Become Aware Of It, Pay Attention To It. Read About It, Learn About It, Write About It, Talk About It. Teach It.
Reflections upon anything under the sun and beyond. It may not be easy to be a Global Citizen, but it's not hard to engage the Globe.
Live - My Dinner with Andre
My friend shared a clip from the film, "My Dinner With Andre", on Facebook today. I saw My Dinner With Andre way back 1981 when it came out and was astounded because I kept thinking while watching that those were my people up there; I thought, in this world people actually talk like me, and also that some people actually have these kinds of conversations at dinner.
I thought this kind of thing was so rare that you only encountered it once in a blue moon in urban restaurants with urbane people taking a frantic pause from their self-important lives over a meal they could hardly eat in between breaths punctuated by white water duologues.
Eves dropping in restaurants is a fun pastime. Usually, one only hears your average war stories, complaints, gossip or cargo cult chatter. Whenever I hear a dinner with Andre conversation I can't help but smile, exchange glances with the participants at the nearby table, as if to say, I'd come over there and join you if I were not so utterly respectful of those kinds of moments.
(Today, I suppose, this would be equivalent to not asking a famous person to take a selfie with you.)
Bloody talkers, bloody intellectuals, bloody creative types - I just love them! My self esteem can rest.
For me it's also interesting to note that when one reads Rousseau, Aristotle or another pillar of thought, it's hard to ignore how much they got right and how even NOW much of their thought is still relevant. For me, this film will always be sharp, amusing, poignant and up-to-date.
What can I say, that monologue is so darn Globe Hacker.
Just keep talking!
Cecil - Rest In Peace. Trophy hunting, conservation and wildlife protection are full of complex sets of issues.
"The preoccupation with what should be is estimable only when the respect for what is has been exhausted." - Ortega
Cecil relaxing with his pride.
I'm like many people who felt outrage when I heard about a hunter from the USA who, with his paid guides, lured a well-loved animal from it's protected habitat so he could shoot it with a crossbow, track it, and then shoot it again to kill it - and all for sport. The "it" I'm referring to is Cecil of course.
I have to say upfront that I grew up hunting in Colorado. My father and mother loved riding to the hounds at the Arapahoe Hunt Club on the old Highlands Ranch. They would chase coyotes in traditional English equestrian dress. The community was close-knit, a lovely group of people that I was fortunate to have grown up with.
McClure Pass. Paonia State Park.
I used to go Elk hunting with my father and his friends on the Bear Ranch, a high-country ranch in Paonia on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The Bear Ranch was later acquired by Bill Koch - I get dizzy and angry thinking of this particular climate change denying billionaire buying my friend's ranch. I guess, in the future, only billionaires will be able to afford these majestic ranches that will be staffed, no doubt, by a mix of legal and illegal ranch hands and managers. Of course, it's on the market again. I suppose it will be a good trade for Bill.
The house I stayed at when I hunted there was considerably smaller. It was a simple family ranch.
We also enjoyed hunting grounds on our friend's place near Barr Lake where we hunting ducks and dove. Every season we did I did this with family and friends until I was around 18 and decided it was time to move on. After high school, I haven't hunted much. In fact only twice since then. We also went game fishing in various locations around the world. I still like to go fishing once in a while and on sailing trips we've caught tuna and other grand fish.
I can't remember any feelings of elation, guilt, or even a chord of ambivalence although surely I had those feelings. I can only patch together memories that are inevitably colored by recent experience and my current attitudes and beliefs. When I was young I was simply participating in a family tradition - kind of like when I went to church.
The best memory I have of hunting was when, back in the 70s, Buddy Bear and I headed way up by the tree line of a nearby mountain, on horseback with a pack horse trailing behind us. We were hunting elk near a small lake where we planned to sit in ambush. We both had bull licenses that year so we hoped we'd get a trophy. A trophy, in this case, would be a big rack with 12 points on it. A rack is what we call the elk's horns. A bull elk is male, a cow female. After making a small camp above the lake, we went to a stream and caught trout that we ate with potatoes we cooked on an open fire. In the morning, I got my elk and it had an impressive rack. I positioned the carcass so its head was facing downhill and cut its throat so it could bleed out. Buddy and I cleaned it, skinned it, quartered it, put the quarters in gauze sacks (to protect the meat from flies), hung the gauze sacks in a tree near ear-shot of our camp for the night, and settle by the campfire where we ate more trout and potatoes. In the morning we retrieved the sacks of meat we hung up in a pine tree to keep it away from creatures and bears, put the gauze sacks, the skin, and the rack (horns) on the packhorse, and happily made our way back to the ranch. Buddy went out the next day to get his elk while I went out on a drive with my dad. "A drive" is when you go out and move through a location to push game towards hunters lying in wait. You have to plan it well and do it right for safety.
A Bull Elk with a 12 point rack.
Many people have written eloquently about hunting so I'll spare you any more anecdotes here. I can say that we ate what we killed. I was used to it and liked the meat. My first motorcycle jacket was made out of elk skin by a tailor in Denver. I have nothing against licensed, regulated, or traditional hunting. I'm an omnivore and I love to eat almost everything. I've even eaten insects in Thailand and snake in China with only a shrug and a, "not bad" to the host.
All that having been said, I can't understand why people go to far away places in the world to kill endangered species. I can't imagine myself even going out of the way to kill a Black Bear, or hike up a mountain to kill a Bighorn sheep. I don't much care for trophy hunting. I just don't get the thrill. After all the killing humans have done throughout our history I can only imagine one creature that truly might deserve killing. I'm not going to say it. I can only say that my first sentiment at hearing about our Dentist's hunt was a vengeful one.
I also hate media speculation. Stop talking about it until the facts are in please. Give us the news and shut up. Then you can analyse the hell out of the story when you have the facts. PLEASE!
Bighorn Sheep in New Mexico. Amazing animals. It made me want to be a wildlife filmmaker when I saw them.
My next thoughts were of my typical "follow the money" variety that I just can't stop pondering these days. There is a business surrounding everything we do after all, from the acquisition of specialized tools to learning how to use the tools, to equipment and other capital assets needed to carry out our plans, to transportation, lodging, guides, consultants, bureaucrats and their offices (government is a kind of business) and on and on... There is a food chain, so to speak, of money throughout everything we do. In other words, there's a significant amount of money that can be made from the activity of hunting. There are revenues that countries and parks can receive through licensing fees and for other things hunters need to pay for to be able to do their thing. Tourism is big money for some countries where hunting is on offer and happens to be a big draw.
The first time I went to Africa I was 12 years old. We went on "photo" safari in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Congo. We also visited Ethiopia where I had something really spicy while eating with my fingers. I could go on and on about Africa. I'll never forget when our guide shouted under his breath, "look, boy, a lion in a tree!" He pointed up and I was thrilled. Simba katika mti! I don't have any idea how much our family spent, but we didn't kill anything. We took some good photos for sure.
Simba katika mti.
After cascading through my usual follow-the-money thoughts it occurred to me that I had heard and read since childhood about how humans were an integral part of the balance of nature and that through our natural activities we helped maintain populations of precious animals so that they, and we, could follow our natural character and coexist in a stasis of health and mutual respect. Yes, for sure, in an ideal world.
Visit Ducks Unlimited, The Sierra Club, National Geographic, and dozens of other NGOs, nonprofit organizations, government resources etc. There are lots of MOOKS, university programs and so on, where you'll find a lot of well-meaning, decent and smart people who are looking into these issues very carefully. Good information is there if we look for it. Never forget to find and follow primary sources. (I have to remind myself of that all the time.)
As I reminisced about all of this and thought about various aspects of the many complex issues pertaining to Cecil's story, a disturbing question came to mind: isn't it ironic that one of the major ways to finance conservation is through the business of killing the animals we want to protect? Well, that's not the only way we finance conservation, but it's still ironic that one of the ways we finance saving the black Rhino is through hunting the black Rhino. Apparently in 2014 Americans spent eleven million dollars trophy hunting in Namibia. That's a significant amount of money for Namibia and it doesn't include revenues from other kinds of hunting.
I keep thinking that if we valued our natural resources, as well as life on earth, in a different way we wouldn't be facing the sixth extinction. Some would argue that we're also rapidly approaching the end of the Anthropocene and of Homo-Colossus. "The end is near!" It doesn't have to be so.
"The permit was sold for $350,000, well above the previous high bid for a permit in that country, $223,000. While the Dallas Safari Club had the dubious distinction of being the first organization to hold such an auction outside of Namibia itself, it’s fairly unremarkable and actually quite common for an African nation to sell permits for trophy hunting, even for endangered species."
Look at how much money it costs for a license to hunt certain animals in certain places. It's no wonder that you have to be the son of a billionaire to go on such hunts. Give the boy a silver gun and let him have fun. The Trump boys certainly can afford a nice hunting safari in Africa. If Donald gets elected we can well imagine his visits to Africa being quite a bit different from President Obama's mission. Republicans will be proud to have them no doubt. Shot of our president's kids with their prey (perhaps on a war safari) followed by a story of how Donald's bombing the hell out of the middle east and building walls to keep the Mexicans out. You can see by the photo below that the Trump family really does know how to get things done. But I digress.
(Atlus and Steven shrugged, but in different ways.)
The Trump boys having a nice hunt while financing conservation.
The issues here are complex and highly politicized. There are several questions that science can't help address, primary of which is whether or not the money raised from the sale of hunting permits is used for conservation, something often promised by hunting tour operators. But empirical research can help to elucidate several other questions, such as whether hunting can ever help drive conservation efforts.
But if an endangered species as charismatic as the black rhinoceros is under such extreme threat from poaching, then perhaps the message that the species needs saving has a larger problem to address than the relatively limited loss of animals to wealthy hunters. The real tragedy here is that the one rhino that will be killed as a result of Saturday’s auction has received a disproportionate amount of media attention compared to the hundreds of rhinos lost to poaching each year, which remain largely invisible. And while there remains at least a possibility that sanctioned trophy hunts can benefit the black rhino as they have for the white rhino, there is only one possible consequence of continued poaching. It’s one that conservationists and hunters alike will lament. – Jason G. Goldman | 15 January 2014
I'll let you follow some links, do your own research and decide for yourself what complex forces are at play here and what we should do to improve, mitigate or heal things. As always my message is that we can do better and that we have to do better.
It's good that our Dentist "friend" is apologetic and ashamed. I'm not going to shed a tear if his customers shun him. It's fine by me if he feels he has to scurry off into hiding, but it's also true that he may have thought he was on a legal hunt and doing everything by the book; and, he may have reasoned that he was on a righteous hunt and that the revenue made by his hunt would go to the conservation of Lions. I don't know now. We'll have to wait and see. What's his track record as a hunter?
Again I'm back to my main concern: is trophy hunting the best way to finance conservation of these noble species? We can look these creatures in the face and find them beautiful, even elegant, graceful, and we can feel as if we can almost communicate with them, we can call them God's creatures so why do we need to kill them in the first place. For the thrill? Because it's in our nature? As an ego boost and war story to tell our friends? To affect nature's balance?
And what of the flora that disappears all the time that we've never even notices.
When I hunted with family and friends it was a simple, natural, communal process without much fanfare. We enjoyed it. It seemed a healthy thing to do and the food was good. None of us could even have contemplated the extinction of the Elk, or the Canadian Goose, or the Marlin, or the Tuna, but today it's clear that we could lose these creatures and if we did, humanity be damned, it would be a tragedy of, dare I say it, biblical proportions!
While I was reading and mildly researching to brace myself for writing this I was, yet again, amazed at the fine workings of finance in all of this. I guess we can't do the right thing unless we first figure out how we're going to pay for it.
Now that I know Cecil is gone I'll miss him. We've renamed our cat Cecil in honor of that beautiful Lion King.
CECIL, OUR CAT. FORMERLY KNOW AS CASPER, AND GATSBY. FULL NAME: CECIL GATSBY WAHWAH.
Cecil Gatsby WahWha power lounging in the man cave.
I won't go into any detail about financing conservation and the protection of wildlife. I hope you will have a look at the following resources. If you really care about these animals educate yourself about this stuff.
Live in peace.
REFERENCES:
CONSERVATION FINANCE: Credit Suisse / WWF / McKinsey&Company
Review Economic and conservation significance of the trophy hunting industry in sub-Saharan Africa
Hunting in America
** $300 million — Additional monies contributed to wildlife conservation every year by the more than 10,000 private hunting-advocate organizations, like the National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
** $4.2 billion — Amount of money sportsmen have contributed to conservation through a 10% federal excise taxes on firearms, ammunition, and gear since the 1937 Pittman-Robertson Act established the tax. Millions of acres of public-use land has been purchased, preserved, and maintained with this money.
https://www.awf.org/
https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/conservation-finance
https://www.worldwildlife.org/about/financials
http://www.wcs.org/conservation-challenges/local-livelihoods.aspx
http://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/state-wildlife-conservation
https://www.facebook.com/volunteersbeware/posts/799395270107971
http://blog.gaiam.com/as-hunter-numbers-decline-how-will-we-fund-wildlife-conservation/
It's nice to see we can still pull off a huge mining project in the USA.
Of course we need mines and wells and efficient farms and chemicals and pharmaceuticals, but...
Follow the money, that old cliche that explains just about everything in the human culture space.
SELL THOSE PEOPLE'S LAND (it is really Federal land after all) make a deal, extract a commodity from it. The world depends on economic growth. It would be terrible if we didn't. This is how our world works. It can't be helped. It creates jobs. We can't have cool things or a badass professional military industrial complex without our own supply of copper. As Donald Trump tells us day after day; the Chinese are kicking our asses hoarding global commodities. We can't be number one if we allow that to happen.
Soon, hopefully, our (US right) technology will allow us to mine other planets and then we can treat our own planet as if it were, cough, sacred.
We need our copper. Sacred land? What a joke. (I'm not laughing.) But, really, how can something be valuable without value added? It's just dirt and stuff obscuring metals we need to make more stuff to fuel and protect our economic growth.
And think of all the fossil fuels we can use to dig that dirt. It's a win-win across industries. What could be more beautiful than that? Well, perhaps, lining someone's pockets to get the project approved might be a bit more attractive to some people.
(I really missed my chance to live the American dream when I didn't follow my classmate Danny O'Neal and become a lobbyist. If your lip balm doesn't smell like a butt hole, you aren't fit to live large.)
We might want to think about how we can provide clean, renewable energy to the process of recycling all the garbage that has copper in it. Recycling copper that is. But we can leave that for our grandchildren. (Or the Chinese who keep kicking our butts.) They'll need to dig down to those landfills to get stuff to do their doomsday preps with, I mean to be able to live their doomsday lifestyles with.
"According to the project website, Rio Tinto expects to be producing copper from the deposit—which is nearly 7,000 feet deep, or five Empire State Buildings below the Earth’s surface—in the mid-2020s."
Imagine that! That's a lot of dirt and rock to move. It's going to leave lots of space for us to repurpose when the last metric ton of copper has been extracted and shipped to China. Well, not if Donald Trump is elected to the presidency of the United States of course.
America can be proud indeed to find more resources to exploit in its own land. And we don't even have to go to Canada. Nice. It's so much easier to do this at home and not have to make complex deals with foreign governments. But again, deal making creates jobs too right? Well, any big business is good business. When billions of dollars are involved the most important minority in the world is happy.
Read this stellar article about investor-state dispute settlement.
THE ARBITRATION GAME - indeed.
THE ECONOMIST MAGAZINE.
Good luck getting the project approved.
(Maybe I'll go to Dump Truck driving school and move back to the States. Or open a cafe near the mine, or offer to film the mining operations for propaganda purposes. I could have some nice cutaways with Native Americans doing sacred dances near a huge dirt digging machine. Cool. The job possibilities are endless.)
Honestly - we do need the copper. The low hanging fruit, 7,000 feet low, needs to be extracted before we get low on gasoline and deasil.
I love the name of the mine: "GREEN FIELDS". Well, maybe someday in the far off future when there's life after people it might resemble its lovely moniker.
Along with the greenwashing, the companies involved are going to allow access to the mine to Native American groups who regard the land the mine is on as sacred land. Think of that. "Thanks for letting us come to the mine, things really do look and feel much better now that you're digging it all up. No means yes after all. Can I also get a haircut, a bible, and a new suit, please? Oh, and can you throw in some quaaludes?"
Looking good!
"Under the bipartisan legislative deal passed by 300 votes to 119 in the House, Rio and BHP would take over 980 hectares of forest land near Superior in southeast Arizona. Federal law currently prohibits mining in the national forest, called Oak Flat. In exchange, Resolution Copper would hand over about 2020 hectares of conservation land to the federal government."
There's always a way if you have the patients and the clout, to get around prohibitions of one kind or another.
"The federal land exchange package was tacked on to the National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, a bill that authorizes Pentagon policies and funding for next year."
These tacked on things are also known as "riders". It makes it easy to slip one bit of legislation into something else providing some camouflage in case someone opposed to the move might take notice.
"Copper is once again king in Arizona, and our military and our manufacturing base will be assured of critical domestic copper supplies," Congressman Gosar said after the bill passed."
Yes, copper is king. I can't imagine life as we know it now without it. In fact, I think most of us can't imagine our world significantly different from the one we have. Perhaps this is a kind of familiarity bias. We simply go along with what we know and come what may...
"Under the legislation, other new land will be added to the federal wilderness register in exchange for land to be developed for oil, natural gas, coal, timber and copper."
And this is key, we now get to see the knock on effects of the copper mine move. They can now add land that can soon be called "wilderness" to a register in exchange for land they want to extract from. Whatever they call a particular parcel of land now: forest, park, reserve etc., now the whatever you call it land, call it sacred if you will, can be developed for the production of more important, industrial commodities. The land you traded for gets put in a registry where it's called wilderness. Does the word wilderness have any meaning at all in this context? Or, I'll trade ou some privately protected land for Federally protected land so we can do what we like. There is oil down there, I don't care what you call this land we need the oil!
Is this resource management at its best or just big business chugging along? Well, we need big business to chug along don't we? We simply can't imagine any other kind of world than the one we have now. And we're convinced that Growth is the answer to all our ills.
"Step right up folks, I've got a tonic here called "Growth" and it's a miracle in a bottle! It will only cost you your future."
Stop slowing us down with your baggage.
Climate skeptics think they've got it all figured out.
And here's the icing on the cake for econo-man:
"This legislation would provide up to 25 percent of the annual US demand for copper, which is critical to US competitiveness and economic security."
Whether it comes from the USA or another country it's critical to US security and competitiveness that we have as much as we can get. The Chinese know this. Donald Trump knows it. We need to be winners! If we can't beat someone we're just imbeciles. And, if that's a zero sum game then so be it.
Hoarding commodities is important for rapid growth, and arguably, for rapid death.
There are still a lot of things out there we can exploit to be winners in the coliseum of economic competition. We can build even bigger buildings with the right materials technology. We've got a long way to go yet. Homo Colossus is still in the driver's seat!
Remember, the transfer of wealth to the most important minority in the world is not "theft", it's vital economic growth that is very important to those who want to be winners and not losers. It doesn't matter if it damages the lives of a large majority of people who aren't players anyway. Remember, real people are consumers, not players. Our role is to work and buy stuff that's had value added to it. This is crucial to our way of life. We've got lots of names to call people who don't believe that and a lot of them are derogatory.
In the end, science and technology will save us (if we really need saving) or perhaps Jesus, or maybe even the Caliphate.
I have to admit, I wish I were a player so I could high five the tough guys who hung in there and made that deal. But it's not for me man, not for me.
I know we need to mine to maintain our world as it is. I just wish we could slow down a bit and reassess the value of our resources and our way of life. I'm only advocating an incremental evolution of our ideas. I want to see a long and glorious future unfold for humankind. I dread the thought of a crash and burn scenario brought about by our arrogance and lack of clear consideration of our place in the universe.
Please watch this episode of Witness, "Rings of Fire".
Now let's change tack and have a look at a very good conversation with someone who has a slightly different point of view. William catton , rest in peace.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-plans-to-build-its-commodity-hoard-in-2015-1425535064
http://www.economist.com/topics/trade-barriers
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21636089-fears-are-growing-trades-share-worlds-gdp-has-peaked-far
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolution_Copper
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-clears-land-swap-for-rio-bhp-copper-mine-project-1419211774
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2015/07/rings-fire-150729124056943.html
Hey neighbor, what do you really believe?
I’m sure many of you watch TV news or keep up with current events online. Recently we’re seeing more stories about lone wolf attackers committing mass murder in everyday public spaces.
We’re right to be concerned.
Unfortunately, we're all going to have to be more diligent about our safety - more diligent in counter-intuitive ways.
The new fashion among our more fanatical ideological and religious militants is to convince young men and women to commit mass murder against civilians. These heinous crimes can happen anywhere in the world. Random acts of violence with a purpose one might say. Irony is never far from the battlefield or the playground.
Apparently, the lone wolf killer type believes in some twisted way that normal people are somehow guilty of not believing what the lone wolf believes and that that gives him the right to commit murder.
I know, a bit simplistic, but a fair characterization in a limited context.
There are also small groups of people who feel their particular culture, ethnicity, ideology or whatever sets them so far apart from other groups of people that the only way they can imagine a future is if all “outsiders” were dead and buried.
This small minority of humanity we call fanatics. They don't fit into normal society. Our social norms are not valid to them.
What are the odds of our becoming a victim of such people or groups?
Of course the odds that you are killed by a terrorist or fanatic are extremely slim, but if it’s you, your friend or family member who is killed, winning the lottery of death won't be made any less painful because you frame the event as a freak accident. Murder is always going to be more shocking than the bicycle accident that took your cousin.
Is there anything we can do to prevent even one such tragedy, however few and far between these episodes of horrific violence may be in our world; the world outside of the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia?
See how easy it is to differentiate and regionalize these terrible events in our minds. See how easy it is to think that it’s someone else’s problem? The fact remains that you are more likely to be blown up in Pakistan, Syria, Iraq or Nigeria than in Denver Colorado. And yet, what country has the most deaths from nonmilitary related gun incidents? The good old U.S. of A of course. Let’s never forget Columbine high school.
How are we supposed to know if the boy or girl next door, those nice kids we've known for years, is becoming radicalized and is in the process of persuading himself to take steps towards terror or mass murder? If I ask my neighbor's son to tell me what he really believes, what he's been learning on YouTube, at the Madrasa or from his cohort of haters, should I expect an honest answer? What might a conversation like that sound like?
"Actually, Steven, I believe that there is only one way of life that is correct and it's clear to me you are not living that way so basically, sadly, you are my enemy and I feel morally taxed to kill you and yours anytime I feel like it. If you would like to convert to my glorious medieval religious ideology then you will become my alley and you can join me and help me rid the world of non-believers. You'll be happy living according to the true will of God. You won't have to think so much. You'll be able to live in the right way. Look around you, the world is evil, your society is sick, your culture is destroying everything! I can't get any respect or consideration for being a good religious man. People treat me badly and all I want to be is right with God. I'm justified in doing what I have to do to bring the world back into order. You will be my brother. I'd give my life for my brother."
One could also easily illustrate an imaginary conversation with a white supremacist. “I just want to live with white people and let the blacks live with their people. What’s wrong with that?”
Or you could include the “fresh air” speech of Donald Trump and say, “We have to build a wall on the border and keep the Mexican government from sending their rapists, criminals and murderers into our country.” Really, people think his irrational comments bring “fresh air” into the presidential political contest. An example of delusional people leading delusional people.
How does one argue with these kinds of views? It’s not easy. You’ll experience that same old circular reasoning, and baseless assertions that are vexing to any reasonable person. The true believer simply wants to believe. The hater simply loves to hate. The fear monger loves to engender fear in his audience to garner support for his power play. He may be a smart, well educated, healthy fellow who simply feels more secure believing in a form of moral absolutism. He doesn't care about your reasoning, your logic, your evidence, your historical perspective, or your ideas. It's not hard for him to dehumanize his victims. He doesn't even care if he dies while killing you. He doesn't care who he hurts while he’s making his power play. He simply wants what he wants and damn those who stand against him. His primary concerns are with his particular form of mysticism, metaphysics, ideology, money, power or his religious dogma. He’s a magical thinker. He knows, beyond any doubt, that he is righteous, or that his reward awaits him in heaven. How can you argue with that? For those of us who have tried we know all too well that it’s not easy. It’s a tough, uphill slog full of frustration and disappointment.
It's tragic, but we are all going to have to be vigilant now. As if we didn't always have to be vigilant. Yes, I am a fan of history too. Today, even among the better angels of our nature we are confronted with the possibility of sliding backwards towards solipsism and violence to the good old days of the wild, wild west, or the Mongol Hordes.
Unfortunately, we can't shirk it, we still need to pursue uncomfortable conversations and disputes. We can’t get away from that. We need Socratic dialog now more than ever. Striving for truth is more important now than it ever has been. Public and private debate must go on. We must help evolve our social theories so that society can improve. To succeed, we need to communicate across domains and across cultures. We need to look at the pig picture and care about our future.
We must constantly talk with our children about what they are learning and what they believe. We have to engage our neighbors to find out how they feel about things in our world and in our communities. We need to ask them if they could use our help and support with family members or friends they are worried about.
We are all in denial to some degree.
“What, my boy? My boy may be a bit stressed or depressed sometimes, but he’s just a normal kid, he'll get through his bad patches.”
It may be embarrassing, but we're going to have to reach out and ask for help when we think someone in our family or community might be getting sucked into pathological beliefs. It may be none of our business, but we might want to tell someone that we suspect our neighbors could be entertaining some dangerous beliefs.
We might have to, oh no, confront someone about their thoughts and ideas.
Oh, My God, we're going to have to police ourselves, our neighbors, and potentially even inform on them. We’re going to have to intervene! Is this a slippery slope towards a Fascist Police State, a Surveillance State, an ever expanding Prison Industrial State? Are we sowing the seeds without knowing it for another Nation State to organize and implement genocide? Are we going to have to build several Guantanamo Bay facilities in America and around the world to warehouse our suspects? Do we need deprogramming experts, are we going to have to reform our educational system to re-educate people along social-political lines we’ve adopted as a mindless mob?
Here we go again.
How can we increase our resistance to pathological ideological contagion?
I believe it’s our duty to humanity and life on earth to learn constantly how to be better thinkers, critical thinkers. Choosing this as your discipline is a sure-fire way to limit your vulnerability to pathological ideology and beliefs.
We're all going to have to ask ourselves what we believe in and learn to articulate it clearly. Where do we draw the line? What are we willing to fight for? I know it's easy to fight for money and power, we can all be recruited into that line of work, but what is really worth preserving and protecting. We're going to have to have these uncomfortable conversations if we are going to stop these murders before they happen without becoming that which we are fighting against. How do we define the moral high ground? How can we inoculate people from false and destructive beliefs?
One thing is for sure if we are going to fight this fight we're going to have to have a good understanding of what hypocrisy means. We’re going to have to be more humble. We’re all going to have to be a lot more self-critical. We’re going to have to have a long hard look in the mirror.
This is not to say that eventually we won’t identify a common enemy that must be destroyed. Let’s be real, the exercise of power and self defense is a legitimate part of human life and experience. We must be diligent, and how we go about our diligence is very important.
Are there things we can do to invite people who are vulnerable to toxic beliefs into another reality? Cultural values are profound and important. In a way, the fight against hate is a fight for a particular set of cultural values opposed to hate. What kind of world would we have to create that would make it extremely unlikely that people would turn to hate? Or, simply, how can we improve things to such a degree that these kinds of haters would be highly unlikely to develop? This is not utopian thinking, I'm suggesting incremental improvements, an evolutionary arch heading in the right direction, towards a more loving and compassionate society and global community.
The creation of such an evolutionary arch requires a great deal of decent, skilled and sincere communication. We'd better get better at expressing ourselves in community with the people around us. We need new and positive connections with one another. The difference between Good and Evil is not just a simple juxtaposition of opposite concepts. We need to work hard at teasing apart those things that divide us and find common ground. The alternative is forever having to deal with Hate.
None of us is completely innocent. We all participate in an imperfect system. We face problems of our own making. We cause problems that we can't even see coming. We stumble and fall.
We can all do better.
Watch your backs people. Take care of each other. Take care of your world. The lone gunman or suicide bomb woman are going to keep coming. We need to be careful in more ways than one hundred. Special interests will continue to destroy our world through greed. We'll keep burning fossil fuels until we cross a tipping point that will put more stress on living systems than we can even imagine. We may all become refugees, and think of the violence that could cause.
We need to give a shit!
So ask your faithful friends to tell you what they really believe and ask yourself the same question. We need to have that dialogue, if only with ourselves.
Because we give a damn. I love that.
Have a quick look at two opposing sides of the gun violence debate in America and tell me what you think. There is only a ghost of a chance that anyone on either side of this debate will ever change their minds.
There is a whole literature out there concerning why that is.
VISUALIZING GUN VIOLENCE - COMPARING AMERICA WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD.
The US has higher rates of homicides from guns than Pakistan. At 4.5 deaths per 100,000 people, the US rates aren’t much lower than gun homicide rates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (5.2 deaths per 100,000 people). Annually, the US has about two fewer gun homicide deaths per 100,000 people than Iraq, which has 6.5 deaths per 100,000.
Firearm homicide rates in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United States, and Pakistan, 2010
"Instead of using local data to identify local solutions, the US may largely have to rely on studies done in other countries to gain insight into ways to curb gun violence. Even though Obama lifted a 17-year-old ban on US federal funding for gun violence research in 2013, a congressional ban on funding for this research remains in place."
Engender a little fear shall we Winston? did he really say that? what was the context in which he may have said that?
Above we have a photo of the very mature, Nobel Prize winner, Winston Churchill with his "Islam is as dangerous..." barb boldly printed near his task-master face. What we take from this is whatever we want to take from it.
It's so easy to find something on the internet to fuel your hatred. Anything can be spun into invective. If you want to find a historical figure to bolster your hatred of Islam, or for anything else you can do it with a click.
Paul Snow from The Uncertaintist Blog has an interesting and more informed take on the above quote. A lot of his entry he obtained at snops.com.
WHAT CHURCHILL WROTE ABOUT ISLAM
I don't want to hate of fear anyone on the basis of their faith or cultural beliefs. However, I do want to know very clearly what your faith and beliefs entail. If you love a vengeful God and are taught that your God wants you to kill all apostates, atheists and people of another faith then I want to know about it. I'd want to ask you why you believe God wants you to kill? I'd want to have a civil conversation with you, and if I found you were serious about doing me harm, I'd want to be able to find legal ways to defend myself against your bad intentions.
To get that far we are simply going to have to talk to each other. We must make our views clear. We must act like human beings who give a shit.
Read this fascinating paper on Genocide. We must be vigilant!
The Origins of Genocide
Complex Archetypes Inspired by Simone De Beauvoir
I really love this woman's smile.
My friend sent me a Huffington Post article about Simone De Beauvoir’s dating archetypes. Archetypes are fun, there are many television shows featuring one kind of profiler or another. We like to group things into simple types, it’s a useful way of organizing our knowledge and categorizing things and people. It’s utterly human to do so. Cows pay no never mind to nomenclature. There’s more intelligence in a cow’s gut than in their brains. Omnivores like us need brain power to sort what might be good for us and what might just kill us.
Here’s her list of 9 types of people you are bound to date:
- The Sub Man
- The Serious Man
- The Passionate Man
- The Nihilist
- The Demoniacal
- The Adventurer
- The Critic
- The Artist
- The Free Man
I think most of us would blend into different types during the course of our lives. Some people I know, I must admit, seem very close to only one of the types above.
I have to say that I have met or identified with all nine during the course of my lifetime. I hope I’m not being cheeky if I say I find it difficult to tell what type I am.
Is it possible to evolve throughout the course of one’s lifetime into several different types while ultimately arriving at one’s preferred, natural identity?
While pondering the above question and thinking about my own life I came up with a new type, Type 0.
TYPE 0:
He or She is a creative, autodidact, skeptical-epicurean-stoic with Buddhist and Pantheistic tendencies.
He or she possesses a complex ethical matrix: utilitarian, consequentialist including a large smattering of virtue, and a realistic understanding that it’s really difficult to be ethical in certain social contexts.
She finds truth in stories and knows that a story is a story. "Mama, I may be a simple woman, but I do know what a story is."
He or She does not confuse anecdotes with data, or expert interpretation of data through a rigorous set of scientific processes and methodologies using the most up-to-date standards and tools with simple faith.
He or She tends to trust true experts, but still employs a range of critical thinking skills when learning from experts.
He values honesty, compassion, intelligence, understanding, trust, conviction and considerateness but doesn’t expect too much from people.
(She knows that most people think they are trying to be the best person they can be even if they may fall short of the mark. This is why she can, at times, forgive herself.)
He enjoys the simple pleasures of life and is comfortable in the knowledge that his particular identity and biological life span are temporal. His death is not a big deal. Death is simply the natural end of one's life.
She is uncomfortable with the spooky vanity of people who want to exist forever. Forever is a long time, and generally speaking, people who want to live forever rarely change - SCARY!
Type 0 has a hard time finding people to talk with, but never has a problem with talking with people.
Type 0 knows that a human lifespan is not nearly long enough to satiate her curiosity, or long enough to dampen her love of life. She is comfortable knowing her time is limited. The finite nature of existence only makes her appreciate the journey that much more.
His sense of the future includes his ability to imagine future generations doing much better than he could.
She maintains a healthy sense of humor. Life is serious, absurd, profound, quirky, unpredictable, and that’s just fine.
Her overriding aim in life is to be wise, and yet she remains humble in the face of the many obstacles to achieving wisdom.
She works towards a state of authentic being without the anxiety of becoming and appreciates that most of the time this is an uphill battle.
He wishes to exist in a natural fluid state of wisdom. A wisdom one can never grasp. A wisdom one can only experience in relationship with others. His constant prayer is that more people will desire wisdom.
She knows that values are always more important than value.
(To outsource your thinking and not be critical is the height of idiocy and a tragic surrender to stagnancy. Decent people who do not employ critical thinking are incredibly dangerous.)
Type 0, possessing greater Adventurer / Artist / Critic tendencies as a young man, is gradually tempered by time, study and experience liberating him in his later years to focus on his true desire: to be The Free Man.
(Context: liberty, license, and freedom are complex concepts requiring some serious thought. Political philosophy, philosophy, meditation and science are the best ways to achieve a better understanding of these ideas.)
All of her adventures, critiques and attempts to create were ultimately motivated by her desire to be A FREE WOMAN.
Few young people are truly wise or free. For some of us, if we live long enough, and remain healthy, we might have a chance to be The Free Woman.
To die A Free Man or Woman would be his or her ideal legacy.
A truly free man or woman is always a part of a community of human beings, and therefore, is compassionately dedicated to helping people find and experience their freedom. Freedom is a human, relative term that can only be experienced in the context of normal, healthy, human relationships.
No creed, ideology or affiliation has a monopoly on what it means to be a free man or woman. Free men and women can exist in any culture. Free men and women are never caged or held mentally captive by limiting concepts. Free men and women have a healthy level of vitality and enthusiastically embrace challenges. Free men and women are courageous and value personal integrity. We need more free men and women.
We have our work cut out for us.
Learn more about Simone De Beauvoir
Simone had a passionate and alternative relationship with the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Satre.
An American Infinate Monkey Cage
Brian Cox and Robin Ince, co-hosts of "The Infinite Monkey Cage" on BBC4.
It's great to see Robin Ince and Brian Cox touring America with their popular BBC4 Infinite Monkey Cage program. The Infinite Monkey Cage is one of my favorite podcasts - I can't get enough of it. Humor and science really do go together, and some of the funniest subsets of our human family are science enthusiasts and scientists. The wonders of nature are truly hilarious.
I'm often beside myself with frustration when I confront people who are hanging on to ideological positions that inhibit their ability to learn and grow. Safety in numbers often equals narrow minds. We are amazing animals able to explore and understand nature better than any species we know of. Isn't that something to be proud of. I know our arrogance knows no bounds, but this rather nascent confidence of ours to create amazing things from our ability to do pure scientific exploration is nothing short of an infinite treasure. We need to treasure this ability and be humble and wise moving forward.
For those of you who are concerned about their position in the world I'd like to ask a few rhetorical questions.
What's wrong with improving people through education? Can we give equal access to education to everyone alive today? That would be nice. Think of the value an investment like that would create? Think of education's impact on our cultural values. Why waste the intellectual and creative power of three-quarters of the human race when it wouldn't be that hard to educate everyone. Not so long ago most people in the world were illiterate. It's hard for us to imagine that today. Well fed and well-loved people are learning machines with no equal. (But, however scary, it might be nice to know that there are wiser and smarter creatures than us out there in the Universe. At least we'd have something to shoot for that would transcend our petty, earthly differences.)
Why not get rid of nuclear weapons and invest more in ongoing generations of nuclear power that would be safer, cleaner and provide very efficient energy to a growing world while we are transitioning to renewable solutions? Does it really have to be that hard for us to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels in the light of the impending catastrophic consequences of climate change? How stubborn are we when it comes to holding on to what we think is ours - power, possessions, land, money? Will we really hang on to our bad habits until it kills us? Many of the things that kill us are avoidable. We need merely to make different choices and thrive. We know we can do it if we only had the social and political will to make some important changes to the way we live and how we carry on about out business.
What's wrong with homosexual people enjoying the institution of marriage? Loving families are good and contribute to social health. Do we really have to pathologize love? What would be more dangerous than turning love into a bad thing, a sinful thing that needs to be crushed? What contributes to successful families more than an environment that is, healthy, safe, secure and allows people the equal chance to do what they truly love and to share their love of life with their family?
Is it possible for us to become better critical thinkers so we aren't so easily swayed by propaganda and marketing? If we are going to be truly effective, socially responsible consumers and bend corporate will to our better nature we'll have to be able to sort through the mixed messages and discern the difference between what is good for us and for society, and what is merely good for shareholder value. Again, we're talking about the difference between the value of commodities traded on markets and human values that animate and color every aspect of our experience.
Can we learn how to better understand each other and cooperate with one another so as to avoid costly conflicts and wars? We are a species defined in many ways by our ability to cooperate and collaborate. What's holding us back? What aspects of our nature are preventing us from creating peace in this world?
I could go on and on like this. I know we can do better. Of this, I have faith. I want us to do better. I can imagine a better world. This is not to say our world, or the world I find myself living in is not pretty great. I am a very fortunate man.
And now something completely inspiring:
The Infinite Monkeys return for a new series, the first of which will see them head to the USA for their first live tour. This week Brian Cox and Robin Ince can be found on stage in New York asking the question, Is Science a Force for Good Or Evil? They are joined on stage by Bill Nye the Science Guy, cosmologist Janna Levin, actor Tim Daly and comedian Lisa Lampanelli.
Listen to the podcast. PART ONE OF SIX - The Infinite Monkey Cage, American Tour.
One of my first philosophical musings was on infinity. I imagined that I was part-and-parcel of an evolving God that was Nature in a quest to figure itself out and that "I" was merely a reflection of this process. (Sounds like Carl Sagan.) I was lost in this exploratory narrative for years from about 10 to 15. Later, while traveling in India in the late '70s with a gentleman I nicknamed, Rasta Punjab, I was goaded into pondering the question of Time. Rasta Punjab would ask me every day, over and over again, "Steven, what is time?" And I began again to torture myself with another unanswerable question. Some of us thrive on things we can't understand. When we at last parted I asked Rasta Punjab why he kept asking me about time and he laughed and said, "Because your answers were very entertaining."
And why not strive to understand where we come from and whether we are alone in the Universe? We are explorers. If we survive thousands of years more our wilderness will be the galaxy, our manifest destiny out among the stars. This is a good thing, and in a way, a very natural ambition. We need to keep going.
It's never good to outsource our thinking completely. We need to enjoy doing the heavy lifting of deep thought and get on with sharing our thoughts and ideas. Our passions can be beautiful, sublime things.
If you haven't heard it already. The podcast really inspired me. I hope it will inspire you too.
Addiction: healing individuals, society and our environment.
Madeira Portugal. Nature knows how to take care of itself.
Just a quick note:
My main takeaway from Hari's talk on addiction was that we need to pay attention to society and our environment (the "cage") and not just how to heal the individual.
Heroin addiction - before and after. What causes people to become addicted to drugs?
Challenges we are facing today can not be substantially and sustainably improved if we don't look at the bigger picture, the way things in our ecosystem are connected, the symbiotic relationships in nature, and the inter-dependencies of living systems.
Taking things apart and re-engineering them is only one narrow way to improve our world. Complex living ecosystems require a much more profound understanding of how things work within a much larger system and require a much more nuanced treatment if we want to have better outcomes.
Many things must change in the way we manage our affairs if we are going to be able to continue to evolve. If we're honest with ourselves we need to start acting on these insights. We don't have forever to make things better, we have but one lifetime.
Joel Salatin & Kevin R. Zcinger
I've got a couple of cool things to share with you today. I sincerely hope you'll look into what these guys are doing. I just love their thinking. There are many people out there with solutions that make sense on so many levels. These kinds of people inspire me and I think they'll inspire you too.
Have you heard of Polyface Farm and Joel Salatin? Do those cows look happy and healthy to you? I think they do.
happy and healthy cows
Joel salatin
Joel Salatin is the mind and spirit behind Polyface Farm. You may have heard of him if you've read Michael Pollan's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma".
I hope you'll get to know Joel's work and read "The Omnivore's Dilemma".
The next person I'd like to introduce you to is, Kevin R. Czinger. You may already have heard of this innovative electric car pioneer. He's figuring out how to produce billions of cars in a way that won't destroy our environment.
Take a look at Divergent Microfactories. You've got to appreciate his comprehensive perspective on auto manufacturing and design.
Please listen to Indre Viskontas interview Kevin Czinger on Inquiring Minds podcast. It's a really cool interview. Enjoy.
These are the kinds of people developing solutions right now that will ensure a better future.
Does the Pope walk like Jesus?
What's love got to do with it?
A Unified Theory of Pope Francis Unlocking a spiritual mystery by Kurt Shaw
There are so many bugaboo words out there, words that generate immediate, negative, emotional reactions, even horror from people of certain ideological backgrounds. If you are a staunch neoliberal one such bugaboo is the word communism. When accusing someone of terrible philosophical and economic sins don't forget to label them a communist. Of course most people don't really know what communism is, was or might be. They've heard of Karl Marx, maybe even Lenin, The Domino Theory, Fidel Castro, and they know about the Cold War, Stalin, purges, and the Soviet Union, and because Mao called himself a communist and did unspeakably evil things to his population during their “heroic revolution” many people associate the word communist with pure evil, failed states and mass death. Also, most people don't have any idea how the term neoliberalism has changed over time. Many on the left just see it as a synonym for greed and corporate conspiracies. Both are wrong.
It takes some work to get background information on these subjects. They are, well you know, complex.
Now we have a Pope whose political views are a tad bit too liberal for some people. So what do we do? Scream at the top of our lungs, "The Pope is a communist!"
HERE IS A LIST OF QUOTES BY THE POPE. Is the world in danger because of this Pope's message?
Pope Francis is a Christian, not a Communist!
What is Neoliberalism?
It saddens and frustrates me when I'm talking with someone and they obviously have a very shallow idea of the history of social philosophy, and yet are so wedded to labels that have been so abused by global media that they've lost all semblance of relevance and meaning.
A few months of auditing philosophy courses on iTunes U could help a little bit where one is unwilling to read, but regardless of our educational efforts most of us will remain chained to whatever ideological beliefs we've grown accustomed to until doomsday comes. The idea that there may be other ways we could do things never crosses our minds. We are part of a likeminded community and that’s all that matters.
Today despite progress on many fronts across the world: in fighting poverty, in the emergence of democratic states where once there were only dictatorships, in the advancement of technology, science, medicine, agriculture and so on, we still could do things better. Couldn't we? Isn't our aim always to improve?
I'm hoping people will see how important it is to be aware of the major issues of our time, and therefore, make an effort to have a good understanding of where our ideas come from. It's truly difficult to look at many sides of an issue and try to understand where disparate ideas and opinions are coming from, but it's an effort worth making. The more deeply we engage these issues the more motivated we’ll be to participate in molding our future.
I’m from a Catholic and Protestant background with people in Ireland and Holland as well as middle-of-the-road Episcopalian relatives in the States. I grew up in the Catholic Church and the Episcopalian Church. I left the church behind quite early as my experiences traveling through much of my childhood and young adulthood left me with more questions than answers. Questions that just couldn’t be answered by interpretations of bronze-age, or medieval religious canons. I still carry many parts of my metaphysical and religious culture with me. I'm changing in small ways all the time, but I identify more readily with atheist, secular and humanistic thought than with most Christians, whatever type they are. I have nothing against anyone’s faith. Faith is part of our humanness. Perhaps I just can't see the utility of it in the context of my life. My worldview doesn't need it. But, I still learn from religion.
I'll meet you anyday.
Now, we've had this debate about climate change, inequality, food safety, consumer safety, education, business ethics, union this and unfettered free market that for decades, and the cycles of belief just keep on cycling along. And, of course, we make progress in some areas sometimes - people in the U.K. don't get the death penalty anymore for being Gay. (How tragic was the demise of Alan Turing.) Civil rights was a victory, although an unfinished project in the real world today. The list is long and many people have written eloquently about our victories. Many good social critics have also given us heart-rending views of our horrendous failures; failures that might portend the end of the human species if we are not diligent and careful about how things proceed in our mundane world.
There are also extremist minorities that wouldn’t call anything in the 21st Century “progress”. They are hypocrites, of course, as they arise from our progress and take advantage of every tool our progress has produced. Some would like to see us go back to the middle ages, some would like to have an all “white” state. You know who I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure that they don't represent anything close to a large minority, but they do constitute a dire threat to all the progress we've made until now. They even threaten the potential of our being able to learn from our mistakes and rectify situations that we've caused that also threaten life as we know it.
Miss quoting Winston Churchill: "This is not a large minority, this is not the beginning of a large minority, but perhaps the end of a small minority." (Lest we're not diligent, the world as we know it could pass into obscurity and be forgotten by hapless generations to come.)
And all that brings me back to Pope Francis. On Thursday, he's publishing his encyclical dealing with his views on climate change.
Pope's Message on Climate Change Leaked
The thing that bothers me is that when the Pope talks about poverty in his Liberation Theology way, or suggests that to really help alleviate poverty top down gifts won't help; instead, we the people have to learn to understand what it really means for poor people to be poor; to empathize with their situation; to exercise some compassion; to have to walk in their shoes to really learn what it will take to bring people to a better place, not just to the shopping mall - then he's labeled communist.
(Yes, he’s no Ayn Rand.)
For his sincere and well thought out perspectives the best his critics can do, way before engaging with his ideas, is point a finger and scream communist. I find that to be the pinnacle of ignorance, laziness, and dishonesty. People like Rush Limbaugh in the US are lionized for calling the Pope names. But where is the rigor of their thought? I just don't see it. Shock jocks have a conspicuous lack of imagination. They merely play to their market and ramble on and on about what scares us.
Now we see that the ultimate shock may be a Pope who actually cares about life on earth. WOW - what a situation we find ourselves in! "People, The Rapture doesn't have to be fire and brimstone, it could be a realization that we can do better." Now that's a revelation.
Now, I'm not an apologist for Catholicism, or for the current definition of neoliberalism, I'm just hoping and praying (in my Atheist way) that people will educate themselves about these issues. It seems to me that we have a religious leader that’s got some important things to share with people about what it means to be a good human being. He seems to walk the Jesus walk, whether you believe the story of Jesus is a myth or not, he's got some good things to say. Some of his moral messages are quite good I do declare.
Please read the Pope’s encyclical when it’s published on Thursday. Then meditate on it and think about what he’s saying a bit more deeply than Rush. Then decide if he’s just a communist or if he may be more that that - like a truly concerned and decent member of the human race.
We all need to learn from each other. Let’s give the guy a chance, then we can go back to some comfort ideology from Rush or whoever we like to hear barking at us.
WHAT MAKES POPE FRANCIS' ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM DIFFERENT
Why The Pope's New Climate Change Doctrine Matters
COMMUNISM
A Brief History of Neoliberalism
FROM CORP WATCH FOR ACTIVISTS (I'm not saying I agree with it, BUGABOO)
Jeb bush with the former pope. he's telling the current pope to stay out of politics because he doesn't agree with his positions. hypocrite!
I prefer the droning monotone of one of my favorite shock jocks: Good old Noam.
Rush rambles on and speculates endlessly as do media types in the US. Is this entertaining?
A List of Public Intellectuals - Do public intellectuals matter?
Here is a decent list of top public intellectuals from around the world compiled for 2014. Have you read anything by any of these authors? How many of the names on the list would you recognize at a pub quiz?
FP Top 100 Global Thinkers
I've read works by all of them, but I haven't read all of their works (of course). What I find interesting is who isn't on the list - many brilliant thinkers no doubt. "Radicals" are not on the list for sure. Chris Hedges wouldn't be on the list, he's too much of a gadfly. People trying to make it in the current system have no other option but to moderate their criticisms in favor of good development and analytics of data, with profound insights thrown in no doubt. (No, Chomsky is not a radical.)
Thomas Piketty
The second link has Russell Brand on it - he's a "brand" for sure, but really? I'd rather see Jon Stewart, or John Oliver on the list - if we have to go there. No one can tell me that those guys aren't thinkers, but we need to have some background knowledge of their domain of expertise before we put too much stock in their insights and opinions. I'm a big fan of all three of them. I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh. I get a headache listening to him for some reason. But of course, Rush would never be considered for a list of public intellectuals. He's number one on the list of public blowhards though.
This list is from PROSPECT "The Leading Magazine of Ideas". Perhaps.
World thinkers 2015: the results
What do you think? Are thinkers appreciated by large numbers of people across nations in 2015? What do you reckon the percentage of the global population is concerned with what "thinkers" think is?
Paul Ekman
Perhaps many of us think thinking is simply being a good audience for the market of "ideas".
Now go have some fun with Jon Stewart and John Oliver.
This video is a really good mashup of Jon Stewart taking on mainstream media:
The Use of Satire in the News: The Daily Show Challenges Mainstream News
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality (HBO)
What comes after acts of God, Nature and Man?
Warning, I use the word “shit” and “fuck” multiple times in this essay. I call it emphatic speech and claim the right to use it. However, I really don't want to shock or hurt anyone with my language. If you hate naughty words, watch this instead.
I too claim the right to be angry, frustrated and disappointed.
Phoenix Tattoo on a woman's back.
I'm saying that when the super storm comes and goes (acts of GOD, or acts of GODS, or acts of Nature, or acts of Nature + Humankind, or merely acts of Humankind) and sweeps away all kinds of man-made crap (I'm not talking about fatalities here) like the tsunami that swept Phi Phi Island clean. Next, the Arch floats up to the virgin shore and spills out all of its cargo that we use to rebuild the same shit that was washed away or destroyed, only now it's even worse, because the same shit looks like new shit. A Phoenix by any other name. The shit that replaces the old shit, is new and improved shit, and makes us believe, that this old wine in new wineskins is actually fresh and different somehow from the old shit. We are lead into a world of make-believe, wondrous at the workings of the Wizard. (The Wizard, you know, is Money. And its only attracted to itself, like Dorian Gray and his picture.)
Why does this happen time and time again, as it happened at the New Jersey shore; as it’s happening on Staten Island? We see Governor Chris Christie standing in front of houses on stilts. What a man! He's saved the day. We are rebuilding!
Governor Chris Christie surrounded by media and constituents after Sandy.
Turn on the TV: we have riots in Baltimore because of the same old shit that happened in LA and London; we have earthquakes in Nepal that's killed thousands because of the same old shit that happened in China years before; we have a volcano blowing its top in Calbuco with people running for their lives because of the same old shit that happened in Pompeii hundreds of years ago.
(For now let's leave out the many socio-political eruptions, tremors and bursting bubbles.)
Will we ever learn?
Probably not, because the system is corrupt and antiquated. Until communities start rebuilding from new sets of values plugged into a NEW SYSTEM, nothing can really change. At least nothing can change fast enough for this ranting blogger.
“But look around yourself Steven, look at all the shiny new stuff, look at all the cool science going on, contemplate the new technology that’s going to save us, have some faith in the billionaires and their think tanks will ya! We’re all going to live to be 150 years old, thanks to the new pills, super foods and machines. Have some faith in The Singularity. Knowledge is going to save us brother. Things aren't that bad buddy. Come on snap out of it. The world needs Stevie Cleghorn forever man. Don’t give up on us!”
The people can, and maybe they should, burn down their crappy, neglected neighborhoods in Baltimore, but if that's what they want to do they'd better have a plan and an idea of what they want to put in it's place. Not just the sustainable, energy efficient buildings, green jobs and community organic gardens; not just the oil and gas jobs that the fracking companies will bring into the devastated old town (opportunity knocks) not just guillotines, but the mindset and cultural values with all the systemic and structural elements that constitute the foundation of transformation. But wait, think again, do we have the ability to do this? Who's leading us? The same old thugs? The same old, old boy networks? All we seem to have are cronies and their cronies. All dressed up and spouting their boilerplate and flashing their thumb drives stuffed with legal ease from ALEC. The whole pseudo-innovative lot of them are fooling themselves and fooling us.
Why don't we get it? Because many of us are mental and spiritual hostages to a rotten set of values. And yet, when we look back, while standing on the shoulders of giants, we see brilliant thinkers everywhere, all the time.
Sir Isaac Newton
We've got all kinds of nice science and tech stuff coming online, able to be monetizes, Yippie, and various bubbles around the world that seem paradisiacal, but they're really just Truman shows. The game is corrupt and it always has been. We are humans and we're not as wonderful as we think we are. Homo Hubris. Vain little people. Run away aliens! Come back if we survive and don't bother making the earth stand still.
Phuket, Phi Phi and most places devastated by acts of God/Men/Nature are being replaced with more neoliberal shit meant to support the extraction economy, passing the costs onto the poor and ignorant people wherever they are, not to mention future generations. They never matter. So much for human capital, social capital, intellectual capital and our children's future.
The lucky bubble-people live in their fantasy world and self righteously try to tell us all how to live. While we live in a ground hog day in the coldest winter Stockholm has ever seen. We, the dumb and dumber, sit back and take it up the wazoo, wipe and say, "thank you Massa Boss". We've been thoroughly snowed in more ways than one. And, even if we can "kill the babysitter" (Cable Guy) we'll only construct a new and improved babysitter to take its place.
Such is Maya. Thus spoke Zarathustra.
I ask you, are you FUL? Are you leading a Fuck U Lifestyle? Your buddy may have earned his fuck you money, rendering him a real man, kind of like Nic Taleb. Well, I say I've been leading my Fuck U Lifestyle all along, and I don't give a flying fuck about their magic Wizard. I use money because I have to. I spend, but never for effect. I am only addicted to lived experience. And yes, I have a huge carbon footprint. I'm nothing special. I'm a hypocrite too. Damn me!
People get what they want. The invisible hand tickles their ticklish orifices and gives them the illusion that they can climb to the top of the pyramid and frolic with the angels on the head of an Adam Smith pin.
So keep the faith you credulous souls, and run on down the street burning mega stores so a poor mom can spend the whole day running around trying to find a place to buy Pampers. Tear it all down, or better yet, don't bother, just steal a big screen TV, go home, plug it in and start watching The Truman Show, or The Cable Guy, or MTV, or THE NEWS. We’re loving it. We're just piling on the queen of spades until the whole house of cards collapses. Then we can get our guns and defend our barter-wine from those freemen who want to steal it. Don't you just miss "The Wild, Wild, West".
Kevin Spacey as President Francis Underwood - A long way from President Bartlett.
(The whole thing is televised Gil Scott Heron. Rest In Peace.)
We can't escape climate change. All of us will have to live with it. We can't run away to our gardens, our gated communities, our alternative lifestyles, and live our fantasy life. Reality is encroaching. It's all going to catch up with each and every one of us. So hop on a plane, fly to Phi Phi Island, a place with more ATMs per capita, per square meter, than any place on Earth. Withdraw some cash and get a tattoo, get your tongue pierced and then go eat a pizza before running back to your air conditioned room to watch the latest episode of Mad Men. Paradise, that's what we call it, while we’re working on our skin cancer on the beach. We also giggle while watching large numbers of Chinese tourists taking selfies with monkeys, and participating in snorkeling school.
Some of us may try sailing far out into the Indian Ocean where there is a whole lot of nothing, perhaps hoping the wind, currents and swells will push us to a formerly deserted island where the passengers of flight 370 are living in harmony with themselves and their environment, only hoping that the lucky sailors will choose to stay. “Please don't go and tell anyone you've found us. We can't let you do that. Trust us, soon you'll see we don't behave like a cult. Our island is high and can handle a good three meters of sea level rise. We have everything we need here. Trust us, you'll see. This place is blessed by God.”
It's sad to think that our thoughts and dreams ultimately turn out to be a whole lot of nothing. We are mediocre existentialists, mediocre nihilists, mediocre phenomenologists, mediocre whatever. Or, we're all just survivalists, whatever station we occupy, enjoying the excitement of it all.
So go ahead, burn it all down and put up a parking lot. (I hope Joni Mitchell recovers.)
At the age of thirty, Zarathustra goes into the wilderness and so enjoys his spirit and his solitude there that he stays for ten years. Finally, he decides to return among people, and share with them his over-brimming wisdom. Like the setting sun, he must descend from the mountain and "go under."
On his way, he encounters a saint living alone in the forest. This saint once loved mankind, but grew sick of their imperfections and now loves only God. He tells Zarathustra that mankind doesn't need the gift he brings, but rather help: they need someone to lighten their load and give them alms. Taking his leave of the saint, Zarathustra registers with surprise that the old man has not heard that "God is dead!"
Upon arriving in the town, Zarathustra begins to preach, proclaiming the overman. Man is a rope between beast and overman and must be overcome. The way across is dangerous, but it must not be abandoned for otherworldly hopes. Zarathustra urges the people to remain faithful to this world and this life, and to feel contempt for their all-too-human happiness, reason, virtue, justice, and pity. All this will prepare the way for the overman, who will be the meaning of the earth.
On hearing this, the people laugh at Zarathustra. Zarathustra suggests that while it is still possible to breed the overman, humanity is becoming increasingly tame and domesticated, and will soon be able to breed only the last man. The last men will be all alike, like herd animals, enjoying simple pleasures and mediocrity, afraid of anything too dangerous or extreme. Zarathustra says, "'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink." The people cheer, and ask Zarathustra to turn them into these last men.
Just then, a tightrope walker begins walking between two towers in the town. A jester comes out behind him, following him, and mocking him for being so awkward and moving so slowly. Suddenly, the jester jumps right over the tightrope walker, upsetting him and making him fall to the ground. Zarathustra approaches the dying man, and allays his fear of damnation by explaining that there is no devil and no hell. But then, the tightrope walker suggests that his life has been meaningless and that he has been a mere beast. Not at all, Zarathustra suggests to the dying man: "You have made danger your vocation; there is nothing contemptible in that."
That night, Zarathustra leaves town with the dead tightrope walker to bury him in the countryside. A poor day of fishing, he muses metaphorically: he has caught no men, but only a corpse. On his way out, the jester approaches him and warns him to leave. The jester says that Zarathustra is disliked here by the good and the just, and by the believers in the true faith. Only because Zarathustra isn't taken seriously is he allowed to live.
Outside the city, Zarathustra encounters a hermit, who insists on feeding both him and the corpse. After that, Zarathustra goes to sleep. He reawakens with the conviction that he must give up preaching to the masses, and seek out like- minded companions to join him. Rather than be a shepherd, who leads the herd, he must lure people away from the herd. The good and the just, and the believers in the true faith will hate him even more for this, for he will appear to be a lawbreaker and a breaker of the table of values. However, Zarathustra believes this breaking of laws and values will be a glorious act of creation.
The portrait of the "last man" is meant to give us the ultimate result of nihilism. Lacking any positive beliefs or needs, people will aim for comfort and to struggle as little as possible. Soon we will all become the same—all mediocre, and all perfectly content. We will "invent happiness" by eliminating every source of worry and strife from our lives.
Nietzsche first wrote "God is dead" in section 108 of The Gay Science, the book immediately preceding Zarathustra.
IS THIS MEANT TO BE IRONIC?
As activists, the number 108 holds an important lesson for us, as it represents the trinity of time: 1 for the present,0 for the past and 8 for the infinite future. As it relates to activism:
1 is for acceptance. It represents the singular ‘now’ moment; what is. It reminds us that we cannot change anything unless we understand and accept reality.
0 is for integration. It represents the integration of the past. It reminds us that we cannot change anything until we integrate our reality, and combining everything until it just is; until there is no negative or positive, just the mix, if you will. The integrated whole.
8 is for the transmutation. It represents the infinite, the undefined potential. It reminds us that we can change our reality in infinite ways, yet only after acceptance and integration of the entirety can we see and understand and act on that potential.
The 108 formula is quoted from an article by Ethan Indigo Smith. I don't agree with many of his views, but I love the spirit with which he holds them. I like passionate people.
Keep on learning! We learn and then we die.
SOME GREAT IDEAS FROM GIANTS:
"Well, I hope that may have given you some entertainment, something to think about, and I hope that it may have done something to set you free from thinking in material and logical terms when you are in fact trying to talk about living things." Gregory Bateson 1980, three weeks before he died.
Portrait of Gregory Bateson
Gregory Bateson's socratic dialogue with his daughter, "Why does everything always seem to get in a muddle” talks about the infinite ways his daughter’s room can get muddled up because there is only one way that she likes to organize her things. The “one way”, and the infinity of possible other ways seem to exist in strings of theoretical universes. Keeping with the movie references: Welcome to the Matrix.
Please read this review of the documentary.
Such is Maya, and thus spoke Zarathustra.
See:
MAYA
See:
Arthur Schopenhauer
See:
Bloods, Crips and the LA Riots
How Nepals Earthquake Was Mapped In 48 Hours
Baltimore's Dual Identity Explains Unrest
AND NOW, SOME COMIC RELIEF ABOUT FAIRNESS:
There's Room for Optimism.
Mayan Pyramid
What's the point in sloggin on if we can't recognize that there's indeed many reasons to be optimistic about the future? The truth is there's plenty of evidence that things have been and are getting better not worse. (I hope some of you have read Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of our Nature".) This doesn't mean that we don't face unpredictable and potentially dangerous challenges now and in the future. What we need to be aware of is that it's too easy for humans to think themselves into a corner where doom and gloom paralyses us and creates self fulfilling prophecies that the vast majority of us would rather avoid.
At Globe Hackers we're interested in seeing the world as it is. We seek the evolving truth and wisdom on our time. We want to engage with people who are creating solutions to problems, while at the same time pushing back against people, and organizations that are contributing to serious social, cultural and environmental pathologies.
One of the best evangelists for optimism is Matt Ridley. He's looking at the bright side of things without ignoring the challenges we face now and in the future. Have a look at his Rational Optimist website and his videos and let us know what you think. Do we have a bright future, or are we ultimately doomed? Will humanity strike the right balance and continue to explore the universe for many generations to come?
Matt Ridley
Whatever your perspective is, the future is difficult to predict, black swans can come swooping down at any moment surprising us with challenges we didn't see coming. Randomness and unpredictability are fused in the physics and metaphysics of reality. The best we can do is meet challenges head on and fight the good fight, while seeking solutions to problems, enjoying life, loving life, and living life. (Those of us who can afford to of course.) Giving up is just not an option. What will be will be, but here, now, we must work at making things better in whatever way we can. Each one of us is a vital resource.
Some points in the video below about how the world is becoming greener are highly debatable. We could still put so much carbon in the atmosphere so quickly that it wouldn't matter at all that plants continue growing. We are still poisoning our environment in irresponsible ways for the sake of the bottom line and nothing else. Statistics can be fudged and are easily interpreted along ideological lines. Ecosystems are complex and emerging living systems, and I don't think humans are even close to understanding these kinds of complex systems well enough to manage them completely. We have a lot of work to do, and we're going to need a lot more time to really understand our optimal place in nature. Figuring out how to live and grow in positive ways that can guarantee a better future for our progeny who hopefully will be living and loving hundreds of years from now is humanity's constant obligation and responsibility. Long term thinking and planning is a must.
That having been said, Matt Ridley's optimism is the kind of social contagion that I find healthy. We need to set ideology aside sometimes and engage in positive debate and activity. The marketplace for optimism does indeed need to grow, but we can leave the rose colored glasses on the shelf.
The Garden Is Shrinking - we are all enveloped by sacrifice zones.
The war was all around us that summer and we couldn't get away from it.
Spanish races
Pictures are worth one thousand words.
Now open your door, take a long walk and then tell me that paradise isn't shrinking.
Two hundred years ago the anglo chant was:
"Take it! Build on it, Mr. Williams!"
Our manifest destiny apparent...
And the latin gent says:
"Kill them for the sake of finding Eldorado Senior Gomez!"
And blanket them in germs g-man...
Then in the late 20th Century the names were Japanese.
"Build on it Saito-san, have your Transformers and Robots kill the monster Nature"
And now in 2015 the names are Chinese, Indian, African and Russian.
"Take it, extract it, build on it, develop it, trade it, sell it - kill the monster Nature!"
Ecocide!
And Adolf says, "If I can't control it all then it should all die with me!"
Sacrifice the children, the old men and women, kill the monster Nature!
Ecocide!
"Kill it all - we consume the world, we consume ourselves."
We eat the children...
Now take a walk and tell me paradise isn't shrinking.
Read this!
Sacrifice Zones
Yes, we are SKREWED (Society of Citizens Really Enraged When Encircled by Drilling).
Click on the photo and read the Wall Street Journal article, "Exxon CEO Joins Suit Citing Fracking Concerns"
Click on the image and read the Smithsonian article: How Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible
Thomas Jefferson created a version of the New Testament: The Jefferson Bible. He created it by subtraction, cutting out all the superstition and leaving only the good bits.
“Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God.”
Click on the image and read The Jefferson Bible. "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth"
Imagine this:
Our home, the Earth, is the Garden of Eden. Through millions of years of evolution we appeared on this great earth and set out on a journey of discovery where we became quite smart and were able to invent many amazing things.
But we fell from grace and started eating the garden up. We were tempted by greed and didn't have the strength to fight it.
However, among us, there walks a million good people trying to help us see the light. They are artists, technologists, writers, scientists, filmmakers, engineers, poets, farmers, workers, preachers, entrepreneurs, evangelists, and yes, even some politicians and some warriors. They are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. They are just people who understand that we can do better.
They are Jefferson Bible Christ Like.
A single individual can not save the world. A sacrificed individual can not save the world. Martin Luther King couldn't, Gandhi couldn't, Carl Sagan couldn't, Malcolm X couldn't, Socrates couldn't, Plato couldn't - the list is long.
All we can do is love it; love our friends, families and communities, and yes, even ourselves. All we can do is work towards getting better in community with one another. And then, perhaps we can do even more. If we have time, time will tell.
Take good care of it Mr. Williams, Saito-san, Senior Gomez, Ms Chan. It will live with or without us.
All stories have some good in them.
Einstein on Socialism
In view of challenges facing humanity I feel compelled, like so many others have over the past five decades, to share Albert Einstein's view of Socialism.
Prescient is a nice word. People like Albert Einstein are prescient.
prescient
ˈprɛsɪənt/
adjective
having or showing knowledge of events before they take place.
"a prescient warning"
synonyms: prophetic, predictive, visionary;far-seeing, far-sighted, with foresight, prognostic, divinatory, oracular, sibylline,apocalyptic, fateful, revelatory;
insightful, intuitive, perceptive, percipient;
rareforeknowing, previsional, vatic, mantic, vaticinal, vaticinatory,prognosticative, augural, adumbrative, fatidic, fatidical, haruspical,pythonic
"much of what happened was predicted in Leonard's prescient article"
Albert Einstein and so many others truly have the gift of prescience. They know enough about many things to inform their intuitions about aspects of our existence that may escape most of us. But rather than predictive or clairvoyant, I'd rather focus on the insightful, intuitive, perceptive and far sighted elements of the meaning of prescience.
People with deep knowledge in any field and a general curiosity across other domains of interest, who are constantly engaged in educating themselves, tend to have these attributes. These personal qualities help inform them in a more profound way as to the nature of human life and experience.
I can imagine that at the time Dr. Einstein wrote the essay below he was deeply concerned about nuclear war. Perhaps that was what started the conversation with his friend who seemed not so concerned about the long-term viability of the human species. It made me think of a Freakonomics podcast where Steven D. Levitt implied, in the context of the economics of healthcare, that we value human life a little too much. I'm paraphrasing: I mean we can't fix everything, life is dangerous, risky and ultimately deadly so why try to keep everyone alive for as long as we can when the economic trade-offs seem far too great? Stephen J. Dubner even asked Levitt how much money Levitt might give to save Dubner's life to which Levitt explained tactfully that there is a limit.
Such are the permeant values of Homo Economicus. Human life isn't that sacred when it comes to financial give and take. One can only extrapolate how insignificant worms are in that picture (unless you are an organic farmer) much less Indonesian Elephants. When everything on Earth is only a commodity to be exploited by powerful men and women with money (mostly men of course) our priorities take on a predictable pattern.
Unfortunately this way of organizing society, politics and culture has its limits. It simply can't last forever because we live in an ecosystem with finite exploitable resources. Also, mega techno fixes that many a millionaire and want-to-be silicon valley entrepreneur spout off about blissfully border on delusional fantasy akin to our savior beaming down to fix everything at the last minute after Mad Max and his ilk have had their 30 year survivalist rampage on the face of post apocalyptic earth. Hollywood produces entertainment that's great for rewarding ourselves for good behavior at an afternoon matinee. But we all know that we can't count on Marvel comic book heroes to save the day. Right?
(You've got to love the power of incentives, day dreaming about rewards and goodies keeps us going.)
Even the human heart has its limited resources. We had better protect our empathy, compassion and consideration lest we wind up less than what we think humans ought to be. If robots with human like consciousness were absolutely more Christlike than any of us would there be any reason for its kind to keep us around in any other complicity than as pets, curiosities or zoo animals.
Robot "A" says to Robot "B", "I think it's nice we didn't eliminate all of them: they are so quirky, volatile and dangerous - it's kind of a thrill being so close to one." The frightening fangs of human psychology.
Before we dive into what Einstein thinks about socialism let's look at his disclaimer at the end of his essay. Keep it in mind as you read the essay. I don't want anyone to think that anything that might be better than what we have now would be easy to achieve. One can only hope that people with imagination and courage will put forth their ideas and organize people power to encourage a peaceful transition to a way of life that will make the long-term viability of humanity more than just a fantasy for science fiction writers.
Of course, if you're Levitt, it may not matter. We may be living in an age of narcissism that requires risky behavior and ultimate self destruction. It is what it is.
"The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?"
Why Socialism?
topics: Marxism
Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.
—The Editors
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.
But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.
Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.
For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.
Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”
I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?
It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.
Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept “society” means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is “society” which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”
It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.
Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.
If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.
I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.
For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.
Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
Go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and explore the many articles on Socialism. It's an interesting subject that defies simplistic ideological condemnation.
Don't be a coward. It's time to piss off Big Money.
***Please read the articles linked to this post.
space x
How can we achieve "Smart Growth"?
Science and technology won’t be our savior, and yet we can think of science as The Revealer. Science is the best way we have to understand our world. The processes, methodologies and tools in the science tool kit allow us to find solutions to challenges we face, and to create the ability to have a better and longer life, but it is philosophy that will heal our soul and allow us to behave better than we currently do. Progress requires us to be philosophic and consider carefully our ideas, thoughts and feelings. What we do and create really does matter. All human choices are a complex balancing act with inevitable trade-offs.
We need a new wave of 21st Century political and moral philosophers that can synthesize the many domains of social, psychological, and physical sciences and uncover sets of values that will allow us to continue to evolve on earth. Scientists, technologists, engineers, politicians, and business leaders not informed by a good liberal dose of deep philosophy are potential threats to human existence. Innovation is great, but it's not a panacea, and is best served only when carefully thought through. Needless to say these are complex issues. We all must now become philosopher kings.
philosopher Peter singer
Earth is our home, we come from the earth, we are part and parcel of it, we are part and parcel “of this living breathing collection of organisms (mostly microorganisms) that are evolving every second — a ‘self organizing, complex adaptive system’ (the strict term).”
mouth microbes
In all humility we must recognize that complex systems have emergent properties that are impossible to predict.
grass lands
Therefore let’s take our time and learn how to exist here in a cross species community with love and respect. All living things are our relatives and should be treated as family. Even deadly viruses - love thy enemy so we might understand them and learn how to live with them. We must learn from "small systems", and even those far away and humble indigenous cultures of the past. It's time to move away from being Homo Hubris and move back towards wisdom.
virgin forest - a home to many living things.
Let’s stop making war on life!
We have to get busy rethinking growth, our social, economic and political system, global consumerism and capitalism. We must be the ones, each one of us, that do the work. We all need to take responsibility for the future.
It will be extremely hard to shift the current paradigm towards something more sustainable.
is it really worth it?
It’s time to really piss off BIG MONEY. The kind of people who only care about short-term financial results and lining their own pockets. There are ways that a tough guy can have more than most and still conscientiously consider the concerns and rights of stakeholders, not just shareholders. We need to improve our culture. There are things more valuable than debt, and mortgaging our future by burning ancient sequestered life forms just to make some people powerful. There are other ways to heat our houses and get to work. There are other forms of compensation that lead to greater and longer lasting happiness. And what about conservation and preservation? Should we burn fossil fuels to desalinate water to pour on our lawns and mega-farms, or should we look for more sustainable solutions to creating beautiful environments and feeding people? What do we think will work long-term? Can we think long-term or are we too greedy to care about future generations? Is the ethos: Leaving this place better than we found it still in our consciousness? If not then we need to bring it back now.
We know what's coming, at least we should know, and we know it's going to be the toughest transition humanity has ever had to make, but we must turn this ship.
We live in a world of abundance and amazing technologies, but that is going to change if we don't get busy.
you're either part of the solution or part of the problem.
headquarters of the world bank.
Most of us have no idea how important ants and grasslands are.
http://www.defenders.org/grasslands/basic-facts
A good intro to complexity theory
Whatever you do, click on the link below and read through this powerpoint presentation!
Complex Adaptive Systems: Emergence and Self-Organization Tutorial Presented at HICSS-42 Big Island, HI January 5, 2009 Stephen H. Kaisler, D.Sc. And Gregory Madey, Ph.D.
Please, please, please, don't make me beg, read the two articles below.
Can the world economy survive without fossil fuels?
I think you'll find the above articles from THE GUARDIAN interesting. I hope you'll read them.
***The Quote within my text is from, "This Changes Everything".
This is a classic. Please read it.
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL E. F. SCHUMACHER
A classic that should not be missed.
Introducing Agroecology & This Changes Everything
We live in a rapidly changing world that will require more and more from our collective imaginations to solve ongoing problems brought on by our ever increasing population, consumerism and climate change. (I'll leave to the side nuclear war and other techno boogie men for now.)
HOW ARE WE GOING TO FEED 10 BILLION PEOPLE IN 2050?
This is why we are happy to introduce you to Agroecology. Hopefully you know all about it already. (Please click the embedded links in this post.)
See also: Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at The University of California Santa Cruz.
I'd also like to direct your attention, yet again, to Naomi Klein. Regardless of whether your ideological state of mind inclines towards love or hatred of Ms. Klen, I hope you will become aware of her work. I think it's important. I implore you to read "This Changes Everything" by Naomi Klein.
I know, I know, if there is one sacred cow that elicits more emotion than just about anything it's CAPITALISM. Now I'm not against Capitalism per se as long as it's a well structured, fair and sustainable model. In my humble opinion what we have dominating the global capitalist system now has much room for improvement.
We have opportunities all around us. Many of us have simply forgotten how to collaborate, work together, be together and make something in community with one another. I believe in the power of communities to develop solutions that will allow us to continue to evolve for many more generations, but we have to get busy now.
If you have an idea for a business, or a solution to a problem, talk with your friends and acquaintances, get their feedback and criticism, then develop a plan that will involve the people around you in making their lives and communities better. Complaining won't make things better. We need more examples of local groups doing great things to empower common people to reshape their world. We simply can't expect large corporations or governments to do things for us. We must be more independent of institutions that have gotten out of control.
We may love Apple and Google, but does "Apple" and "Google" really love us? Remember the prime objective of business isn't necessarily to work for the common good of stakeholders and communities. It's easy, while minding your fiduciary responsibility to shareholders and executives to become blind to such externalities.
Of course, many times private businesses, even big businesses gets things right. We live in an amazing world of abundance compared to many earlier eras. Business does many great things. But wouldn't you agree that there is always room for improvement?
Have a listen to Peter Day's business podcast: The New Normal / The Business of Kindness / Can The Co-op Cope?. I'm obviously a fan of Mr. Day. I hope you will enjoy his podcasts.
At present Globe Hackers is developing a web based system that will allow you to find the exact resources you need for such endeavors from a large global community that have very specific skills, abilities, resources and desires, and who only need to be matched with other like minded people or groups looking to do similar things.
It's true, more than one person at a time can have the same good idea without the need of intervention from ancient aliens. But what you do need is a committed group of hard working and skilled people collaborating in community with each other to accomplish great things.
We'd like to invite you to help. If you have skills that can help this project contact us through our contact page.
Enjoy being human.
Ever towards a perfection of ideals...
Let the classics set your mind on fire. Here is a quote from Pericles Funeral Oration from "The Peloponnesian War". THUCYDIDES (c. 470–c. 400 BC).
Thucydides c. 460 – c. 395 BC
"We cultivate refinement without extravagance, and knowledge without effeminacy: wealth we employ more for use than for show and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the face but in declining to struggle against it."
Pericles c. 495 – 429 BC
It would not be wise to attempt to kill idealism. We can still work towards a kind of temporal perfection despite our propensity for failure, and despite our species eventual extinction.
(Does mortality make existence less real?)
Each day may give rise to spectacular deeds and sacrifices that may motivate us to live in a way that demands improvement.
Best Practices as they are implemented today, verses shortcuts that may give us immediate gain at the expense of lives or livelihoods can only be justified through cold statistical analysis as a means of rationally mitigating decisions that put people in peril.
It is easy to ignore other people's suffering when we are not directly affected, but when you and yours are the ones paying the price for indifference the pain is no less excruciating and debilitating. No one is immune.
The Classics may often be exceedingly idealized versions of reality that completely ignore the uglier aspects of real life. However unsatisfying, we can only infer from scarce sources and fragile lines of evidence what life was really like thousands of years ago. And historical sources are just as biased in their perspectives and opinions as we are. Humans are flawed hyper social creatures. Poets and artists, it seems, are the only ones strange enough to find beauty in our imperfections. But however crippled by our nature we are, we must never let reality keep us from aspiring to do better. At the heart of this aspiration there is an inherent belief that we are capable of great things, capable of great compassion and great love.
Meditate for a moment on what is sacred. Each of us, in our own time, inherited a unique way of paying tribute to the mundane sacred things of nature that surround us, and yet found a completely individual way to express it.
PERICLES’ FUNERAL ORATION
THUCYDIDES (c. 470–c. 400 BC)
Setting Sail 2015
Alex with school children in Haiti 2014
An Alexandra Deegan Dispatch
As you well know Mr. Cleghorn, I'm fully occupied with first mate duties on SV Ventenar for our ‘Windies’ 2.0 adventure. We did our test sail Monday 5th… punching out through big foaming, white forth and turquoise rollers was quite a rush, getting past the lagoon reef entrance and into the badass sea proper…
Despite the hassles of being docked here at Marina ZarPar (The Belize FP43 was burgled during August 2014)…. we’re almost set fair for the off now, with most of what was pilfered finally repaired/replaced. Puerto Rico beckons, after which it will be the BVIs and then the Leeward & Windward isle chains all the way down to good ole Trinny (Trinidad) for the finish, if all remains set fair.
On my time off I’ve been catching up with my reading list, most recently finishing David Cordingly’s brilliant book ‘Women Sailors & Sailors’ Women’ a chapter of which was devoted solely to the exploits of one very nauti RN officer… Augustus Hervey. (His life story would make a terrific movie, perhaps yeah/me should explore this SG?!?)
‘Columbus – The Four Voyages’ by Laurence Bergreen I’ve just started, and it is a very apt tome for where we will be shortly sailing toward, and where I was sailing through, especially CUBA this time last year.
I’ll finish with an apt quote from ‘Ratty’…for those of us with hearts-of-oak and sea salt pumping thoroughly through our veins… “There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats….”
Indeed!
I hope our wakes cross sometime soon and sail safe wherever you venture in 2015.
For us it’s time to hoist the ‘Blue Peter’….
Fair winds
"The Bonobo and the Atheist" by Frans de Waals (Review of Chapter 4 by Alex Routh)
What does atheism champion that is worth fighting for? "The Bonobo and the Atheist"
I take it for granted that other apes have similar emotions and empathy that humans do in ways that aren’t identical to what we might experience, but are recognizable. This is what one would expect given that these creatures are our closest genetic kin and common heritage. Darwin himself observed apes in cages and came to the same conclusion. I can still remember being at an old fashioned jail type zoo as a child and seeing the keeper give a gorilla a white mug of something to drink through the bars and was shocked to see a black hand reach out to take it!
The book details ape behavior at length related to emotions and empathy. At several points in the book De Waals expresses an opinion about what this tells us about the debate between religion and science mostly in Chapter 4. His arguments made me angry and I couldn’t disagree more.
He classifies Atheists in two ways, those that treat their atheism as a private matter, and those that are militant, as if they have come out of the closet making an analogy with the gay movement. The thesis he agrees with is that active atheism reflects trauma, the stricter one’s religious background, the more likely they will be militant atheists. I can’t disagree with this analysis except militant atheism is not necessarily motivated only by rejection of harsh religious indoctrination, it can also be motivated by a rejection of false belief systems that have really bad consequences and or the simple affirmation of truth independently of any trauma.
He expresses agreement with an opinion that being a militant atheist is like “sleeping furiously” and then asks the question: “What does atheism have to offer that’s worth fighting for?” He answers his own question by telling us that when he was young and brought up a Catholic, this religion did come with restrictions, contraception being one of them. Well I have news for you Frans, the Catholic Church still bans contraception, and it is worth fighting against that policy!
He fails to mention that contraception is the single greatest scientific advance empowering women by giving them control over their fertility. Atheists think this is an important issue and the world would be better off without religion because not only is there no evidence for it, in this case it interferes in the personal choice of women to use contraception, or to prevent disease by using condoms thus causing great harm. Militancy is appropriate in opposing religious policies in the face of the harm being done to humans and the misery caused. If you don’t think that fighting against such idiotic religious policies by atheists is worthy, then I really don’t know what to say.
He goes on to say that the Catholic Church accepts evolution. No it doesn’t! They claim to have removed a conflict between religion and science but this is false and only appearance. The Catholic Church’s version of evolution is actually Intelligent Design since the hand of God guides the process. Sorry, but science knows there is no God involved, only a natural process devoid of any divine intervention.
This is what a militant looks like. They kill people. They retaliate. They attack with bombs.
Atheists once again militantly point the finger at delusions that pervert science in order to justify idiotic belief systems and perpetuate harm done in the name of false belief. If you were teaching a Catholic student in a biology/evolution course at Emory University, would you fail them for persisting in the divine intervention theory of evolution, or would you sleep furiously and give a passing grade? Are apes moral and empathic because God guided things to be this way? Does truth matter to you?
Are you afraid of these academics, writers, philosophers, scientists?
He then revisits the paradigm of Steven Jay Gould’s Non-Overlapping Magisteria proposal where science and religion represent supposed separate circles of a Venn diagram that don’t intersect. Science should say nothing about religion and vice versa. Well, science can be used to test religious claims. In the recent past the Harvard Prayer Study lasting 10 years and was a good example of where science proved that intercessory prayer does not work, it has less than zero efficacy since the control group of atheists had lower mortality than the religious groups that had prayers being said for them! If anybody/anything is listening to prayer, they/ it don’t intervene or do anything to save anybody. Please name one thing that science has ever conceded to religion.
Perhaps in a "Battle" of ideas it would be helpful to understand the ideas. What are the "New Atheists" saying? Are they advocating violence in any way?
Another reason for atheist militancy is that religious people simply believe erroneous things about atheists. That is the reason for atheism ranking worse than pedophilia on the ten worst things list of the religious in the USA. If they really believe that, then there are huge negative consequences to atheists such as zero chance of getting hired by some employers, or getting a vote from religious electors. I’ve often thought of getting a t-shirt with “Worse than a Pedophile” printed on it and walking in to US churches on Sundays to promote discussion and also as a kind of “F-You”.
Did this man ever blowup a clinic?
In another article de Waals quotes Al Sharpton and dignifies him with the title “Reverend” as saying that without a God there would be no morality. I was proud of Christopher Hitchens when he said on stage with Sharpton that “I’m not going to call you Reverend.” I’d go one further and give him the title “The Contemptible” because he says that no one can be moral without belief in God. What conceit to think that only Christians can be moral! Well I have news for you Al, monkeys and apes show empathy and a sense of fair-play, and I can guarantee they don’t have a soul and they don’t believe in your God!
Getting back to Chapter 4 of the Bonobo and the Atheist, de Waals then goes through a pathetic illustration of the resistance to new and correct ideas in the scientific community. Yes scientists are human, yes they have biases, like other humans they will be resistant to a change of ideas they are invested in. Outmoded scientific ideas have inertia, they are the same to a certain extent as religious people are invested in a different type of idea, those that are non-falsifiable. However, the difference between science and religion is that scientists will follow the evidence and change their ideas and theories in the face of proof. Religious people will persist in belief of false ideas despite the evidence. There are stupid lazy scientists, but to say that scientists are only slightly better than the religious accepting things on faith because they have uncritically accepted every underlying assumption in a theory is an abomination. Ultimately the truth triumphs because of the competition of ideas, in religion there is no competition of ideas.
The militant atheist forces the competition of ideas on the religious, many arguments are science based. Many criticisms point out inconsistencies, abhorrent ideas, horrible practices, institutionalized discrimination, logical inconsistencies, biblical approval of slavery, and lack of evidence. Why shouldn’t we hold the religious to the same intense fire of criticism as any other group of crazies, especially when religion affects things that might prolong my atheist life like stem cell research for one! Why should religion get a free pass?
Ultimately I agree that religious people are unlikely to change their belief systems overnight. The corrosion of religious belief by science however is a worthy ongoing successful process. Militant atheists challenging the complacency of the religious is a good thing, can be very entertaining, and adds to the corrosive effect of science.
In conclusion I would change the question from: What does atheism offer that is worth fighting for? To: What does atheism champion that is worth fighting for? Atheism champions truth and important principles worth fighting for. I hope anyone reading this is now convinced. Yes you are a fellow atheist Dr. de Waals, but do you champion anything?
Atheist Champions
Militants? Really?