Ewww, I love a good controversy

Philosophy
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He starts with some fun history, then gets to the problem of writing about something that is complex in a way that someone who doesn’t know it, can understand. It’s hard to remember what it’s like to not know it. That’s around 20 minutes.

Then, the real fun, violence

This is the most important part, why I posted this. But I continue on, because it’s relevant to me for other reasons. And I was installing a toilet and needed the occasional break.

22:20 The historical decline of violence is consistent with human nature. We have proclivities to violence and poor reasoning, but we also have the ability to examine those and handle them, and that’s progress.

23:40 Humanity has made progress. “This is not an expression of optimism”. “I don’t believe that just happens, I don’t believe there is a thing called ‘progress’ that magically lifts us ever upward. On the contrary, the universe tries to grind us down.” But we can use humanism to drive progress. When the goal is to make people better off as opposed to tribal, religious, or utopian ideas, we succeed now and then, and if we accumulate those then progress CAN happen.

The rest is support for the above, plus some interesting asides.

Why is this controversial?

The ideas are hard. Figuring out how we tick and what we should do.

We’re going to get it wrong sometimes.

Why shouldn’t they be controversial? There are situations to be overcome.

26:10 Academia has become increasingly more politicized. It has moved strongly to the Left. The Conservatives on campuses are the old people. So, from the viewpoint of the younger people on campus, everything looks conservative.

28:00 Intellectual life is divided into cultures (worldviews). Science vs Humanities.

29:20 A view that needs to be examined: Science solves mundane problems but it should stay out of the humanities, politics, and morality. This goes back to the enlightenment era split of philosophy from science.

Some comments on snobbery.

31:30 Literary intellectuals believe Western civilization is in decline. This has been going on since Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault,… If you disagree with that, you’ll get pushback. “Intellectuals who call themselves progressive, really hate progress.” Pinker’s response is that politics, arts, and morality must be informed by science and our understanding of human nature that is empirically determined. Not a reduction, informed by. Test our assumptions, not just accepting the highest paid experts.

34:00 The moralization of belief. An empirical hypothesis is not a moral conviction. Questioning authority is not something to be punished.

35:00 What I now call “the rounding error”. Oversimplifying your opponent. “When X influences Y becomes X determines Y, or X is one cause of Y becomes X is the only cause of Y.”

Examines the science of the mind and what the moralizers make of it. Some examples of errors, like fairness doesn’t require sameness. The naturalistic fallacy. The moralistic fallacy.

39:51 A moralized hypothesis: If you say that we’ve made progress that would encourage complacency, to say everything is perfect, neoliberalism worked, but, if we deny those (correctly), then we must deny that progress has taken place (the fallacy).

40:20 In fact, something can decline without it disappearing. As we can show, extreme poverty has declined and people live in extreme poverty. We can and perhaps should keep reducing extreme poverty. Progress is not a miracle. It does not imply everyone is getting better all the time. There are dangers in not knowing the dangers, and dangers in being thoughtlessly pessimistic, that is being unaware of progress and how it works. We can choose something other than fatalism or radicalism.

In defense of controversy. It’s how we acquire knowledge. It’s how we make moral progress.

Otherwise, we live in “pluralistic ignorance”. Debate “punctures spirals of silence”.

EX: binge drinking. Individually the people who do it will say it’s not cool. But they say they do it because everyone else is. They believe everyone else believes it.

It’s the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The story is made to be understandable to a child, but it’s unfortunate that we don’t discuss it as adults. It’s about the voicing in public of things that most people feel privately. It punctures that spiral of silence. In reality the kid would be told to shut up. But equally real, it would be something the adults could bring up, and expand into a full public debate. The problem of binge drinking didn’t disappear magically because of the study, that progress will be slow.

46:00 Looks at what was debated in the past, like “should we burn heretics”.

50:00 The consensus on climate change and the safeguarding of open debate.

52:00 Explains how “the regressive Left is an incubator of the Alt-Right”. If the open debate isn’t happening, people don’t see the flaws, and gravitate to the extremes.

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As this view needs to be examined…
It’s Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) WRT science and religion. But when it comes to politics it seems clear to me that science must inform politics. And do so ahead of religion. E.g., is the earth 6000 years old? Are we responsible for climate change? Republicans continue to remove science from politics. That’s dangerous.

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Plus it was an idealized notion, science and religion can’t help but intermingle in the real world.
Funny that you should mention the essay. I read that when it was fresh and then a few years back did a rereading that wound up being the catalyst to these notions I’ve been sharing.

… the scientific process itself. A process that’s basically a set of rules for gathering and assessing our observations in an honest, open and disciplined manner that all who understand science can trust.

Recently it occurred to me that what Stephen Gould was missing was a much more fundamental divide that is crying out for recognition.

Specifically, the Magisteria of Physical Reality vs the Magisteria of our Human Mindscape.

In this perspective we acknowledge that Earth and her physical processes and the pageant of evolution are the fundamental timeless touchstones of reality. Part of Earth’s physical reality is that we humans were created by Earth out of her processes. … (source)

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Ewww, I love a good controversy

Ah, ain’t that what it’s about?
Let’s be provocative, lets create a controversy and if one can place one self in the middle of it, so much the better for book sales.

I myself don’t like contrived controversies. Plus I find science by rhetoric disturbing, and most of philosophers remain lost within them selves, read that wonderful constellation of thoughts we create for ourselves.

I’m an Earth Centrist and my lens upon this world is filtered through the realities of Earth’s natural processes. I do have a healthy appreciation for the divide between my/our human mind and geophysical realities.
Most of our collective thinking is framed around what can it (nature, resources, etc) do for me/us. That doesn’t exist within me any more, at 69 I’ve reduced myself to just a critter scurrying about, dealing with today.

Okay story time,

This past week was a dramatic example for me of the two modes of travel.
First with my young pal, going from one place to the next, then busy thinking of the next place, while still at this place in front of us. It was good, it was fun, we saw a lot.

Then coming home alone, the back way, the long way around through one of the most amazing valleys, Unaweep, with its river flowing out of both ends. Chew on that. :wink: so far unmarred by development, but it’s sure to come.

Thanks to very little traffic on the road, I could follow speed limit signs and keep it down to 40MPH for much of the drive (with traffic gotta go 10-15 above to keep folks from crawling up your keister).
All I knew was the moment, and soaking it in as well as I could, no radio, no audiobook, just the moment and truly awe inspiring I’M ALIVE scenery. Time fades into irrelevance, trying to capture as much as I can, like those babies with their thirsty eyes sponging up the world. Even had a chance to get out a few times, though I couldn’t totally ignore time, had to keep on keeping on, to get home at a reasonable time.
Still, among other things it was a meditation in the difference between being there, and looking at a postcard.

When I drive through the increasingly gentrified one time old mining town relics, I see an unsustainable dystopia in the making. Here I see it all against the back drop of decades, and not the momentary buzz these people are enjoying (ultimately to the detriment of others. None of us doesn’t have blood on our hands.)

Okay back to the “good controversy”

Pinker is an intellectual entertainer and his data and ideas are full of holes that others can list and define better than I can.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=How+Stephen+Pinker+misrepresents+facts&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Just as with “Truth,” which is meaningless outside of the framing one chooses to apply. Pinker’s story is only valid within its selective framing, which is riddled with inconsistencies that many have documented.

For instance, I myself extend violence beyond conking someone on the head, or sending soldiers out to attack their neighbors.

The increasing disparity between the rich and poor? That’s a form of violence.

Heck corporate “Fiduciary Responsibility,” which dictates that generating profits, while minimizing expenditures, is the overriding law of our overlords, with the concerns and interest of humans and our life supporting environment getting relegated to irritants that are treated with false advertising sloganeering - now that’s surly a form of legal violence against people. (Heck, go figure, it turns out to be a thing, surprise, surprise.) Where does Pinker review that?

How about the right to clean drinking?
Seems to me steeling that from nation after nation is a form of legal violence against humanity and the biosphere.

https://www.science.org/content/article/em-science-em-adviser-over-half-world-s-population-lacks-safe-drinking-water

Over half the world’s population still lacks safe drinking water.

Clean drinking water is a human right, but estimates for how many people lack access to it vary. Now, a paper in Science provides a new, robust number: 4.4 billion people—over half the world’s population, and roughly twice as many as previously estimated. …

That number is “unacceptable,” co-author Esther Greenwood tells Nature. “There’s an urgent need for the situation to change.” …

“The social inequalities of water services … disproportionately fall on women, girls, pastoralists, and other groups who often live in water-insecure environments,” writes Rob Hope in an accompanying Perspective.

What about all the little crimes against humanity behind this headline?

As for progress what about the current and future crimes against peoples and biosphere caused by our collective (but especially leaders) easy disregard for climate science realities and our acceptance of demonstrably lie filled propaganda campaigns to obfuscate and postpone genuinely constructive solution.

Heck we can’t even get ourselves to discuss our insatiable greed?

I believe Pinker is an expert rhetorical sleight of hand artist. I could be wrong, for instance does anyone know if Pinker has ever discussed “planetary boundaries” and what that tells us about our progress, along with the price of that progress? I haven’t.

Planetary Boundaries - INTRODUCTION - Science.org

KATHERINE RICHARDSON, WILL STEFFEN, WOLFGANG LUCHT, JØRGEN BENDTSEN, SARAH E. CORNELL, JONATHAN F. DONGES, MARKUS DRÜKE, INGO FETZER, GOVINDASAMY BALA, JOHAN, ROCKSTRÖM +19 authors

The planetary boundaries framework (1, 2) draws upon Earth system science (3). It identifies nine processes that are critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of Earth system as a whole.

All are presently heavily perturbed by human activities. The framework aims to delineate and quantify levels of anthropogenic perturbation that, if respected, would allow Earth to remain in a “Holocene-like” interglacial state.

In such a state, global environmental functions and life-support systems remain similar to those experienced over the past ~10,000 years rather than changing into a state without analog in human history.

This Holocene period, which began with the end of the last ice age and during which agriculture and modern civilizations evolved, was characterized by relatively stable and warm planetary conditions.

Human activities have now brought Earth outside of the Holocene’s window of environmental variability, giving rise to the proposed Anthropocene epoch (4, 5).

Surely there’s plenty of unreported violence behind achieving this figure?

When are we going to puncture the silence of how much we depend upon a healthy Earth?

When will we puncture the silence of how much our own relentless expectations - always yet more, and yet bigger & better, blind progress go go go, damned the torpedos -
are what’s driving a future that promises destruction of all we treasure?

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I addressed this vaguery once and don’t feel like doing all the work again.

Of course it is. And that’s addressed by the statement that there was more violence at one time and now there is less, and THERE IS STILL VIOLENCE and we should address it. I don’t know how you can have a problem with that or argue with the data or say wealth disparity is worse than chopping off heads and burning witches. There was wealth disparity back then also.

It used to be that “spoils of war” was the standard. Look at the museums in England or the places that no longer have forests. I would say that’s progress and there is still much more to do.

He addressed that here and elsewhere. He says “progress” is not always forward, and it’s not a magical force. It requires a set of values and working toward implementing them.

We discuss it all the time. What makes you so special that you can state that as if you are the only one who notices? You are the embodiment of excessive pessimism that he discusses as a danger.

In this one, he mentions that every new solution almost always brings new problems with it that require new solutions. Pretty standard scientific truism that he’s well aware of.

When are you going to read my posts and burn your membership card for the regressive Left?

Also, that’s a rounding error, claiming that if I don’t address planetary environmental issues in this post, then I never address them and don’t care about them.

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FYI, i posted this as a general expression of the mission of this forum. It is a statement about the value of quality debate. This includes hearing the logic and proposed evidence for ideas that I might personally find completely unsupportable.

Good debate responds to the logic, not the person. If the logic is bad or the evidence is false, that is pointed out. There is no reason to discuss the person. If the behaviour of the person is disruptive, there still is no reason to discuss the person, only the specific behaviours.

Doing this can be tedious. But it’s easier than dealing with the people who take on extreme worldviews because they didn’t hear the counter arguments and felt slighted. Someone will organize them and convince them they can heal their pain. But, I’m getting political.

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I love a good controversy when the debaters come with good facts an reasoning, giving sources and references, respecting each others. They also must be able to respect and integrate the good points of the opponent demonstration.

I don’t like bad faith, personal attacks, evading the issues, and so on.

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So much for your thread title.

Amazing. It’s all same same to you.
That may be the way it’s playing out inside our thoughts, but within our physical planet that follows the rules of physics and nature regardless of what any human wants to imagine, what’s happening today is absolutely unique and promises our society’s existential destruction, like nothing humans were ever capable of before.

But you are telling us, it’s the same old, same old - call me incredulous.

Yeah and now half the world’s population doesn’t have access to safe/healthy drinking water - but that’s cool no longer the spoils of war - now it’s the spoils of megabillioinaires who have gone sociopathic, to down right psychopathic, on us.

We don’t have tribes attacking and stealing from each other - cool. Instead today it’s organized global gangs and drugs/weapons/human trafficking that are rotting brains right and left, while undermining civil society and healthy governance.

But Pinker tells me past “violence” was so much worse.
I think he’s a liar. But a crafty wordsmith.
Guess that’s cool too, in a society where facade has come to mean more than substance. (How about ‘violence against a healthy intellect’ - or working on explicitly recognizing the difference between our ideas and physical reality?)

F that ! The problem is how much he totally ignores - because he’s too busy focusing on the rosy.

Where does he get around to that?

He does? How about some examples.

Because I’m not hearing it being said! Bromides is all I’ve heard from Pinker.

Apparently what makes me special is that after a life time of wrestling with the usual questions, I arrived at a viable fundamental appreciation that showed the way to escaping being totally subjugated by my ego. My ego still exists, alive and well, but I have a visceral appreciation for what’s on the other side, and has a tremendous tempering effect. That is what it boils down to.

I actually understand myself as an animal, a product of Earth’s processes, on a visceral level, unlike a postcard, more like being there. Reinforced by the afterglow of my wonderful Unaweep Valley drive.

I appreciate my mind as something my body/brain produces - as is the case with all living creatures.
While admit it or not, you and Pinker’s (et al) words project that you are still mesmerized by our human specialness (our seeming godlike powers and so on) and I find no space in your mental constellation of stories about respecting the non-human entities of this Earth, or dealing with Earth as a global biosphere who’s good health is priority number one.

Nope, unless it is about serving us, for the post part, past a little lip service, we couldn’t care less, it’s the price of that next fill up that most worry about.
Our actions speak louder than words.

And he advises ignoring the physical reality in favor of more stories we tell ourselves, because he never spent anytime learning about Earth Sciences, his forte has always been linguistics and the stories we tell ourselves.

On the darker side, Does he ever talk about the strength requires to step into the breach, even when it’s hopeless? Or that many are given no other option? And that many more will be before too long.

To me Pinker is like the mothers’ age-old lie: “Don’t worry little one, it will be okay.” Of course it will be okay, because then you die and that’s it. Except he’s doing it for profit, while she’s doing it for love.

You know after a couple walks with Maddy I take increasing umbrage at that.
If anything I contain excessive knowledge about Earth’s Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine and what we have been doing to it!

Life, and listening to people, then watching them walk their walk, has left me disappointed and a bit pessimistic. I recognize that and it is what it is. But, it’s also a survival strategy, since expectations are one of our greatest intellectual/spiritual enemies. When that get’s mixed with an attitude of entitlement it produces monsters.

I find a touch of pessimism breed’s caution, plus resilience, since in the real world Coyote is always waiting to pounce on your good day.

The thing is that I don’t embrace my pessimistic outlook, it’s simply an expression of my experiences and knowledge base. It’s part of the algorithm I process life through, I am more than happy to celebrate the wonders that come my way.

I happened to have taken the interest and time to learn about Earth and her systems, how they came to be, how I came be. It started long before high school but it’s in high school (class of '73) that I learned about Climate Science and I have proactively continued my learning ever since.

I know better than you how easily we could have turned this “freighter’s” course.
WE KNEW WHAT NEEDED TO BE DONE in the '60s, slow down, nurture nature more.

'80s passed, '90s passed. Now the slight course correction needed was getting increasingly challenging, but with a little human will power doable.

Unfortunately, we’d dedicated these past decades - not to conserving and learning to appreciate Earth’s biosphere (read life support system) but rather to consuming as much as possible, as fast as possible and boy did we learn to increase our extraction abilities and polluting outputs.

The run became a race, too much is never enough. All the while the physical consequences were piled up - whether you and Pinker (et al) chose to ignore it, or not,
the worst possible reality was unfolding regardless. In fact, probably because of the collective disregard for Earth and her systems and our dependance upon them.

Oh but you take comfort in labeling those who understand what’s unfolded as the enemy, the danger, while continued wishful thinking and creating excuses to keep kicking the can down the road, you believe is your friend.

I have a deep respect and a reasonable understanding of global systems, and I have an inkling of the masses and momentums involved, thanks to all the time I spent focused learning about Earth’s pageant of evolution and the climate engine that it created. I did the homework, such as drawing out my own time line 1mm equaling a million years to populate with the highlights that science was providing. It helped internalize the many lessons.

Lordie I do try.
But calling me a regressive left shows how little you see.
I’m an Earth Centrist - my horizons go way past what the left or middle of road is confined to.

I’ve been reading your posts for many years. Some I’m in total agreement with, other times frustrating, disappointing, depressing are applicable descriptives.
Planetary environmental issues are something specific and the trajectories are nothing less than horrifying. Reducing that to a rounding error simply underscore my cynicism toward your position.

Choosing to ignore the body, and substance, of critiques, doesn’t comport to such lofty projections.

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So back to Pinker, he’s great mind candy, wonderful lofty ideals and stories, but they do not comport with the unfolding physical reality.

At this point, expecting our global (complex infrastructure dependent) society to last past 2050 is looking increasingly doubtful. That sucks in the extreme, but again Earth’s processes don’t care. It was on us to care - and we couldn’t muster it. And you all will be making excuses and blaming the “alarmists” - well baby, let the realistic me assure you, we are well past the alarming stage of this global crisis.

Lausten given the stupid unsustainable wars/projects/dreams society has continued ratcheted up on since the turn of this century and continuing into today - where is this promised turn around going to start?

When is Earth going to be given a break? When are people going to realize we are all on the same team, when still at this point we are playing a game that too few are even aware of - thanks to the Pinkers and all the rest, that from one direct or the other are advocating reassuring ideas (hush little baby don’t you cry), while ignoring the actual factual science along with its implications.

Every protracted rescue operation has to deal with transiting into a recovery operation at some point. That has nothing to do with “excessive pessimism” - it’s simply life and death on this planet.

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You have become increasingly unreasonable. You want the extreme or nothing. Humans were almost eliminated in Africa a long time ago. Plagues have wiped noticeable percentages of the population. Millions were burned in ovens by people who shared 99.9% of their DNA. I think there have been bad times before.

When I was looking for something on the Sapolsky post I did this morning, I saw a response to this. The people who say there was violence in only 15% of the world in pre-historic times are calculating that by taking only the evidence FOR violence, then saying if there is no evidence for it in other locations, that means those places were peaceful. It’s pre-historic times. That’s a huge assumption. (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

Oh, you meant Pinker. I thought you meant me, and everyone. It’s not his science. He’s not a political scientist or an economist.

That’s ego-centric. I’m pretty tired of it.

Added later:

If you’re not pessimistic, you aren’t paying attention. But if you see no solution and turn every conversation to climate change and how billionaires can’t be stopped, then you are an extremist. As you often ask the trolls who repeat problems with no dialog, “what are you going to do about it,”

Telling people they are going to die is not a motivator, unless that threat is actually in their face. Telling people how progress is made, how it has happened, when it worked, does motivate and educate.

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Sorry you’re missing the point. Yes, I know a lot of writing is about those specific - which are irrelevant to me because my concern is an equivalence thing.

Thing that’s being ignored is all manner of modern violence against humanity that has nothing to do with guns and aggression.
The economic aggression and violence is ignored. Violence against this Earths multiple complex systems and its biosphere in general.
The Violence committed against our atmosphere, with its magnificent cascading consequences, where is that in the equation?

The fact that Pinker materially demonstrably misrepresents the work and conclusions of climate scientists, that seems trivial to you, where as to me it’s gross moral failing and an act of violence in its own right.

And I don’t care if Lies have become the accepted currency in modern politics and philosophical discussions, not for me.

It all dependents on what scale you are looking at.
Don’t mistake me for someone that drowns under the onslaught of todays multitudinous horrors that are befalling others upon this planet right now.

That’s where appreciating myself as an animal first, if first among animal, still an animal, provide the spiritual/religious foundation for me, remember I’m the guy who’s grandkids are thrilled when he comes by, and am on call for them, and kept busy.

That’s why my story is a bit special, I’m realistic about what’s going down,
makes me ever so appreciative of all I/we still have and glory in the experience. Getting on a jet plane next week, and once again I’ll be transported into that ten-year old, with his nose pressed against the glass, amazed at all I’m witnessing.
While at the same time processing the reality that I’m experiencing a very short sliver in humanity’s story. Our actions and lack of focus have doomed this experience to a short burst of glory and I am blessed to be able to experience it.

That is what being able to look past one’s ego and into the material biological reality on the other side of my ego and my thinking mind is all about.

You mention “ego-centric” - I am the only one I’ve ever experienced life through. Call me guilty.

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You’re creating controversy. How can we compare violence from 500 years ago to corporate violence today? There were no corporations. I like democracy better than monarchy, so comparing today to 500 years ago, we’re doing better. If you can find some way to show the total violence today is more, then do so. You don’t really even have a premise. What? Is fuedalism better for the environment? This isn’t a dialog if you can’t frame it.

The link is doing the same apples to bananas stuff. We’ve increased our impact on the planet. No question. No one is arguing that. Even the people who say we will survive without change.

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If you want to put it that way, perhaps I am.

Let’s say I can look at it from Earth’s perspective.
I’m not bound by, dare I say, the pervading Abrahamic frame of mind that can be boiled down to self-absorbed and self-serving. I’m not trying to be an obnoxious a-hole - I’m stating an observation that the entire scope of western history supports.

Okay, we are doing better.
Heck, even if my bank account is next to nothing, every time I get into our nice hot shower, or pull something out of the freezer, or climb into my pickup and drive down a safe highway, or walk on this land without being shot at, etc., I’m reminded that I’m experiencing a life that is better than any royalty in pre-modern days. It’s part of my joy. It’s not lost on me, but I’m not blinded by it either.

We are collectively destroying our biosphere, that is our freak’n life support system!
The life-support-systems my grandchildren will depend upon, if they are to live fulfilling lives, but that we continue irreparably damaging at this point and we still can’t slow down.
Don’t blame me, I’d happily crank it down a few notches.

I know the science, hiding from it doesn’t make anything better, it just allows us to continue being stupid - which explains my feeling about Pinker.

Sorry, I am sick of hearing us patting ourselves on the back - while we continue our destructive pattern with every year & new brain-addled billionaire. Today is not the same as it ever was.

My point is, look around we haven’t improved near enough, we can’t even question our own insatiable greed, go to a newsstand and look at the magazines to see where our collective head is at.

But, that’s just me, now I’ll get back to our (wife & I) after glow of one amazing evening of speeches, Mark Kelly and Adam Kinzinger hit it out of the park, as did Kamala. Actual most all of the speakers did first rate substantive presentations. Coolest convention night I can remember. It feels like they hit every note, and said a few things We The People have been wanting to hear for a long time.

Gonna be interesting watching our American drama unfolds . . .

One day at a time.

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That’s some well entrenched certainty. Not much room for a response.

Well, there we go. Thanks for acknowledging that.

I’m not looking for blame.

Not hiding either.

This is where you hide; trying to sound reasonable in your extremism. Just what is good enough? How much protesting and organizing needs to happen to count as us questioning? You know the science because generations have been doing it and talking about it, but you say we are ignoring it.

No it’s not. That’s the point. You know what you know because of progress. It’s hard for me to go on when I am reminded that children are being gunned down in school but that’s exactly what last night asked me to do. To look at the disparaging reality and not be paralyzed by it. To keep doing something while having the feeling there is nothing that can be done. To know progress is moving forward even on the days we take a step backward.

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That’s what Pinker does when he glosses over climate science by misrepresenting it.

That’s what I’m talking about too.

But like I said, though I’m embedded in my ego with its desires/needs as much as anyone, I have gained the facility to see through it, past it, to Earth’s reality and appreciate things from her perspective.

Right. Because the course of our history is what it is, and it speaks for itself.

Last night I come to realize this self-absorbed and self-serving Western nature, human nature, is like our Original Sin. The thing that needs to be faced, recognized in a cathartic manner like Christ having to go through his Stations of the Cross to achieve anything, so too humanity, individually and collectively will have to do much the same.

Although, odds are we won’t change and we’'ll allow nature to run its course. After all, what crisis? In which case I’ll at least I have the mental and spiritual tools for dealing with the horrors when they come and strike my neighborhood. You won’t find me in shocked disbelief: “Who could have imagined such a thing happening?!”

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Something you’ve never demonstrated, only said you don’t hear it.

And you have it all figured out. I’m so lucky to know you.

Yeah, but you’re not a zealot or nuthin. Please drop this analogy. I’m begging you.

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What’s the point of snippy, I’m not trying to get your goat. I’m explaining how I’ve arrived at my conclusions.

The history of western expansion isn’t a secret, plenty of nightmares, followed by a world full of battered remnants of lands/peoples we conquered.

I figure the history books speak clearly. But, but never mind.

You want to look at all the beauty and avoid facing the horrors that lay under the foundations of all that beauty. So be it. Call me what you will, I myself will stick with Earth Centrist.

Which one? That western thinking when viewed from Earth’s perspective is nothing if not self-absorbed & self-serving.

Or recognizing the poetic metaphorically connect between our self-absorbed & self-serving nature and the concept of Original Sin?
It is at the roots of our self-destructive failings, why not call it that?

Why?

A half century ago, had we only been allowed to continue soberly/honestly learning about climate science fundaments, and the direction the geophysics was going to be taking this planet. The fine grain details didn’t matter, we knew the outlines, and the trajectories we were dealing with, and they were all clearly threatening to society if we continued unabated. The one thing that was absolutely clear was that, slowing these changes was required to avoid ultimate major disruption and global disaster.

All we needed was to get REAL. Take it seriously, consider the consequences we were gambling with. To take our childrens’ future’s more serious. Not to mention the rest of the cornucopia of life on this miracle planet. Slow down a little.

We needed to slow down our greed, our consumption, our baby making.
We needed to get REAL about the limits of growth and start showing some respect for Earth’s complex systems that could only be pushed so far.

That is all that was needed to tamp down our effects upon our planet’s life support systems?
Slow down, give us more time to figure out the details of what we were playing with. Slow down to learn for milder extremes and prepare for warmer times ahead.

It was all within reach. We just needed to get REAL about it.

Why didn’t we?

Can you explain why that didn’t happen?

I think I can.

There was just one thing missing, our collective and individual dedication to TOO MUCH IS NEVER ENOUGH!!!

The first tipping point of the modern era, was passed with the election of Ronald Reagan, and the glorification of consumption and disregard for others, not to mention the ensuing war on science. The beginning of turning American politics into a culture war of white supremacists/christian nationalists against everyone else and against any sort of constructive learning. Which reached its zenith with the trumpster era.

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Chart of Human Population Growth by Region - The Global Education Project

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From here. The faint dotted vertical lines mark 1950. (SkS.com)

16

Here’s what I’m talking about. Do you ever think about the disappearing insects in your world?

Robs Wild Adventures - Jul 31, 2024
I love these new white LED streetlights, dont you?! So much nicer and more energy efficient than those horrid old orange sulphur lamps, an excellent step forward!
BUT are they as good as they seem for the environment? A recent scientific investigation into their effects on insects, like butterflies and moths, has revealed some startling new effects that these revolutionary lights are having.
Have a look at the video and find out for yourself…

But I imagine you’ll think it is an irrelevant distraction.

Oh heck look what YouTube handing me next, perfect example of the flip side, case in point regarding our priorities.

17

No not really. Your story doesn’t connect to your conclusions or backup your problems with Pinker. Just sounds like arguing to argue

So, you make up the thoughts you think that I think.

Like this:

Original sin

Because it’s not. We’re aren’t sick and don’t need your cure

I don’t have all the answers but when I try, you repeat you put REAL in caps.

18

Your explanatory mode?

(The side stepping is interesting to watch and think about.)

That wasn’t a question. It is something that is screaming for recognition.
(Because it does answer a great deal of the why questions.)

19

Since it feels to me like you grossly misunderstand where I’m coming from, and any attempt to respond turns into this odd shadow boxing event, that evolves into dog-chasing-tail. I feel compelled share how I’m looking at it from the top - independent of what talking heads claim. This is what I know, my life and my experience and the conclusions I’ve drawn from my 69 years of grappling with it.
Show me where they are in variance with the realities of science and our living world.

Introducing my perspective: Earth Centrism (1/2)

Inviting Intelligent Critique & Constructive Challenges:

Peter Miesler, September 2022 (the bibliography 2/2)

Founded on a life time of learning through the findings of scientists.

Earth Centrism

Because Earth is our ultimate touchstone with reality and ourselves.

This insight leads to a realization that, for this complex living Earth that we experience, to exist at all, is proof positive that our Earth evolved down one particular pathway, no matter what we people imagine one way or the other.

Ours is to figure it out and appreciate - not to presume to define it!

We appreciate that we are evolved biological creatures born of Earth’s processes, as expressed through its singular Evolutionary Pageant.

We appreciate the profound divide between physical reality, that is matter, biology, laws of nature, on the one hand, and on the other, our thoughts unfolding within our amazing minds, (or more descriptively, within the realm of our “human mindscape").

We appreciate that fundamentally, awareness and life’s “consciousness spectrum” started over a couple billion years ago with the invention, then prospering, of the unbelievably complex organization of Eukaryote cells.

Consider that in due time these cells created colonies of cells that demonstrated a sense of place and order and purpose or the organism would have dissolved into a chaotic blob. Increasingly complex creatures depended, at every step, on increasing awareness, sensing, data processing, physical systems growth & maintenance, internal communication along with improving and refining manipulatory abilities.

By and by, along came one particular clade the eutherians, small nocturnal insect eaters who gave birth to the class of mammalian animals, which begat the primates, which begat hominids, which begat our modern humankind species.

Every stage required new refinements and developments within the complex sensing/body/brain system and the mind they collectively produce - refinements that are dependent on previous refinements and lessons. Your Being is the sum total of all the days of Evolution that went into producing the human form you possess and live through, while your mind reflects the sum total of all the days you’ve lived and experienced.

I believe a genuine understanding of oneself starts with the realization that we are an evolved biological sensing creature, and that our consciousness is fundamentally the inside reflection of your body/brain dealing with itself and the environment/circumstance it is embedded within.

This understanding leads to another inevitable realization, namely that, our “Gods” are in truth creations of our minds, tailored by our self-serving egos. Which is okay, if one doesn’t take their God, or themselves, too seriously.

“I Am, therefore I Think”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

20

Kinda the problem. You never acknowledge human nature. You talk about billionaires not caring, but where does that money come from? The indigenous mindset of the seven generation comes from a time when they only knew cycles rhythms. But even they wanted more for their children, a more peaceful, easier life. You’re asking everyone to want less for their kids than they had, so some unborn future can have some unknown existence. It’s logical, but getting the world to agree will take more than some graphs and dire warnings. If you aren’t having that conversation, you are just flailing.

You also fail to mention that half the world does not have too much. Why is there chronic hunger in this world of too much? Why don’t you talk about people who are actually alive now and suffering? Instead you want to talk about losing the modern world of abundance?