Everywhere in modern civilization we find our societies getting drunk on all kinds of useless freedoms; one of the most useless is that of owning pets which neatly follows from the undeniable ‘human rights’. The reason why many people buy pets these days may be familiar to what Ted Kackzynski called the power process. In this it [...]
Posts Tagged ‘humanism’
Remaking modern society
Some metal message board member offers a challenge. Assumption: we often discuss politics and this domain has its own definite views. But we are taught democracy, capitalism and liberal civil/women’s rights together comprise “freedom,” and that anything but freedom is “bad.” So what can we do? We shrug and watch the ongoing travesty, certain we [...]
Overproducing food makes life worse
Modern life is a place of illusions, missing information and increasingly miniscule individual roles in society helping to keep our understanding of reality as a whole system at bay. Among these many misperceptions is the Civilizing Effect. Society provides a market, people wander in, money crosses the point of sale, an item magically appears as [...]
Climate change puts spotlight on overpopulation
We already know that increasing food production causes population growth. Volume of food production is like a piston. Habitat is the cylinder it slides into. The gas or fluid inside is the size of population. The piston goes up and population expands. Shove it down (or provide us expensive affluence) and our numbers contract. We [...]
Examing humanist views as ethical avoidance of collectivism
Normally, we take different ideologies at their word, meaning that if they say they’re taking our money to help the poor, we assume that’s what they’re doing. In the murky underworld where psychology, sociology and philosophy meet, however, there’s reason to peer under that skin and find that their real motivations are almost always baser. [...]