Good Ideas
Introduction
As flawed as the world is, some people are still coming up with good ideas for how to improve their communities or the world at large. We need to look to these ideas for inspiration and never give up on trying to find solutions for the world's problems.
January 13, 2007
The Moral Instinct
The issue of right or wrong is arguably the most important issue that humans anywhere should be dealing with. The article above provides fascinating insight into this issue, but it has one major flaw. Pinker does not point out that morality is actually one of the most destructive issues affecting mankind. It is fundamentally harmful for any human to believe that any action is right or wrong. The reason for this is that, according to muy experience, no human has any knowledge of any moral absolute. No human has every demonstrated knowledge of any moral absolute. As such, the most rational way to resolve conflict and solve problems is for humans to abandon all notions of right and wrong and to make rational ethical decisions based on consequences.
January 2, 2007
Sam Harris on Fair Game
Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty
This is extremely important. We need to understand what causes people to believe in order to figure out how to cure people of this disease.
September 21, 2007
Competitors Build Moon Rovers for Lunar X-Prize
Most of the activities undertaken by the billions of humans on this planet cannot be demonstrated to have any universal significance. People live, people die--no one has shown that it matters. In a world in which humans have no idea what activities are meaningful, one activity that possesses, at least, "metasignificance", is the search for knowledge, by which I mean evidence. By acquiring enough evidence about the universe, perhaps one day humans, or a more evolved human, will be able to understand the universe and humankind's place in it. Accordingly, activites which promote exploration are activities to which we should pay the most attention.
September 6, 2007
Environmentalist Paul Ehrlich on Global Warming
You can ignore what Schultz says and skip too Paul Ehrlich. Not only does he point out that reducing population size is good for the envionment, but he also points out what I've been thinking for years, that the issue of population is rarely heard in the debate over the environment.
I knew I couldn't be the only person on the planet to understand this. But how to get other people to understand this. Specifically, those people who genuinely want to help the environment yet fail to take the step that will have the most impact, the choice not to have children.
September 6, 2007
Climate Change: Changing the Margins
ChangeTheMargins.com
Microsoft Petition
A great idea!
August 9, 2007
Making a Mark with Rockets and Roadsters
I cannot say whether the electric car is truly a good idea, but it certainly seems so. But there is no question that trying to faciliate space travel is a must if humanity is to have the best chance of survival. For one thing, the sun will not burn forever. But long before that we face more immediate catastrophes in the form of climate change, possible nuclear war, biological pandemics, and who knows what else. If we can get a colony off planet that just increases our chances--how could anybody disagree with this?