Woke is Right.

So what does woke mean anyway ?

Accepting people for who they are.

Allowing people to love who they love and marry who they love.

Allowing women (and men) control over their own bodies.

Judging people by their deeds, not the colour of their skin or their religion.

Allowing people to practice their culture or religion as long as it does not harm others.

Not fearing or hating people because they are different than you.

Welcoming newcomers.

Giving everyone an equal opportunity by providing education and health care to everyone.

Practising conservation of the habitat we depend on to live.

Living within one’s means and as a society within the means of the planet’s resources.

Prioritizing people over property.

And sharing.

When you strip away the political ideology and look at these principles philosophically they are basic principles of conservatism.

Woke is Right.

The Thing About Religious Fundamentalists

The thing About religious fundamentalists is that they expect you to base your life and your belief system and morality on religious texts written three thousand years ago, before:
 
- The Renaissance (15th and 16th Centuries CE)

- The Scientific Revolution (1543-1687 CE)

- The Enlightenment/Age of Reason (17th & 18th Centuries CE)

- Darwin’s Theory of Evolution (1859 CE)

- The Discovery of DNA (1869 CE, genetic role 1943 CE, double-helix structure 1953 CE)

- The Information Age (1970–present CE)

- Even before The Dark Ages (5th to 10th Century CE) and the life of their saviour Jesus Christ (4 BCE – 30/33 CE).

Wisdom requires knowledge, yet they would have people establish their moral framework and live their lives as if all human learning and knowledge of the last two thousand years did not exist.

Left, Right or Centre – Explainer

In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre.

If you are on the right you believe in individualism and the free market. Individualism rules supreme and there is no such thing as collective rights. You believe in the mantras that “acting in your own self interest is in the best interests of society” and “what is good for General Motors is good for America”.

You believe that almost everything, except perhaps policing and the military, is done best by the private sector and that the profit motive is the best motivator of people. Competition is the best way to provide progress and create wealth.

You believe in inequality because that is the best way to reward intelligence, talent and hard work. The poor are poor because they do not work hard enough.

You believe in small government whose role is essentially to protect private property rights. You think of taxes as something an outside entity (the government) takes from you, you may even refer to it as stealing. You may also believe in unfettered free speech.

If you are on the left you believe in community. You believe that individuals are not completely fulfilled unless they are part of a community. You believe in co-operation and working together for the common good. You care for others and believe everyone deserves respect and human dignity.

You believe everyone deserves a decent life and all work should receive a living wage with employment benefits, especially decent pensions. You believe the level of inequality in our society is immoral and billionaires should not exist.

You believe government exists to serve the common good by providing public services efficiently and reducing economic inequality in society. You believe taxes are how we collectively spend our money for the common good.

You may even believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to society according to our ability and society has a responsibility to provide for our basic needs, including food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

Those of you who claim to be in the centre are probably actually on the right but you believe government has a role in reducing the worst aspects of capitalism and providing a social safety net for the victims of capitalist excesses.

Happy New Years

Community

My New Years Resolution for our society is to no longer worship at the twin altars of individualism and technology but rather to embrace the saviour of community.

From the industrial revolution to the high tech revolution we have deluded ourselves that technology would solve all our problems. While technology may indeed have made the lives of the wealthy better, those at the bottom see much fewer of it's benefits and I have no doubt that it has contributed to the growing inequality in our society.

Individualism has been just as disappointing a solution to our problems benefiting only a select few individuals at the top with very little benefit “trickling down” to the bottom.

The fact is our problems are not technological but social and require sociological solutions. We are at our best when we work together as communities to improve the lives of everyone. If we want to build a better society we have to build better communities that serve everyone not just the privileged few.

We could even call this “communityism” but that's a bit awkward sounding so instead let's just go with social democracy.

Postscript

Philosophically thinking about the meaning of life and how our lives are just a tiny speck in the space-time continuum and how if you are someone who believes in community you will realize the only rational reason for living is to make other peoples lives better, while if you are an individualist you had better just hurry up and acquire as much stuff as you can before your time runs out.

Can We, Should We, Will We Live Forever Online

When typing for this blog I have often wished I could just think my thoughts at the computer and have them type out on the screen. This, no doubt, has much to do with the fact I am a one finger hunt and peck typist (having been streamed into drafting and electricity in grade nine rather than typing and home economics).

But this got me thinking bigger.

First some thoughts on what makes us human. I have heard it said that what separates us from the (other) animals is that we are aware of our existence. I think it is probably somewhat more than that, extending to the fact that we philosophize and question the meaning of life. Of course we do not know what (other) animals are thinking but clearly thinking and communicating are more important to us than simply the tasks necessary for our physical existence.

On to the idea of living forever. It seems the biggest obstacle to living forever is that our bodies wear out, particularly our hearts and lungs that keep oxygen and blood circulating. The other big factor is that the earth could not sustain everyone living forever unless we stopped reproducing.

But what if we did not need most of our physical body and all those resources we live off of. What if we only needed to keep our brains alive.

If the essence of being human is thinking and communication, what if we only needed our brains to do that.

What if we had a brain-computer interface that would let us think our thoughts to our computers and communicate with other humans, including living brains. What then.

How much space and resources would it take to just keep our brains alive after our bodies died,

And what if we did not even have to do that. What if we could transfer the essence of our brains, our intellectual being and memories onto computer chips that required virtually no storage space and only required a few millivolts of energy to be sustained forever.

The big question is would you want to live forever on the Internet watching mankind make the same mistakes over and over forever and ever.

I Like The New Tory TV Ad

I have to say I like the new Conservative Party "certainty" ad, although it is not available on their website. It is not an attack ad but just a straightforward statement of their basic philosophy - change is bad and new ideas are dangerous. Refreshing.