"Our opinions and beliefs, what we hold to be true and what we think is right and wrong have all become strategic objectives... Each of us has been brought - face-to-face - to a new front line." The (very readable) Death of the Gods by Carl Miller is a whirlwind overview of the biggest Big … Continue reading Death of the Gods
"Social justice means that we deny ourselves many things so that others may have to do without them as well, or what is the same thing, many not be able to ask for them." ~ Sigmund Freud (emphasis my own) Helmut Schoeck's theory of social behaviour focuses on Envy as the key driving force behind … Continue reading Envy – A Theory of Social Behaviour
Can robots have rights? Should robots have rights? These deceptively big questions regarding "roborights" are shaping up to be among the Big Issues debated by law makers, scientists, engineers, and philosophers in 2019 - and far into the future. I read David J. Gunkel's Robot Rights to get a handle on where academia is "at" … Continue reading Robot Rights
"Those two, in paradise were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no alternative." - We I'm really enjoying retro-science fiction at the moment. The ideas imagined in science fiction of years past planted seeds in more practical minds who went on to shape the future that we live in … Continue reading We
The monstrously complicated monetary system we have today is responsible for the greatest leaps and bounds of human prosperity, and for the most depressing of depressions suffered by civilisation to date. Want to understand how it works? The Ascent of Money is a good place to start.
"The goal of our Manual for Civilization project: to identify books that will resonate with those living in the distant future. What information won’t expire in a century? What literature will still speak to our descendants across a millennium? What ideas can carry forward and be useful tools as Plato, Lao Tzu, Homer, continue … Continue reading The Library to Rebuild Civilisation
