17 OCT 2021 by ideonexus
Half of Children Won't Live to Adulthood, So Why Torture ...
Nothing is more uncertain than the life span of individual man; very few men reach old age. The greatest risks are incurred at the beginning of life: the less we have lived the less we may expect to live. Of the children that are born half at most grow to adolescence; thus it is probable that your pupil will not attain the age of manhood.
What must we think then of the barbarous education which sacrifices the present for an uncertain future, which surrounds a child with all sorts of fetters ... 1 
notes
notes28 FEB 2021 by ideonexus
Humanity is Fortunate to Have a Variety of Energy Sources...
Humanity is fortunate in having such a variety of energy resources at its disposal. In the very long run we shall need energy that is unpolluting; we shall have sunlight. In the fairly long run we shall need energy that is inexhaustible and moderately clean; we shall have deuterium. In the short run we shall need energy that is readily usable and abundant; we shall have uranium. Right now we need energy that is cheap and convenient; we have coal and oil. Nature has been kinder to us than we h... 1 notes
notes02 JAN 2018 by ideonexus
Humanity vs Ideolog Quote
"If your belief is in disagreement with my humanity, I don't have to be tolerant of that. I don't have to make room for that. There's not room in a big tent for you to negotiate away my humanity and call it your political or ideological leaning." -@MsPackyetti16 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
What is a Person?
What is a person?
This seems like an easy question, but appearances
can be deceiving. Throughout the long sweep of
human history, the answer to the question of what
a person is has continually changed. Was a woman
a person, or was she a piece of property? Or was she
even a liability, something that had to be compensated
for with a dowry before a man’s family would agree to take her on? Was a man alien to their immediate
culture a person? Not if you were of African descent
in the United Sta...
1 A great passage on the history of personhood and its possible future.
27 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Psychology Studies Sample WEIRD Humans
[This paper is] about another exotic group: people from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and
Democratic (WEIRD)societies. In particular, it’s about the Western, and more specifically
American, undergraduates who form the bulk of the database in the experimental branches of
psychology, cognitive science, and economics, as well as allied fields(labeled the “behavioral
sciences”).
[...]
Who are the people studied in behavioral science research? A recent analysis of the top
journa... 1 notes
notesA culture not representative of the species.
18 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Buckminster Fuller's Rules for Knowing if He Was on the R...
I assumed that nature would "evaluate" my work as I went along. If I was doing what nature wanted done, and if I was doing it in promising ways, permitted by nature's principles, I would find my work being econom¬ ically sustained—and vice versa, in which latter negative case I must quick¬ ly cease doing what I had been doing and seek logically alternative courses until I found the new course that nature signified her approval of by pro¬ viding for its physical support.
Vherefore, I co... 1 notes
notesIf he was creating artifacts that would help the human race survive, nature, he found, would provide for all his needs.
18 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Humans are "Tool Complexes"
Humans are tool complexes—hands for certain tasks, feet, ears, teeth. etc., for others. Using their human tool complexes, human minds, comprebending variable interrelationship principles, invent detached-from-self tools—the bucket can lift out more water from the well than can a pair of cupped human hands—that are more special-case-effective but not used as frequently as their organically integral tools. Humans invent craft tools and industrial tools. The latter are all the tools that c...
1 Similar to a memeplex body of knowledge or a biological complex of living things.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Are Humans Parasites?
A lot of people ask, 'Do you think humans are parasites?' It's an interesting idea and one worth thinking about. People casually refer to humanity as a virus spreading across the earth. In fact, we do look like some strange kind of bio-film spreading across the landscape. A good metaphor? If the biosphere is our host, we do use it up for our own benefit. We do manipulate it. We alter the flows and fluxes of elements like carbon and nitrogen to benefit ourselves—often at the expense of the b...If so, then we are very bad at it since we appear to be killing our only host.
06 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Humanity is Like a Baby
Humanity is at the very beginning of its existence—a new-born babe, with all the unexplored potentialities of babyhood; and until the last few moments its interest has been centred, absolutely and exclusively, on its cradle and feeding bottle. 1 notes
notesCentered on its cradle and its bottle.
07 MAY 2012 by ideonexus
Losing the Human Perspective in the Vastness of the Cosmos
When I pause and reflect on our expanding universe, with its galaxies hurtling away from one another, embedded within the ever-stretching, four-dimensional fabric of space and time, sometimes I forget that uncounted people walk this Earth without food or shelter, and that children are disproportionately represented among them.
When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious presence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day—every twe... 1 notes
notesTyson talks about how easy it is to forget human dilemmas when we consider the immense size of our Universe.
