Posts

How not to outlive our brains, and stop dying overhealthy

How not to outlive our brains, and stop dying overhealthy

Medicine can extend the life of our bodies but not of our brains, which remain quite impermeable to drugs. Thus, we are harvesting generations of brainless old persons, who are out living their minds, because of dementia, alzheimer and the like.
The proper way to correct this is not to euthanise old people, but a braver path: to reduce the medical expenses in our society, so that we  stop becoming over-healthy, and our brain and body die together, peacefully and naturally.

Excellence is not overperforming, but performing the most while keeping your place

Virtue in ancient Greek was “areté” a force to aim for excellence. Justice (“diké”) was the natural order of things. One could not survive without the other.
It made no sense to be excellent, as in Modernity, by specializing and, because of that, quiting your place in cosmos: by being a super-performer and abandoning your family or civil duties.
Excellence is not climbing to the highest social place, but performing the most you can from your position in live.
In liquid times, like Modernity, people who perform, consequently do climb. But this is an accident, not the essence of excellence.

No overpopulation can happen under Nature's watch.

Nature is nothing if it is not a mechanism to control populations. This is the mere essence of Evolution.
Therefore, altough man is not 100% subject to Nature’s command,  we somehow disrespect Nature when we believe that humans are able to overpopulate. After all, one of our most animal instinct -fear- emerged in the 20th century to put the breaks on human population growth.
So, relax: Mom knows best

Politics is gardening the human ecosystem

Politics is gardening the human ecosystem

Egyptians saw the political order as part of natural order (for example people were born to do different things: rule, serve). On the other extreme, we moderns think politics is the coordination of different, equal wills.
The truth is in between:
The natural order places each one in an starting point (a genetic and a cultural endowment). But the starting point, although important, is no definitive. Then we add our vocation (mission) and our freedom. With this, we can get out and make a better world (instead of adapting to it by evolution).
From this perspective, politics is not a social contract but the gardening of an ecosystem that allows each member to walk the maximum distance between the his/her starting point and his/her goal.
In an ecosystem, treating all individual as equals is the sure way to destroy it.

Let everyone knows what everyone earns

Let everyone knows what everyone earns

Let everyone knows what everyone earns

The modern invention of privacy is getting too expensive in the digital age. And there is no natural right to conceal how much money one makes. In addition, publicizing each one wealth is the unbeatable way to ensure each one pays his due taxes: by having all his neighbors watching his returns
Why not to do something we can

Why not to do something we can

I n Modernity, as ‘making’ is the ultimate goal of humankind, it is difficult to put a limit on any production. This is why we have, for example,  developed weapons that can destroy our race, several times, when once is more than enough.
And now comes the turn of all the genetic manipulation that we can do: produce the dream baby for every woman , with pre-selected skin and eye color, and smile size.
But should we do it just because we can?
To prevent this, we must, previously, change our mentality, and acknowledge that  production is for living, not the other way around. But to dethrone ‘production’ we must finally dethrone ‘power’ as the ultimate measure of plenitude. And this would mean getting rid of Modernity, the lenses that, presently, we use to see the world.

Atheism is a religion

Atheism is a religion

A religion is simply the answer to the “ultimate questions” in live: 1) where do we come from? 2) where are we ending?, and 3) how to behave to enrich this journey?.
Atheism answers these questions fair and square : 1) we come from matter and chance 2) the death is the end, and 3) don’t bother the others so they don’t bother you.
Atheism is a religion, a worldview.

The children that caused financial bubbles

The children that caused financial bubbles

Children, not retirement accounts, are the Nature’s way to allow the winding down of persons in the old age.
Trying to live up depending on oneself (retirement systems) has created an artificial mass of money that has scrambled the world since 1970’s, producing a nightmare of bubbles popping up in every market. This bubbles are the Nature’s crying to get back to homeostasis, to equilibrium.

I vote for teenage pregnancy

In modern world, we start to live too late. Because of our fetichism with education, we delay marriage and work until unnatural ages (30+).
This shows our lack of confidence in Nature, and our blind faith in reason. It is time to re-calibrate our values

My work-product is not mine

Locke (+ 1704) introduced the idea that, anything you work on, is your property. This is the seed of liberalism. This idea was also used by Marx to define worker’s alienation. But this idea is false, because it is non-ecological: does not recognize that there are lots of other resources (aside from me) adding value to my work.