Comments on: for a horse with wings http://www.dansanders.net/2009/10/20/for-a-horse-with-wings/ building a bias for action Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:57:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: dan http://www.dansanders.net/2009/10/20/for-a-horse-with-wings/comment-page-1/#comment-20732 dan Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:32:13 +0000 http://www.dansanders.net/?p=147#comment-20732 Natural selection takes a long time. It hasn't been that long since the Industrial Revolution. But you've gotta hand it to humanity; two world wars, multiple homicidal dictators, and the use of nuclear weapons - we've been giving it our best to curb our own population. Alas, being able to feed ever-more mouths just makes more mouths. We'll have to come up with a better way than war and genocide to limit our own. Natural selection takes a long time. It hasn’t been that long since the Industrial Revolution. But you’ve gotta hand it to humanity; two world wars, multiple homicidal dictators, and the use of nuclear weapons – we’ve been giving it our best to curb our own population. Alas, being able to feed ever-more mouths just makes more mouths. We’ll have to come up with a better way than war and genocide to limit our own.

]]> By: DG Seaton http://www.dansanders.net/2009/10/20/for-a-horse-with-wings/comment-page-1/#comment-20731 DG Seaton Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:05:02 +0000 http://www.dansanders.net/?p=147#comment-20731 His "argument from ignorance" raises all kinds of salient and timely topics for me! Among them, my own father's pride in "not liking big words." And it pries into a topic I'm researching now -- "guilt-cultures." We have one in the States now; the Ancient Greeks had one as well. Essentially, guilt cultures require fear as a foundation: fear of punishment, but fear also feeds ignorance. Arguably, ignorance cannot exist *without* fear. His disparagement of human nature and "brain failures" reminds me of my own beloved Agent Smith soliloquy. How we continue to function and survive doesn't prove evolution to me so much as Dumb Luck. There aren't statistically enough Neil Tyson's to keep the species moving forward. Ironically, the Neil Tyson types frequently choose *not* to procreate, which turns "survival of the fittest" on its ear in a most disturbing way! His “argument from ignorance” raises all kinds of salient and timely topics for me! Among them, my own father’s pride in “not liking big words.” And it pries into a topic I’m researching now — “guilt-cultures.” We have one in the States now; the Ancient Greeks had one as well. Essentially, guilt cultures require fear as a foundation: fear of punishment, but fear also feeds ignorance. Arguably, ignorance cannot exist *without* fear.

His disparagement of human nature and “brain failures” reminds me of my own beloved Agent Smith soliloquy. How we continue to function and survive doesn’t prove evolution to me so much as Dumb Luck. There aren’t statistically enough Neil Tyson’s to keep the species moving forward. Ironically, the Neil Tyson types frequently choose *not* to procreate, which turns “survival of the fittest” on its ear in a most disturbing way!

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