my thoughts on anything related to philosophy.
What is the root of conflict? For background, see: Girard’s Mimetic Theory: The Origin of Conflict Hegel’s The First Man and The Battle for Pure Prestige. Sigmund Freud thought that all human goals are manifestations of two opposing drives: Eros and Thanatos. He did not think these drives had a progressive character that tended to … Read more
Man is a social animal, directed by others, but his sociability does not lead him into a peaceful civil society, because at the root of sociability is conflict. In trying to unmask the root of conflict and desire, I have drawn from the ideas of Rene Girard, Hegel, and Fukuyama. See “Mimetic Theory: The Origin … Read more
One of the important ways in which modern people differ from ancient people, is that modern society has mastered risk. That is not to say that each individual has mastered risk, but that each individual has at their disposable extremely powerful tools, passed down from great thinkers, that allows them to understand risk better than … Read more
The ironic part about get-rich-quick schemes is that the people who buy into them invest many years trying to get rich “quick.” But why are they so attractive? It could have something to do with “loss aversion” – the idea that people prefer to avoid losing 100 dollars than gain 100 dollars even if there … Read more
In Essays and Aphorisms, Arthur Schopenhauer makes an interesting remark about the pitfalls of reading too much. He refers to Alexander Pope’s poem. Forever reading, never to be read. Alexander Pope When you read the thoughts of others, you are allowing their flow of thoughts to steer you in one direction or another, even if … Read more
Ivan the Fool is a short parable by Leo Tolstoy first published in 1886. It presents Tolstoy’s philosophical critique of militarism and commercialism. Ivan belongs to a peasant family. He has two brothers. One of his brothers is a soldier, the other is a fat merchant. Ivan is the story’s hero; he is called a … Read more
Should you become a specialist or a generalist? In a previous post, I argued that unless you were a genius or a polymath like Leonardo Da Vinci, you should specialize. If you are normal, it will take you a long time to become good enough at something to be able to innovate or add value … Read more
In the last few decades, the possibility of downloading our thoughts into a computer has been discussed. And just as with the internet, the first people who talked about mind uploading were small in number, and eccentric in character. But now, the idea of human-machine intelligence has entered into the mainstream. Ray Kurzweil predicts that … Read more
The image of a forest burning is tragic. Forests capture carbon. And carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas emitted by human activities. Changes in forest carbon can mitigate climate change or make it worse. But forest fires are important. They help the natural cycle of woods’ growth and replenishment. They clear dead trees, leaves, … Read more
People excuse their moral shortcomings by doing good things that are trivial, observed Slavoj Zizek. “It is okay that there is injustice in the world, because I recycle” or when it comes to politics, “I did not vote for this imbecile, so it is not my fault that the country is in crisis.” Implicit in … Read more