My World of “Ought to Be”
by Timothy Wilken, MD










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Friday, October 25, 2002
 

Unlimited Technology Requires Synergic Morality

Peter Russell writes: Technology is one of humanity’s greatest assets. With it we have changed the face of the Earth and developed in ways that no other creature could ever have done. Yet this same power for change now threatens the survival of our species. The issue that I would like to explore here is how this dangerous situation has arisen and how we might be able to adopt a more appropriate value system. In essence all technology can be considered as an amplifiacation of our innate capacities. One ability that makes humanity unique is our opposable thumb – a thumb that can rotate fully about its base, allowing it to be put in direct opposition to each of the fingers. This unique feature allows us to grasp objects of varying shapes and sizes, manipulate them, and perform delicate operations with them. It transforms the human hand into one of the most elegantly skillful biological organs ever evolved. These hands have led us to become one of the most proficient and prolific tool-users on the planet. We moved from hammers to axes, clothes, boats, wheels, windmills, steam engines, telephones, computers and space vehicles. All of this technology is, in essence, the amplification of the potential inherent in the human thumb. ... Everything that is going wrong in the world around us has originated from decisions made by human beings. We may have made those decisions very consciously or without much thinking; we may have made them individually or in groups; but ultimately all of the crises stem from human action and human thinking. The error is inside our own heads, in our minds, in our attitudes, in our values.  (10/25/02)


  b-future:

Civilizations End This Way

Charles W. Moore writes: Postmodern culture is, in the context of our society, post-Christian culture. It is marked by the poisonous notion that morality is relative, that there are no absolutes, and that nothing can be truly known. Its only creed is that of indiscriminate tolerance of virtually anything except any sort of moral absolutism or definitive truth-claims. And it is no surprise or coincidence that such a climate of moral anarchy can create amoral predators like the evil individual blowing away folks in Washington while they gas up their cars, clip their hedges, or arrive at school. Civilization did not derive from "the goodness of individual human spirits" working in harmony for the common good, as humanist dogma would have us believe. It is dependent upon honouring the objective moral laws of the created order and in acknowledgment of the sovereignty and authority of God. The father of modern and postmodern moral-relativism, Friedrich Nietzsche, asserted that man creates his own values, and that the codes of good and evil affirmed by various cultures derive from the longings and strivings of human will -- not divine revelation, objective truth, or even reason. However, Nietzsche was more intellectually honest than today's liberal humanists, who imagine that they can retain quasi-Christian social morality without reference to its source. If Christian faith was to be denied, Nietzsche maintained, then Christian morality must also be spurned. And without Christian morality and its demand for personal accountability, all hell breaks loose. (10/25/02)


  b-CommUnity:

Tom Lehrer Sings The Periodic Table

Amazing and fun, especially if you every had to learn the periodic table of chemical elements. (10/25/02)


  b-theInternet:

Rubik's Cube -- Aim for Brain

Wow! (flash) Takes a moment to load, but then you have your own rubik's cube with some help undoing it when you get stumped! (10/25/02)


  b-theInternet:

The Human Footprint

Analysis of the human footprint map indicates that 83% of the land's surface is influenced by one or more of the following factors:  human population density greater than 1 person per square kilometer, within 15 km of a road or major river, occupied by urban or agricultural land uses, within 2 km of a settlement or a railway, and/or producing enough light to be visible regularly to a satellite at night.  98% of the areas where it is possible to grow rice, wheat or maize (according to FAO estimates) are similarly influenced.  However human influence is not inevitably negative impact -- in fact conservation organizations, including the Wildlife Conservation Society, have shown remarkable solutions that allow people and wildlife to co-exist.    Nature is often resilient if given half a chance.  Human beings are in the position of offering or withholding that chance. (10/25/02)


  b-theInternet:


5:44:19 AM    


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