What works: community

Friday, April 2, 2010

As we continue into the decades-old, but only recently acknowledged era of destruction and extinction, it’s apparent the current model is not working. Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it. A vast majority of Americans are aware the industrial economy clings by the barest of threads but, too fearful of individual retribution to disrupt [...]

Resources and anthropocentrism

Monday, October 12, 2009

14 Comments

Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.

Illegitimi non carborundum

Sunday, April 5, 2009

35 Comments

Teaching? I'm doing the best work of my life. Scholarship? Likewise. Outreach? Ditto. Obviously, it's time for me to move along.

Reason: four classics

Monday, September 29, 2008

16 Comments

Mysticism has proven an insufficient foundation for conserving nature. Ultimately, I suspect it will prove inadequate for saving humanity as well. Although we could blame the lying clowns who represent us, the politicians merely reflect the populace, and therefore contemporary zeitgeist. Like it or not, the politicians we elect are six flights below the lowest common denominator in large part because we cannot reason our way up the stairs.

On being a doomer

Thursday, September 4, 2008

23 Comments

I admit I'm a doomer. But I don't think that's a bad thing. To be a doomer is to recognize the tragedy of the human experience.

What I live for

Thursday, August 7, 2008

20 Comments

I still struggle every day to find meaning in a universe without meaning. Who shall I serve? For now, I can serve students and society by teaching and acting as if a single life can make a difference in a world gone awry. For now, I can demonstrate the value and importance of relationships, relative to accomplishments. For now, I can be kind to individuals while forcing institutions to do right, even if it means being unkind to individuals who represent institutions. For now, I can serve people by criticizing society.

Christmas, Christianity, and the fall of empire: A year-end reflection

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

5 Comments

Reason is the basis for understanding the material world. Mysticism has proven an insufficient foundation for dealing with peak oil and runaway greenhouse. As such, I suspect it will prove inadequate for saving humanity. Whether or not we're worth saving is a separate issue.

The end of civilization and the extinction of humanity

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

20 Comments

We have, to the maximum possible extent allowed by our intellect and never-ending desire, consumed the planet and therefore traded in tomorrow for today. And we keep making these choices, every day, choosing dams over salmon, oil over whales, cars over polar bears, death over life.

Philosophy and Conservation Biology

Sunday, August 26, 2007

4 Comments

It is not at all clear that humanity can be saved (or, for that matter, is worth saving). Evolution drives us to breed, drives to procreate, and drives us to accumulate resources. Evolution always pushes us toward the brink, and culture piles on, hurling us into the abyss. Nietzsche was correct about our lack of free will -- as Gray points out in Straw Dogs -- free will is an illusion. It's not merely the foam on the beer: it's the last bubble of foam, the one that just popped. It's no surprise, then, that we are sleepwalking into the future, or that the future is a lethal cliff.

Guy McPherson's blog

Tag Archive | "Socrates"