At left is a quote from 19th Century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
With all this pessimism, I think I would call him more “disturbed” than “insightful.”
Long-time readers know that 2GreenEnergy tries to maintain a certain level of optimism (even after the re-election of Donald Trump) insofar as people who believe that life is hopeless normally wind up in a kind of torpor. In turn, inactive people don’t do much to change the world.
If you tried to list all the elements of hypocrisy associated with the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” you’d be busy for a very long time. War, the death penalty, genocide via bombs or starving out entire populations, refusing women life-saving abortions when their lives will certainly perish if they carry a diseased pregnancy to term…there really is no end.
The reference in the meme here, of course, is to the U.S. health insurance industry, whose greed routinely condemns uncountable Americans to death every year.
That the United States is the only developed country on Earth that allows a for-profit healthcare industry to put its boot on the neck of its citizens like this runs counter to the desires of the vast majority of its people, ca. 70%, who favor universal healthcare.
But the idea that “thou shalt not kill” means exactly zero.
I’m surprised to see the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) make such a broad statement, since there are numerous situations in which biomass is a boon to our environment.
Take forest waste as an example. Here’s woody mass that would otherwise either decay, or worse, catch on fire, in either case releasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
Using some form of gasification to break the mass down and extract the energy is a great idea.
Anyone who lets a philosophy destroy his perception of the world is an idiot.
A possible exception to this is Schopenhauer’s statement (which I paraphrase): We live our lives in such a way to distract us from the fact that we’re all going to be dead soon.
Now that’s a downer, but is it true? Unless you’re emotionally ill, or knocking on death’s door, no one really lives his life this way,
I’m not sure an atheist can answer this question, other than to say, “One either believes in things where there is evidence, or one doesn’t, and I was wired to be the former as opposed to the latter.”
Speaking for myself, I knew when I was three years old that the God thing wasn’t going to work for me. How I was born like this I have no idea.
In the off chance that I leave this world and confront a God who takes me to task for my position, I plan to explain, “I’m sorry. I simply didn’t see enough evidence to support that belief.” A loving God cannot have a problem with that.
If there is a God and it turns out He’s the angry old guy from the Old Testament, we’re all screwed anyway.
The “discovery” that these four African girls supposedly made is called a microbial fuel cell, actually initiated in 1911 by an Englishman.
Among the other misstatements here is the idea of “six hours of electricity.” How much electricity? That’s like saying, “Six hours of flowing water.” How much water? The Mississippi River, or a slow drip from a leaky faucet? In this case, it’s far closer to the latter; microbial fuel cells produce so little current that they may as well not exist at all.
Some people claim that there could be a valid commercial application for these devices, especially in the processing of organic waste. I doubt it. The subject strikes me as a terrific biochemistry experiment for high school kids, but that’s about it.
The idea that the media is conspiring to keep these kids’ work from the public adds just another slap across the face.
Until a phone call last night, I was unaware that the ferocious censure of Dr. Anthony Fauci by the right-wing news media continues to this very moment.
Apparently, all this ill-will is based on the idea he got the science wrong, that he shouldn’t have closed the schools, and that he made several misrepresentations of factual matters.
That seems like a weird accusation against a man who:
• Has been studying immunology for more than half a century and has advised every American president since Ronald Reagan.
• Was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush for his work on the AIDS relief program
• Was tasked with addressing COVID-19, a disease of a kind that humankind had never before encountered.
• To most of the world, he appears to have done his best to minimize the damage to our population.
• Cooperated with senior scientists around the globe, given that the Unites States is only one of 208 nations on Earth. As shown on this map, 168 countries closed or put restrictions on their schools. That’s 81%. Do you think Dr. Fauci called some guy in Belarus or Mongolia and told him what to do regarding his country’s schools?
Scientists who make important calls are doing their best under difficult circumstances and are subject to Monday morning quarterbacks from the anti-science community.
If I were to speculate, I’d say that Dr. Fauci’s only real sin was his failure to keep silent when Donald Trump was making wild, radically unscientific assertions about the disease and how it should be handled (shining ultraviolet light into the patient’s lungs, ingesting bleach, etc.)
This whole matter is a prime example of how an entire community can exist within our nation that’s based on a careful assemblage of disinformation. If you turn on Fox News or, worse, Newsmax, you’ll see immediately that Dr. Fauci is only one of many dozens of objects of their vilification.
If you take a stand against Trump, whether it concerns some element of public policy, criminal prosecution, concerns for the environment, whatever (it doesn’t matter) be prepared to be torn into pieces by these sources of “news.”
This is why most Americans have such high levels of respect for people like Liz Cheney. She warned the world that Trump is a criminal sociopath, and guess what: Trump wants her in jail.
At left is the essential tragedy of American politics of the last ten years.
But were our citizens’ dealings with the U.S. governments ever honest, at any real level? Of course not.
Consider the robber barons of the late 19th Century, or Warren Harding and Teapot Dome in the 1920s, or what the U.S. government has done to “protect its interests” by wiping out indigenous populations all over the entire Western Hemisphere.
Yet it didn’t change the planet too much if, 100 years ago, the wealthiest of us bribed our leaders to become that much richer. There was a limit past which the effects of this criminality could not pass.
Now those limits have been removed. Today’s corruption means spewing climate changing gases into our atmosphere, gasses that our scientists assure us are baking our planet and hastening the end of life on this planet.
In my recent post: What Can We Learn from Emerson? I wondered why I have a lower opinion of the world and the people living on it than I did a decade ago, and I contemplated what that says about me.
Maybe like-minded people shouldn’t feel so bad about all this, and consider what Emerson said here to be merely a reflection of his times. The mid-19th Century featured far fewer people on Earth, a fervent and soul-nourishing push to emancipate the slaves, and no impending environmental disasters or proliferation of nuclear weapons.
He had reason for his optimistic strength; maybe we have justification for our deep level of concern–perhaps even sorrow.
Many of us have come across this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson, but have we really thought about it? I hadn’t until just now.
I’ll admit that I have a lower opinion of the world and the people living on it than I did a decade ago, and I’m now compelled to wonder what that says about me.
Actually, it’s hard to know if I’m becoming more cynical, or if the world is simply becoming more disappointing.
Most people feel a deep sadness about a population in which a tiny number of people have far more money than they could possibly spend in a thousand lifetimes, when so much of the rest of the world suffers in hunger, in disease and impoverishment.
Moreover, the entire planet is becoming uninhabitable due to our indifference. The United States, with its handful of multi-billionaires, is in a position to arrest the implosion of the environment. But what do the top 0.001% choose to do? Donate uncountable fortunes so that Donald Trump, clearly a criminal sociopath, can rule this country–and as much of the rest of the world as possible. Some of them become ambassadors to France. Others run the Pentagon.
Again, I don’t doubt that all this says something about me. As I age my energy level is starting to flag, and so is my spirit to awaken my fellows to fight against what just may be the inevitable.
