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This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Until we wake up to this fact, we will contin

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even spirituality), and the modern scientific metaphysics has no space for "miracles," so we don't have a coherent framework in which to talk about or even remind ourselves of this profound truth. Each of us is left to cobble something together for ourselves (and for the few people around us that we trust not to think we're crazy). I do think that psychedelics seem like one promising avenue. Perhaps they will help give us the inspiration to fill in this tragic blindspot. Edit: If the votes are any indication, then I was too hasty in calling this opinion unpopular. Perhaps more of us suspect this than are willing to say it out loud. Edit 2: On that note, I've been scared to share my own crazy take on this, but I'll just leave this here: https://www.lifeismiraculous.org https://www.lifeismiraculous.org

blablabla123 7y ago
I think the modern, post-religious intellectual discourse has not even space for metaphysics. Anything in this direction is considered mumbo jumbo. :-) Materialism probably hasn't reached its peak yet.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  The history of metaphysics is people denying that they're doing metaphysics. Materialism and scientific realism in science and various forms of Platonism and structuralism in mathematics are just too prevalent for people to even notice them at this point.
  - monktastic1 7y ago
    Can't agree strongly enough. Even with meditation, where the whole point is (in a sense) to wake up to one's entire field of experience, people are generally unwilling to dig under their own metaphysical layers. They write this off as "oh, I don't do metaphysics." Yes, you do; you're just unwilling to face it. I updated my post above with a link to a first draft of a site where I go into a little more detail.
    - guerrilla 7y ago
      I'm not sure from what you wrote that we have the same definition of metaphysics. I'm referring to a specific branch of mainstream academic philosophy. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics
      - monktastic1 7y ago
        I think we do. "Metaphysics" refers to both the branch of philosophy as well as any particular system of metaphysical beliefs. We all subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) carry around a metaphysics in the latter sense.
        guerrilla 7y ago
        Precisely :)
carapace 7y ago
Exactly this: we are divorced from nature. I remember as a kid that going camping was considered an "escape from reality", which made no sense to me because of course Nature is reality and our cities are the artificial "escape". Geoff Lawton has a quote, "You can solve all the world's problems in a garden." It's pretty literal: food, recycling poop and pee, medicine, building materials, not to mention the peace and happiness you have caring for other living things and accepting gratefully their care of you. It is fun and easy! - - - - For practical advice on what to do I recommend Toby Hemenway's videos in re: Permaculture http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/ http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/ Especially "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and the sequel "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture". Permaculture is a school of applied ecology (the word itself is a portmanteau of PERMAnent agriCULTURE) that has adherents and practitioners world-wide. It's not the only form of regenerative agriculture either. See also https://www.greenwave.org/our-work https://www.greenwave.org/our-work Oceanic 3D farms! And now they are building reefs?
MFLoon 7y ago
I think there is actually a quite simple, coherent framework for such a thing: probability theory. You could say highly improbable is a more scientific synonym for miraculous. I don't think the problem is that people are unaware per se of the miraculousness/improbability of life, but rather that said awareness is deeply frightening and most people would prefer to sublimate it. The fact that we've all already cheated the infinite oblivion of never existing is incredibly lucky (to non-pessimists), but deeply meditating on this fact is psychologically similar to having a near death experience. So we narrativize to reassure ourselves that our existence isn't just dumb luck, in any manner of ways, both mystical and pseudo scientific: our lives are preordained by God, or by a purely deterministic set of physical laws, or by the operators of our universal simulation, or by the anthropic principle. All of these belief systems are roughly analogous to saying "Everything happens for a reason", which is something you hear even intelligent people parrot in times of distress. But as Quentin Meillassoux argues in "After Finitude", the only truly universal law of metaphysics is in fact the negation of that platitude: "Things could be as they are, or they could be otherwise."
siempreb 7y ago
> Until we wake up to this fact That is not really the case here. I woke up already long ago, but there is no way I can stop the idiots. Only governments can take action by law, not me. France and Germany will not allow for Facebooks' Libra coin. It shows how fast they can act if their economy is at stake. But for decades already they allow pesticides for agriculture. They could and should know about allowing for mass extermination of entire insect species. So tell me what I can or should do if they let this sick economy prevail?
- wongarsu 7y ago
  Germany managed to outlaw glyphosate. That's the government reacting to pressure from voters (especially the massive gains of the Green party).
  - magduf 7y ago
    That's an example of where democracy works because the voters are educated and care about important issues. In countries that are full of uneducated idiots, it doesn't work so well and glyphosphate isn't banned.
neilv 7y ago
For this purpose, I think one doesn't need psychedelics, nor religion, nor to consider the situation slipping away from us a miracle. You just need to go out to nature or a park, on a nice day, and realize you really want things like birds and (if you still have them) butterflies. And food, and air, and clean water, and not being underwater, and not having large swaths of continents be broiled to uninhabitable.
RoutinePlayer 7y ago
I'm not sure I fully know your stances on all of this, but Religion is not really a prerequisite for fully appreciating how beautiful yet precarious our biosphere truly is. Engineering solutions to combat or circumvent Climate Change is our ONLY way forward. But first we need to get a critical mass of our American citizenry to be convinced we have an actual problem. Especially, in fact, a large segment of the electorate that's VERY religious and continually refuses to accept the facts about AGW. I say Americans here because a disproportionate percentage was/is being caused by us, and because we also play a unique place in world affairs.
- Feuilles_Mortes 7y ago
  > Engineering solutions to combat or circumvent Climate Change is our ONLY way forward. I think that this perspective ignores the environmental problems inherent in a capitalist mode of production, and in fact plays into them. I think that a political revolution could be imminent, and I would urge those concerned about the future of life on this planet to consider alternative modes of economics.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    Capitalism is based on infinite growth (economists even laugh at people like Malthus who proposed otherwise) and on fungibility of values (money is green no matter where from). This basically leads to a necessity of destroying nature for the sake of realizing economic growth. We need at least start to take seriously the fact that, the way capitalist economy is conducted, there is no way forward to save the environment.
    - lacampbell 7y ago
      By that logic, capitalism leads to a necessity of murdering your business rivals for the sake of realizing growth.
      - coliveira 7y ago
        Capitalism happens inside a framework of laws. There are strong laws against murdering your competitors, that's why this doesn't happen (nowadays). There is a whole set of unethical behaviors, however, that are commonly used for the goal of producing a profit.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
That's a central thesis of Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow. Understanding that a rainbow is caused by the prismatic effect of water droplets in the air makes it more miraculous, not less.
jobigoud 7y ago
> this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Here is an attempt at a framework to think about this: we have no proof that life exists anywhere else in the Universe. There is a possibility that life itself arose only once and that we are the only intelligent beings around. We have a sort of grand astronomical duty to not fuck it up and expand to the stars and keep the fire going.
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  That's what I'm saying man this behavior is just beyond selfish. And we are leaving nothing for the next generations to use in terms of raw materials in order to help us become a space-faring species. Society is perverted to the core.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    There's a fun catch here though. Earth is going to face a natural destruction sooner or later. Be it by a gamma ray burst, a super-volcanic eruption, an asteroid impact, or any of other other practically infinite number of ways it can happen, has happened (multiple times), and will happen again soon or later. So we're all effectively living on borrowed time. You can't create a permanently sustainable Earth in a beautiful equilibrium because that's not how this universe works. It loves to throw a spanner in the works, over and over. And so the point of this is that it's only by racing against an unknown clock that one can hope to actually sustain humanity. Consequently, our rapid development which is undoubtedly causing harm to Earth is likely also, equally without doubt, the very thing that may ultimately enable humanity to survive in the longrun. We already have all the resources we need to become a space faring civilization, except for one - public will. People of course want it, but also simultaneously think space is a fantasy, much like at one time crossing the ocean was seen as. And so it's put on the side burner while we focus on much more pressing matters, like what some politician or celebrity said on Twitter. If a tenth of the energy we spend on social media or trying to shove ads at each other was focused on space, we'd already have set foot on Mars.
    - soulofmischief 7y ago
dfischer 7y ago
The solution to this is a culture that regularly participated in mushrooms or DMT. I mean that seriously. It’s a profound awakening to love and beauty we are surrounded by. Ayahuasca is almost an alien-like technology.
GuiA 7y ago
I really liked this essay: http://paulkingsnorth.net/2013/01/17/dark-ecology/ http://paulkingsnorth.net/2013/01/17/dark-ecology/ And the author gets to a similar point: ” And so I come to this point, and I ask myself: what, at this moment in history, would not be a waste of my time? And I arrive at five tentative answers. [...] Four: Insisting that nature has a value beyond utility. And telling everyone. Remember that you are one lifeform among many and understand that everything has intrinsic value. If you want to call this ‘ecocentrism’ or ‘deep ecology’, do it. If you want to call it something else, do that. If you want to look to tribal societies for your inspiration, do it. If that seems too gooey, just look up into the sky. Sit on the grass, and touch a tree trunk, walk into the hills, dig the garden, look at what you find in the soil, marvel at what the hell this thing called life could possibly be. Value it for what it is, try to understand what it is, and have nothing but pity or contempt for people who tell you that its only value is in what they can extract from it.”
jmcqk6 7y ago
>modern scientific metaphysics has no space for "miracles," so we don't have a coherent framework in which to talk about or even remind ourselves of this profound truth. I'm not sure that this is true. As my understanding of the world has increased, my appreciation of it has also increased, as has my sense of wonder. The term 'miracle' implies some supernatural cause, but I don't need something supernatural to understand the preciousness of the world I find myself in. Nor do I struggle finding a way to talk about this. My own hypothesis is that the world is simply too complicated for any one person to comprehend on large scales any more, and when it comes to environmental concerns, the problem of the commons completely kicks our ass.
- jdnenej 7y ago
  It also helps you understand that no greater power is around to reset any damage or prevent total destruction of life on earth. There is no reason life needs to exist, it just does by an extreme amount of good luck and billions of years of evolution
the_af 7y ago
I agree with you that the world is precious. I also agree with someone else in this comments section that quotes someone saying the world and the life within is precious regardless of what we can extract from it. However, this puzzles me: > Psychedelics seem like one promising avenue. Perhaps they will help give us the inspiration to fill in this tragic blindspot. Why? What do psychedelics have to do with anything? I'm not religious and I'm not about to try psychedelics either, and still I'm filled with awe at the world and want nature to continue existing. I find a lot of natural places breathtaking. I stare at a starry night's sky -- something increasingly difficult because of light pollution -- and I'm awed at the vastness and beauty of the cosmos. It's hard to describe the feeling, but anyone who's felt it knows what I'm talking about. I still don't believe in any gods or need any kind of psychedelics.
- monktastic1 7y ago
  > I'm not about to try psychedelics either, and still I'm filled with awe at the world Wonderful! Psychedelics may not be relevant to your path. For some, "magic" mushrooms (for example) a first glimpse, or a reminder, that this place is "magical" in a way that most of us curiously overlook constantly. That epiphany can have a lasting effect on a person.
- hatchershoes 7y ago
  Certain psychedelics can and do have a profoundly life-changing effect on people, which can be a positive, affirming experience in an appropriate/safe context. It is essentially impossible to describe their effects in any meaningful way, but the most succinct explanation might be something like "spiritual awakening", which is probably unfathomable. Many of the ancient world religions describe some sort of mysterious plant or concoction that is integral to ritual/rite/worship, but over time these religions or their practices have gone extinct, underground, or been co-opted or replaced. It is no longer a fringe opinion that many of our ancestors were engaged in some form of "mind expansion" based on entheogenic substances/mixtures discovered in nature; to this day there are shamans who practice millenia-old divination with the assistance of medicinal plants (they have a worldview too, which is probably quite different from yours). Terrence McKenna has hypothesized that the very emergence of language (as a precursor to civilization) was a result of novel neural stimulation exacted by these substances; it is, at least, without question that the class of drugs we call "psychedelics" make people think and feel in ways they've never before imagined. We have this notion of "bad drugs" vs. "good drugs". And we have a whole pharmacopeia of government-approved drugs to alter our emotional state (anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic), so we've decided it's ok to administer drugs to alter emotions. We are now, finally, entering an era of renewed exploration in the previously-demonized "psychedelic drugs" in therapeutic contexts. Why? Because these substances can elicit profound changes in the mental state of their users. They are extremely powerful medicines that facilitate unique mental processes at low doses. Why do we find these substances throughout nature? By pure coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe our own evolution is somehow tied to them (all evolution is tied together, right?). At the very least, they are incredibly interesting from any perspective (scientific, spiritual, historical, social, legal). Psychedelics are perhaps the most interesting substances on the planet.
coliveira 7y ago
In the modern world, the paramount desire of society is to grow the capitalist economy. For this purpose we are pressured to excel at things that will make this economy grow, and relegate everything else to a secondary status. That's why society views taking care of nature as non important. Many companies, such as oil and mining companies, are directly interested in destroying as much of earth as possible, just for the sake of making an extra buck. We need to create a new economy where these companies and others are directly controlled to produce only the minimum necessary in order to maintain what remains of this planet.
vpmpaul 7y ago
>psychedelics Every "epiphany" that someone has told me they had while on psychedelics has been something that easily could have been come up with a bit of quite time and thought. I have never heard a single story that blew me away or offered anything but mundane "insights" that easily could be gotten other ways. Its time for the "psychedelics" people to come clean and just admit they are simply getting high.
- rmrm 7y ago
  They are profound to the experiencer precisely because they are experienced. They are seen and felt in an entirely absorbing manner.
- reassembled 7y ago
  That's a profoundly cynical view on experiencing, well, anything really. That's like saying couples in love should just wake up to the fact that an experience of love has zero nuance and can be summed up with a single word.
  - vpmpaul 7y ago
    My point is no one is going to cure cancer or solve global issues because of psychedelics. I have no issues with experiencing things. I just don't like that people try to sell it like it is anything more than that.
- hatchershoes 7y ago
  Have you had a psychedelic experience?
- monktastic1 7y ago
  Have you seen any of the studies where psychedelics are able to resolve conditions like anxiety and depression that are resistant to other treatments? When a person goes through that kind of epiphany, it may sound insipid in words -- and thus not blow you away or sound like mundane "insights" -- but insights don't always have to be verbalizable. "Life is miraculous" sounds pretty obvious, but there are certainly times where it's more "in your face" than others.
zaroth 7y ago
> we will continue to ennui ourselves... I’m trying to recall which post from yesterday used this word which we probably both read. But FYI I believe the word is merely a noun; one cannot ennui oneself.
- monktastic1 7y ago
  Thanks. It turns out it can be used as a verb: - (verb, transitive) To make bored or listless; to weary. But it doesn't quite capture what I mean. It's not merely that we're boring ourselves by some particular activity, but by deciding that reality itself is boring.
mirimir 7y ago
I agree with the sentiment. But I wouldn't use the term "miraculous" because that generally comes with the baggage of a creator. I'd rather say that ~random variation plus selection is gobsmackingly impressive. But the results aren't as perfect as you might expect stuff that's designed and created to be. They're amazing, but not elegant.
mikelyons 7y ago
There are some teachers who have actually figured out what needs to happen, but everyone's identity will backlash hard against it: https://www.youtube.com/user/ActualizedOrg/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ActualizedOrg/videos What would our behavior look like if everyone realized that the point of their life was to work to improve the level and quality of their awareness and consciousness to the point that they also realize the point of their life is to become infinitely loving and utterly selfless? (The hard part is that everything you think you are has to die, you can see why dogmatic/skeptic will resist)
SOMMS 7y ago
It's pretty, but your post in a nutshell: We are too full of ourselves to admit the transcendental beauty and value of our world soooo...drugs. ??
- eurasiantiger 7y ago
  You should completely dissociate psychedelics from the concept you have of ”drugs”.
magduf 7y ago
I agree the world is precious, but the idea that you need to take psychedelics to realize this is completely absurd. Religion certainly isn't going to help anyone appreciate nature. American Christians in particular think God gave the world to them to do whatever they want, even if that means driving around gas-guzzling SUVs and polluting as much as they want. Most other religions don't have a very good track record with environmentalism either. Modern science, however, tells us exactly why we're having problems, and what things are likely to look like if they keep going this way. What more do you need for inspiration, other than "if you don't make some big changes, you're going to have massive flooding of port cities, and a lot more extreme weather, storms, desertification, etc., which will cause shortages of freshwater and food." If that isn't enough inspiration, I don't know what is. The problem is that too many people simply don't believe this, just like there's people who think vaccines cause autism. Then again, since I'm a believer in science and I'm not religious, I can't speak for people who are, so maybe you're onto something with the psychedelics thing. Perhaps we should try a scientific study, giving religious anti-environment people psychedelics and seeing if it makes them appreciate nature more.
- monktastic1 7y ago
  This study did not focus on religious people in particular, but there is at least some preliminary evidence (in addition to loads of anecdotal evidence) for psychedelics increasing appreciation for nature: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28631526 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28631526
chooseaname 7y ago
Of course it's miraculous. We're on this marble spinning around hosting life. There's nothing else like us that we know about. Nothing. For all intents and purposes, we're alone. Looking around the immediate universe (our galaxy), there may be life on other planets in the galaxy. But. If we keep going the course we're going, it is far more likely that we'll extinct ourselves before we develop the technology to find out if there is life out there and long before we'll find out how to reach a potential new home.
alchemism 7y ago
There was an entire aeon of life that produced so much waste that all of the organisms drowned in their own excrement, which happened to be oxygen. Fortunately for us now. It might be that the purpose of humans, mammals, multicellular organisms, whatever.....in the holistic sense, is no greater than theirs.
johnchristopher 7y ago
I don't need psychedelics or religious fervor to realise and appreciate how extraordinary the likelyhood of our existence is though ^^.
chaostheory 7y ago
> This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. I agree. I would argue the majority of people in developed countries share this view. However, it should be pointed out that it's also a luxury to have this view. If you're currently in, come from, or ever visited a developing country; you'd realize that for many other people a major primary concern is to get enough income for basic needs. They just don't have the bandwidth to fully appreciate the world as we do.

blablabla123 7y ago

I think the modern, post-religious intellectual discourse has not even space for metaphysics. Anything in this direction is considered mumbo jumbo. :-) Materialism probably hasn't reached its peak yet.

guerrilla 7y ago
The history of metaphysics is people denying that they're doing metaphysics. Materialism and scientific realism in science and various forms of Platonism and structuralism in mathematics are just too prevalent for people to even notice them at this point.
- monktastic1 7y ago
  Can't agree strongly enough. Even with meditation, where the whole point is (in a sense) to wake up to one's entire field of experience, people are generally unwilling to dig under their own metaphysical layers. They write this off as "oh, I don't do metaphysics." Yes, you do; you're just unwilling to face it. I updated my post above with a link to a first draft of a site where I go into a little more detail.
  - guerrilla 7y ago
    I'm not sure from what you wrote that we have the same definition of metaphysics. I'm referring to a specific branch of mainstream academic philosophy. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics
    - monktastic1 7y ago
      I think we do. "Metaphysics" refers to both the branch of philosophy as well as any particular system of metaphysical beliefs. We all subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) carry around a metaphysics in the latter sense.
      - guerrilla 7y ago
        Precisely :)

carapace 7y ago

Exactly this: we are divorced from nature. I remember as a kid that going camping was considered an "escape from reality", which made no sense to me because of course Nature is reality and our cities are the artificial "escape". Geoff Lawton has a quote, "You can solve all the world's problems in a garden." It's pretty literal: food, recycling poop and pee, medicine, building materials, not to mention the peace and happiness you have caring for other living things and accepting gratefully their care of you. It is fun and easy! - - - - For practical advice on what to do I recommend Toby Hemenway's videos in re: Permaculture http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/ http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/ Especially "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and the sequel "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture". Permaculture is a school of applied ecology (the word itself is a portmanteau of PERMAnent agriCULTURE) that has adherents and practitioners world-wide. It's not the only form of regenerative agriculture either. See also https://www.greenwave.org/our-work https://www.greenwave.org/our-work Oceanic 3D farms! And now they are building reefs?

MFLoon 7y ago

I think there is actually a quite simple, coherent framework for such a thing: probability theory. You could say highly improbable is a more scientific synonym for miraculous. I don't think the problem is that people are unaware per se of the miraculousness/improbability of life, but rather that said awareness is deeply frightening and most people would prefer to sublimate it. The fact that we've all already cheated the infinite oblivion of never existing is incredibly lucky (to non-pessimists), but deeply meditating on this fact is psychologically similar to having a near death experience. So we narrativize to reassure ourselves that our existence isn't just dumb luck, in any manner of ways, both mystical and pseudo scientific: our lives are preordained by God, or by a purely deterministic set of physical laws, or by the operators of our universal simulation, or by the anthropic principle. All of these belief systems are roughly analogous to saying "Everything happens for a reason", which is something you hear even intelligent people parrot in times of distress. But as Quentin Meillassoux argues in "After Finitude", the only truly universal law of metaphysics is in fact the negation of that platitude: "Things could be as they are, or they could be otherwise."

siempreb 7y ago

> Until we wake up to this fact That is not really the case here. I woke up already long ago, but there is no way I can stop the idiots. Only governments can take action by law, not me. France and Germany will not allow for Facebooks' Libra coin. It shows how fast they can act if their economy is at stake. But for decades already they allow pesticides for agriculture. They could and should know about allowing for mass extermination of entire insect species. So tell me what I can or should do if they let this sick economy prevail?

wongarsu 7y ago
Germany managed to outlaw glyphosate. That's the government reacting to pressure from voters (especially the massive gains of the Green party).
- magduf 7y ago
  That's an example of where democracy works because the voters are educated and care about important issues. In countries that are full of uneducated idiots, it doesn't work so well and glyphosphate isn't banned.

neilv 7y ago

For this purpose, I think one doesn't need psychedelics, nor religion, nor to consider the situation slipping away from us a miracle. You just need to go out to nature or a park, on a nice day, and realize you really want things like birds and (if you still have them) butterflies. And food, and air, and clean water, and not being underwater, and not having large swaths of continents be broiled to uninhabitable.

RoutinePlayer 7y ago

I'm not sure I fully know your stances on all of this, but Religion is not really a prerequisite for fully appreciating how beautiful yet precarious our biosphere truly is. Engineering solutions to combat or circumvent Climate Change is our ONLY way forward. But first we need to get a critical mass of our American citizenry to be convinced we have an actual problem. Especially, in fact, a large segment of the electorate that's VERY religious and continually refuses to accept the facts about AGW. I say Americans here because a disproportionate percentage was/is being caused by us, and because we also play a unique place in world affairs.

Feuilles_Mortes 7y ago
> Engineering solutions to combat or circumvent Climate Change is our ONLY way forward. I think that this perspective ignores the environmental problems inherent in a capitalist mode of production, and in fact plays into them. I think that a political revolution could be imminent, and I would urge those concerned about the future of life on this planet to consider alternative modes of economics.
- coliveira 7y ago
  Capitalism is based on infinite growth (economists even laugh at people like Malthus who proposed otherwise) and on fungibility of values (money is green no matter where from). This basically leads to a necessity of destroying nature for the sake of realizing economic growth. We need at least start to take seriously the fact that, the way capitalist economy is conducted, there is no way forward to save the environment.
  - lacampbell 7y ago
    By that logic, capitalism leads to a necessity of murdering your business rivals for the sake of realizing growth.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      Capitalism happens inside a framework of laws. There are strong laws against murdering your competitors, that's why this doesn't happen (nowadays). There is a whole set of unethical behaviors, however, that are commonly used for the goal of producing a profit.

bryanlarsen 7y ago

That's a central thesis of Dawkin's Unweaving the Rainbow. Understanding that a rainbow is caused by the prismatic effect of water droplets in the air makes it more miraculous, not less.

jobigoud 7y ago

> this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Here is an attempt at a framework to think about this: we have no proof that life exists anywhere else in the Universe. There is a possibility that life itself arose only once and that we are the only intelligent beings around. We have a sort of grand astronomical duty to not fuck it up and expand to the stars and keep the fire going.

soulofmischief 7y ago
That's what I'm saying man this behavior is just beyond selfish. And we are leaving nothing for the next generations to use in terms of raw materials in order to help us become a space-faring species. Society is perverted to the core.
- rjf72 7y ago
  There's a fun catch here though. Earth is going to face a natural destruction sooner or later. Be it by a gamma ray burst, a super-volcanic eruption, an asteroid impact, or any of other other practically infinite number of ways it can happen, has happened (multiple times), and will happen again soon or later. So we're all effectively living on borrowed time. You can't create a permanently sustainable Earth in a beautiful equilibrium because that's not how this universe works. It loves to throw a spanner in the works, over and over. And so the point of this is that it's only by racing against an unknown clock that one can hope to actually sustain humanity. Consequently, our rapid development which is undoubtedly causing harm to Earth is likely also, equally without doubt, the very thing that may ultimately enable humanity to survive in the longrun. We already have all the resources we need to become a space faring civilization, except for one - public will. People of course want it, but also simultaneously think space is a fantasy, much like at one time crossing the ocean was seen as. And so it's put on the side burner while we focus on much more pressing matters, like what some politician or celebrity said on Twitter. If a tenth of the energy we spend on social media or trying to shove ads at each other was focused on space, we'd already have set foot on Mars.
  - soulofmischief 7y ago

dfischer 7y ago

The solution to this is a culture that regularly participated in mushrooms or DMT. I mean that seriously. It’s a profound awakening to love and beauty we are surrounded by. Ayahuasca is almost an alien-like technology.

GuiA 7y ago

I really liked this essay: http://paulkingsnorth.net/2013/01/17/dark-ecology/ http://paulkingsnorth.net/2013/01/17/dark-ecology/ And the author gets to a similar point: ” And so I come to this point, and I ask myself: what, at this moment in history, would not be a waste of my time? And I arrive at five tentative answers. [...] Four: Insisting that nature has a value beyond utility. And telling everyone. Remember that you are one lifeform among many and understand that everything has intrinsic value. If you want to call this ‘ecocentrism’ or ‘deep ecology’, do it. If you want to call it something else, do that. If you want to look to tribal societies for your inspiration, do it. If that seems too gooey, just look up into the sky. Sit on the grass, and touch a tree trunk, walk into the hills, dig the garden, look at what you find in the soil, marvel at what the hell this thing called life could possibly be. Value it for what it is, try to understand what it is, and have nothing but pity or contempt for people who tell you that its only value is in what they can extract from it.”

jmcqk6 7y ago

>modern scientific metaphysics has no space for "miracles," so we don't have a coherent framework in which to talk about or even remind ourselves of this profound truth. I'm not sure that this is true. As my understanding of the world has increased, my appreciation of it has also increased, as has my sense of wonder. The term 'miracle' implies some supernatural cause, but I don't need something supernatural to understand the preciousness of the world I find myself in. Nor do I struggle finding a way to talk about this. My own hypothesis is that the world is simply too complicated for any one person to comprehend on large scales any more, and when it comes to environmental concerns, the problem of the commons completely kicks our ass.

jdnenej 7y ago
It also helps you understand that no greater power is around to reset any damage or prevent total destruction of life on earth. There is no reason life needs to exist, it just does by an extreme amount of good luck and billions of years of evolution

the_af 7y ago

I agree with you that the world is precious. I also agree with someone else in this comments section that quotes someone saying the world and the life within is precious regardless of what we can extract from it. However, this puzzles me: > Psychedelics seem like one promising avenue. Perhaps they will help give us the inspiration to fill in this tragic blindspot. Why? What do psychedelics have to do with anything? I'm not religious and I'm not about to try psychedelics either, and still I'm filled with awe at the world and want nature to continue existing. I find a lot of natural places breathtaking. I stare at a starry night's sky -- something increasingly difficult because of light pollution -- and I'm awed at the vastness and beauty of the cosmos. It's hard to describe the feeling, but anyone who's felt it knows what I'm talking about. I still don't believe in any gods or need any kind of psychedelics.

monktastic1 7y ago
> I'm not about to try psychedelics either, and still I'm filled with awe at the world Wonderful! Psychedelics may not be relevant to your path. For some, "magic" mushrooms (for example) a first glimpse, or a reminder, that this place is "magical" in a way that most of us curiously overlook constantly. That epiphany can have a lasting effect on a person.
hatchershoes 7y ago
Certain psychedelics can and do have a profoundly life-changing effect on people, which can be a positive, affirming experience in an appropriate/safe context. It is essentially impossible to describe their effects in any meaningful way, but the most succinct explanation might be something like "spiritual awakening", which is probably unfathomable. Many of the ancient world religions describe some sort of mysterious plant or concoction that is integral to ritual/rite/worship, but over time these religions or their practices have gone extinct, underground, or been co-opted or replaced. It is no longer a fringe opinion that many of our ancestors were engaged in some form of "mind expansion" based on entheogenic substances/mixtures discovered in nature; to this day there are shamans who practice millenia-old divination with the assistance of medicinal plants (they have a worldview too, which is probably quite different from yours). Terrence McKenna has hypothesized that the very emergence of language (as a precursor to civilization) was a result of novel neural stimulation exacted by these substances; it is, at least, without question that the class of drugs we call "psychedelics" make people think and feel in ways they've never before imagined. We have this notion of "bad drugs" vs. "good drugs". And we have a whole pharmacopeia of government-approved drugs to alter our emotional state (anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, anti-psychotic), so we've decided it's ok to administer drugs to alter emotions. We are now, finally, entering an era of renewed exploration in the previously-demonized "psychedelic drugs" in therapeutic contexts. Why? Because these substances can elicit profound changes in the mental state of their users. They are extremely powerful medicines that facilitate unique mental processes at low doses. Why do we find these substances throughout nature? By pure coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe our own evolution is somehow tied to them (all evolution is tied together, right?). At the very least, they are incredibly interesting from any perspective (scientific, spiritual, historical, social, legal). Psychedelics are perhaps the most interesting substances on the planet.

coliveira 7y ago

In the modern world, the paramount desire of society is to grow the capitalist economy. For this purpose we are pressured to excel at things that will make this economy grow, and relegate everything else to a secondary status. That's why society views taking care of nature as non important. Many companies, such as oil and mining companies, are directly interested in destroying as much of earth as possible, just for the sake of making an extra buck. We need to create a new economy where these companies and others are directly controlled to produce only the minimum necessary in order to maintain what remains of this planet.

vpmpaul 7y ago

>psychedelics Every "epiphany" that someone has told me they had while on psychedelics has been something that easily could have been come up with a bit of quite time and thought. I have never heard a single story that blew me away or offered anything but mundane "insights" that easily could be gotten other ways. Its time for the "psychedelics" people to come clean and just admit they are simply getting high.

rmrm 7y ago
They are profound to the experiencer precisely because they are experienced. They are seen and felt in an entirely absorbing manner.
reassembled 7y ago
That's a profoundly cynical view on experiencing, well, anything really. That's like saying couples in love should just wake up to the fact that an experience of love has zero nuance and can be summed up with a single word.
- vpmpaul 7y ago
  My point is no one is going to cure cancer or solve global issues because of psychedelics. I have no issues with experiencing things. I just don't like that people try to sell it like it is anything more than that.
hatchershoes 7y ago
Have you had a psychedelic experience?
monktastic1 7y ago
Have you seen any of the studies where psychedelics are able to resolve conditions like anxiety and depression that are resistant to other treatments? When a person goes through that kind of epiphany, it may sound insipid in words -- and thus not blow you away or sound like mundane "insights" -- but insights don't always have to be verbalizable. "Life is miraculous" sounds pretty obvious, but there are certainly times where it's more "in your face" than others.

zaroth 7y ago

> we will continue to ennui ourselves... I’m trying to recall which post from yesterday used this word which we probably both read. But FYI I believe the word is merely a noun; one cannot ennui oneself.

monktastic1 7y ago
Thanks. It turns out it can be used as a verb: - (verb, transitive) To make bored or listless; to weary. But it doesn't quite capture what I mean. It's not merely that we're boring ourselves by some particular activity, but by deciding that reality itself is boring.

mirimir 7y ago

I agree with the sentiment. But I wouldn't use the term "miraculous" because that generally comes with the baggage of a creator. I'd rather say that ~random variation plus selection is gobsmackingly impressive. But the results aren't as perfect as you might expect stuff that's designed and created to be. They're amazing, but not elegant.

mikelyons 7y ago

There are some teachers who have actually figured out what needs to happen, but everyone's identity will backlash hard against it: https://www.youtube.com/user/ActualizedOrg/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/ActualizedOrg/videos What would our behavior look like if everyone realized that the point of their life was to work to improve the level and quality of their awareness and consciousness to the point that they also realize the point of their life is to become infinitely loving and utterly selfless? (The hard part is that everything you think you are has to die, you can see why dogmatic/skeptic will resist)

SOMMS 7y ago

It's pretty, but your post in a nutshell: We are too full of ourselves to admit the transcendental beauty and value of our world soooo...drugs. ??

eurasiantiger 7y ago
You should completely dissociate psychedelics from the concept you have of ”drugs”.

magduf 7y ago

I agree the world is precious, but the idea that you need to take psychedelics to realize this is completely absurd. Religion certainly isn't going to help anyone appreciate nature. American Christians in particular think God gave the world to them to do whatever they want, even if that means driving around gas-guzzling SUVs and polluting as much as they want. Most other religions don't have a very good track record with environmentalism either. Modern science, however, tells us exactly why we're having problems, and what things are likely to look like if they keep going this way. What more do you need for inspiration, other than "if you don't make some big changes, you're going to have massive flooding of port cities, and a lot more extreme weather, storms, desertification, etc., which will cause shortages of freshwater and food." If that isn't enough inspiration, I don't know what is. The problem is that too many people simply don't believe this, just like there's people who think vaccines cause autism. Then again, since I'm a believer in science and I'm not religious, I can't speak for people who are, so maybe you're onto something with the psychedelics thing. Perhaps we should try a scientific study, giving religious anti-environment people psychedelics and seeing if it makes them appreciate nature more.

monktastic1 7y ago
This study did not focus on religious people in particular, but there is at least some preliminary evidence (in addition to loads of anecdotal evidence) for psychedelics increasing appreciation for nature: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28631526 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28631526

chooseaname 7y ago

Of course it's miraculous. We're on this marble spinning around hosting life. There's nothing else like us that we know about. Nothing. For all intents and purposes, we're alone. Looking around the immediate universe (our galaxy), there may be life on other planets in the galaxy. But. If we keep going the course we're going, it is far more likely that we'll extinct ourselves before we develop the technology to find out if there is life out there and long before we'll find out how to reach a potential new home.

alchemism 7y ago

There was an entire aeon of life that produced so much waste that all of the organisms drowned in their own excrement, which happened to be oxygen. Fortunately for us now. It might be that the purpose of humans, mammals, multicellular organisms, whatever.....in the holistic sense, is no greater than theirs.

johnchristopher 7y ago

I don't need psychedelics or religious fervor to realise and appreciate how extraordinary the likelyhood of our existence is though ^^.

chaostheory 7y ago

> This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. I agree. I would argue the majority of people in developed countries share this view. However, it should be pointed out that it's also a luxury to have this view. If you're currently in, come from, or ever visited a developing country; you'd realize that for many other people a major primary concern is to get enough income for basic needs. They just don't have the bandwidth to fully appreciate the world as we do.