The Anthropocene is the epoch in which humans became a geological force. I use the word all the time and I've criticized it for just as long, because it naturalizes what particular humans did and it erases everyone else's agency.
How the word moved
I first used it in August 2016 and kept using it. In December 2018 I rejected it in favour of Geocracy - geological comparisons deny agency, and the orangutans deserve a better term. In July 2020 I called it Stuffistan in disguise. By November 2025 I'd found what I think is its core: the force is metabolic, and it's driven by industrial capitalism rather than some abstract Anthropos. In February 2026 I mentioned, in passing, that geologists have rejected it.
In my words
"The Orangutans we are wiping out in the name of biofuels deserve a better term."
from Geocracy, 11 Dec 2018
"This force is metabolic at its very core."
from Bhumics: Weekly Planet #12. Metabolic Sovereignty Revisited, 10 Nov 2025
Related
- Inherited from Dipesh Chakrabarty - I inherit his theses on climate and history.
- Contradicts Geocracy - the word I proposed against it in 2018.
- Related Stuffistan - what the Anthropocene is, in disguise.
- Related Indian Anthropocene - the same epoch seen from India.
- Related Perfectionism and Productionism - productionist anthropocentrism is the Anthropocene's mindset.
Still open
I rejected the term in 2018 and I'm still using it. I don't know if that's pragmatism or bad faith.