Anthropocentrism is something that is really rampant in the world. Humans are the center of everything. Oh, but of course. Because we are the center of the solar system. And the center of the Milky Way. And the center of the universe. For any reader that believes any of those last three sentence fragments, they are all wrong. We are not the center of anything but the ideas of our own minds. We are not all that special and we really don't do anything but think of ourselves. This is one of the ideas that leads people to a world of disappearing intellectuals, reference previous post on politics and intellectuals.
So, many of the readers right now are probably asking, "Well what are we supposed to think about? We are the greatest species alive." Well I will respond to that statement by simply saying "NO". No, we are not the greatest species alive. We are just a species that is in charge for a little bit. And if you really think about it we aren't really in charge. After all, how many houses get infested with insects, spiders, bats, birds, rats? We can't even control "simple" creatures like that. We are being killed millions at a time by diseases and viruses. And most importantly how can a species be considered dominant if it can't even keep its own population from killing one another?
People need to learn to think about things other than themselves. I have so many examples of people not doing it. I will be talking about people I know and who will read this, so I won't mention names in case of offense. I will start off with the most recent one I can think of. Today, three of us were watching birds as we ate lunch. One of my friends mentioned how he wanted to be a bird. He said he would fly around just to flaunt the fact that he could. I laughed at this because it was something completely random. I also realized how anthropocentric it was. People care more about flaunting their skills than anything. The birds were scavenging for food so they could survive. They used their flying skills for something that was useful. And people, not just this friend, would rather fly just to say they can.
There are always the insect haters. No one likes bugs. They are so yucky. Well that's what these people say at least. I personally enjoy looking at insects and other smaller arthropods. I won't kill insects unless they are really invading my space or bothering me more than I care to deal with them. I live in a dorm that has some sort of infestation. I have had ants on my desk, cockroaches in my bed, centipedes and millipedes in the bathroom. I have only killed the cockroaches in the bed. I just felt that was too personal. I don't kill insects just because I can, I feel that this is just as wrong as murder. Taking a life, no matter the life form, is murder. Those are my feelings.
I also have a bit of a problem with zoos too. I do enjoy seeing animals, don't get me wrong. But imprisonment of these animals in cages barely bigger than the animal itself, is highly discouraging. I enjoy studying animals and seeing them and figuring out things about them. I do not, however, like to see them in the conditions they are in within zoos. Aquariums are the same way. I feel that it is taking away potential from the species to continue on. Endangered animals are a bit different. I still don't believe they should live in captivity, but they should have reserved areas that are full-size simulations of their real native environment. This again gets into overpopulation and need for a major disaster, see previous post if you haven't already. The last time I was at the zoo actually proved this to me. I was in the gorilla exhibit and I looked into the eyes of the gorilla and I knew that it was sad. It was a depressing experience. I hadn't felt that bad for quite a long time as I did when I looked into that gorilla's eyes.
People are to fixed upon humans. We see humans in everything. We personify animals all the time. Look at any cartoon for kids. Most of the characters are animals. We see faces in everything. The moon, potato chips, trees, everything.
Religion is the same too. Religions are based on the assumption that humans are the most important creatures next to god. We are also the only intelligent life in the universe. Religion is the belief that god made us special.
People are too caught up in believing that we are everything. We couldn't survive without other organisms. Why can't we live like it? Why can't we let other things thrive just as we try ourselves? Well that will be all for this rant, I suppose.
Showing posts with label intellectuals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label intellectuals. Show all posts
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Article on Intellectuals
Before I even start here is an article that Justin posted on my facebook. It is really long and ranty and all kinds of big words are in it.
I will admit that I probably understood less than 10% of what was actually talked about. Politics is not at all one of my strengths. It is probably one of my most hated things in this current society. But I did read it. I tried to look for the things on intellectuals and other stuff like that. This is something I like to hear and read about.
He starts off with a good mention of intellectuals and how they are diminishing and goes on in a way that I can like. I too believe that it is horrible that there are so few intellectuals left. I was ok with everything so far. I was alright with this kind of writing. Then he started to bash conservatives. He was against neoliberalism as well. I'm not sure what this is exactly. I tried looking it up but all that stuff just goes right over my head.
He talks about how politics is increasing ignorance in people and is run by people who act less smart than they are in order to get votes. I feel like this is highly probable. I don't pay attention to politics because it bores me. People are only interested by things that affect them. If someone is voting, you want to grab their attention. "I will lower your taxes." "Well hell, I vote for that guy." People only want to hear what will make their lives better. They don't want to hear that lower those taxes means raising prices on everything else. So leave out the things that no one wants to hear. That just makes you sound less intelligent to someone who knows about politics.
Politics is something I try to avoid at all costs. And this is where he and I differ. He believes that the institutions and politics should go hand-in-hand. He thinks that intellectuals should care more for government and try to keep it in sync. I think that politicians should be smarter, yes. I however, don't think the two should be hand-in-hand. I personally just think there is too much concern for government altogether. I think something else should be figured out for running everything. I think now the population has become too large to be controlled by any form of government.
I was just talking to one of my professors the other day about how the economy is expanding too fast. She mentioned how production is becoming increasingly automated. Robots and computers can do anything now. Now our unemployment is increasing because there are less jobs due to the jobs being taken by computers. So how can the economy continue to grow if these people have no jobs, no income, and cannot afford products. The economy will be at a standstill. Products will be made but no one will be able to consume them because there will be no money to purchase them. Where will we be then.
First of all I think we are too overpopulated to do anything. I think we need to eliminate some of our population. I don't know how to do this exactly because the last person that did it, ended up fighting the rest of the world because they didn't agree. This reverts back to the Morals blog I posted before. There are too many people that care for their own lives and not the lives of the species as a whole. We are not following the lesson learned by many early on: "Everything in moderation". There are 6 billion+ people. How is that moderate? Far too many for our own good. Diminish population and maybe we can get back on track at least a bit.
Another possible solution to this is a major disaster. I don't mean an earthquake in one small place off the coast of an unknown country. I mean something like Y2K size. Something that will destroy majority of the machines that have taken jobs. Yes, I am suggesting that we start over from scratch. This will give us tons of jobs. We will need to work together to bring our lives back to a reasonable level of comfort. I am suggesting that we lower our expectations to a level that is recognizant of prehistory. We will then have many more jobs and natural selection will kick in again. And population will drop. It doesn't have to be Y2K but something like Fallout 3 would be good too. This will also lower population. We need a major disaster to kick us in the ass so we can get even better.
And then there is the other solution. Send people into space and start populating another place. But of course we don't have the drive and intelligence to do this yet. We are still to stupid to do it. Hence, options 1 and 2.
I personally believe I am an intellectual. I don't mean to say I am intelligent. Others say that, but I know I am not that smart. I am an intellectual because I enjoy learning. I like to think and I love pondering theoretical ideas. This is an intellectual. I do agree with the writer of the article, that intellectuals are disappearing. There are no people around now that have reached the notability of people like Aristotle, Socrates, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin. There are very few people that have reached these types of notability that everyone know. That if you asked anyone who a person is, they could name. And I mean people that are actually intelligent and intellectual not political officials and celebrities. I bet anyone that reads this can't name 5 intellectuals and then find 5 other average people that know all of those 5 intellectuals.
I also wish to talk about the censorship of people by institutions and industries. I personally hate censorship. People should be questioning their surroundings. We should all be thinking and questioning why and how things are happening. Truth is everything to me. I don't lie about anything important. I won't cover up anything that needs to be told. Now of course there is the line of "when can you lie and when can't you?" In an ideal world no one would lie ever. Then there are emotions and other minute things that come into play. Well I believe that any information kept secret needs to be exposed. People should not fear their government; government should fear its people. This goes for secrets as well. There should be no secrets kept from the people. If this is true then there is no need for people to keep things from their government.
I think this will do for today. That should be enough to keep your minds thinking for a bit. That is all I ask. Hopefully more soon.
I will admit that I probably understood less than 10% of what was actually talked about. Politics is not at all one of my strengths. It is probably one of my most hated things in this current society. But I did read it. I tried to look for the things on intellectuals and other stuff like that. This is something I like to hear and read about.
He starts off with a good mention of intellectuals and how they are diminishing and goes on in a way that I can like. I too believe that it is horrible that there are so few intellectuals left. I was ok with everything so far. I was alright with this kind of writing. Then he started to bash conservatives. He was against neoliberalism as well. I'm not sure what this is exactly. I tried looking it up but all that stuff just goes right over my head.
He talks about how politics is increasing ignorance in people and is run by people who act less smart than they are in order to get votes. I feel like this is highly probable. I don't pay attention to politics because it bores me. People are only interested by things that affect them. If someone is voting, you want to grab their attention. "I will lower your taxes." "Well hell, I vote for that guy." People only want to hear what will make their lives better. They don't want to hear that lower those taxes means raising prices on everything else. So leave out the things that no one wants to hear. That just makes you sound less intelligent to someone who knows about politics.
Politics is something I try to avoid at all costs. And this is where he and I differ. He believes that the institutions and politics should go hand-in-hand. He thinks that intellectuals should care more for government and try to keep it in sync. I think that politicians should be smarter, yes. I however, don't think the two should be hand-in-hand. I personally just think there is too much concern for government altogether. I think something else should be figured out for running everything. I think now the population has become too large to be controlled by any form of government.
I was just talking to one of my professors the other day about how the economy is expanding too fast. She mentioned how production is becoming increasingly automated. Robots and computers can do anything now. Now our unemployment is increasing because there are less jobs due to the jobs being taken by computers. So how can the economy continue to grow if these people have no jobs, no income, and cannot afford products. The economy will be at a standstill. Products will be made but no one will be able to consume them because there will be no money to purchase them. Where will we be then.
First of all I think we are too overpopulated to do anything. I think we need to eliminate some of our population. I don't know how to do this exactly because the last person that did it, ended up fighting the rest of the world because they didn't agree. This reverts back to the Morals blog I posted before. There are too many people that care for their own lives and not the lives of the species as a whole. We are not following the lesson learned by many early on: "Everything in moderation". There are 6 billion+ people. How is that moderate? Far too many for our own good. Diminish population and maybe we can get back on track at least a bit.
Another possible solution to this is a major disaster. I don't mean an earthquake in one small place off the coast of an unknown country. I mean something like Y2K size. Something that will destroy majority of the machines that have taken jobs. Yes, I am suggesting that we start over from scratch. This will give us tons of jobs. We will need to work together to bring our lives back to a reasonable level of comfort. I am suggesting that we lower our expectations to a level that is recognizant of prehistory. We will then have many more jobs and natural selection will kick in again. And population will drop. It doesn't have to be Y2K but something like Fallout 3 would be good too. This will also lower population. We need a major disaster to kick us in the ass so we can get even better.
And then there is the other solution. Send people into space and start populating another place. But of course we don't have the drive and intelligence to do this yet. We are still to stupid to do it. Hence, options 1 and 2.
I personally believe I am an intellectual. I don't mean to say I am intelligent. Others say that, but I know I am not that smart. I am an intellectual because I enjoy learning. I like to think and I love pondering theoretical ideas. This is an intellectual. I do agree with the writer of the article, that intellectuals are disappearing. There are no people around now that have reached the notability of people like Aristotle, Socrates, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin. There are very few people that have reached these types of notability that everyone know. That if you asked anyone who a person is, they could name. And I mean people that are actually intelligent and intellectual not political officials and celebrities. I bet anyone that reads this can't name 5 intellectuals and then find 5 other average people that know all of those 5 intellectuals.
I also wish to talk about the censorship of people by institutions and industries. I personally hate censorship. People should be questioning their surroundings. We should all be thinking and questioning why and how things are happening. Truth is everything to me. I don't lie about anything important. I won't cover up anything that needs to be told. Now of course there is the line of "when can you lie and when can't you?" In an ideal world no one would lie ever. Then there are emotions and other minute things that come into play. Well I believe that any information kept secret needs to be exposed. People should not fear their government; government should fear its people. This goes for secrets as well. There should be no secrets kept from the people. If this is true then there is no need for people to keep things from their government.
I think this will do for today. That should be enough to keep your minds thinking for a bit. That is all I ask. Hopefully more soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)