XPost: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen, alt.zen   
   From: julianlzb87@gmail.com   
      
   On 10/09/2016 17:59, Tang Huyen wrote:   
   > 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 ...)   
      
   I'm minded of the great concern in London around   
   the end of the 19th century when experts predicted   
   that the streets would soon be 10 feet deep in horse shit   
   it the growth of horse driven vehicles continued to grow   
   at the current rate.   
      
   It never occurred to them that someone would invent   
   motorised vehicles and instead of horse shit being   
   a nuisance, a threat even, it would be a rarity much   
   to the concern of urban gardeners.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)