society's true values.

Cities that burn repeatedly do so for political reasons, not just technical ones. Fire policy reveals who matters—and who can be sacrificed to the flames.