XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen, alt.zen   
   From: tanghuyen@gmail.com   
      
   On 9/10/2016 7:38 AM, Julian wrote:   
      
   > Indeed it does rhyme with my mindset.   
   >   
   > I have read it before and did intend to post it here but   
   > must have been distracted or forgot and the moment passed.   
      
   Pinker is repetitive, and simply because his   
   cause is so specific (iow, narrow-minded). If he   
   was to engage other topics, his optimism may   
   well get broached.   
      
   I know that you don't believe it, but to me the   
   world is running out of resources and is getting   
   done in by population explosion, at an   
   exponentially increasing rate, in a   
   self-reinforcing circle. This is a spectacular   
   case of unintended consequences (just think   
   of Marx and the Communists): the very smart   
   people who invented and still invent modern   
   science, technology and medicine are sure   
   that they are helping the world, but in the   
   process the world is getting swamped by   
   overutilisation, driven mostly by the exploding   
   population. They start hares that gain   
   functional independence and together are   
   driving the world off the cliff, like lemmings   
   jumping off the cliff together, so to speak   
   whilst holding hands, in a folie à deux   
   multiplied many times over. Intelligence,   
   collective or not, feeds off itself and can kill   
   its hosts. Skills can be good servants and bad   
   masters (which is a familiar phenomenon in   
   mental culture). Convergent evolution can go   
   both ways, iow be good or bad, for its movers   
   and shakers and everybody else (the innocent   
   bystanders). Humanity can well get swept up   
   in self-caused (albeit involuntary) mass   
   die-off, something that plagues and natural   
   disasters can't pull off. MAD (mutual assured   
   destruction) by nuclear wars is one possibility,   
   but only one, even if spectacular. Other   
   possibilities can be of the covert, creeping   
   type, all the more insidious for being so.   
      
   Such foreboding seems to escape Pinker. It is   
   not in his mindset, as collective cheerleader.   
   But it is a view that needs a promoter, who   
   can get famous by it, however well   
   intentioned he can be. (The road to hell ...)   
      
   Tang Huyen   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)