From: Nicq MacDonald (namacdonald@stthomas.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 16 2000 - 13:55:04 MST
> As someone who spent a number of years as an energy analyst, developing
energy
> conservation technologies, you don't know what you are talking about.
Every
> trend in resource cost is downward, and availability is upward. Stopy
buying the
> Green lies.
Yes, but is it right that we use the amounts of energy and resources that we
do when billions of people live in poverty and strife? Tell me, is it
right?
> > By apocalypse, I was not referring to disaster, but to rapture. Where
is
> > all this wealth going to come from, with our resources destroyed by the
> > wasteful behavior of the 20th century? Where is this longevity going to
> > come from, with our veins filled with carcinogens and our bodies
bombarded
> > by radiation? Where is this happiness going to come from, with our
> > spirituality destroyed by "flatlander" philosophers, our arts smashed by
a
> > media concerned only with profits, living in a world where we work from
> > sunup until sundown with no hope for another world hereafter?
>
> Oh, you really are a mess, aren't you? Resources do not get 'destroyed'.
They
> just get reallocated. Every technological advancement allows the amount of
> resources needed to produce every dollar of economic activity to decrease
all
> the time. Where do you think all the wealth of our economy comes from? It
didn't
> just come from us trading iron and corn back and forth and paying a wage.
> Technology increases productivity, which decreases the amount of resources
you
> need to live an ever higher standard of living. Get off the Malthusian BS,
he
> was disproven long ago.
Yes, resources get reallocated into useless forms- landfills, atmospheric
pollutants, goods that we don't need, decaying cities, etc. If we can't
break out of this gravity well (in all honesty, I really doubt that we
will), we're done for.
You seem to want to talk down to me. Frankly, I don't appreciate it. I'm
not an optimist, I love the Earth that I'm living on, and I'm tired of being
given no options other than positivism (which, if John Horgan's book is
correct, is running out of steam quickly).
> > Rationalism is a dogma in of itself.
>
> No, its a process.
Every read "The Ayn Rand Cult"?
> No, its an ascending paradigm based on factual data. I quite understand
how you
> are so confused. Gnostics were living by the same sort of omen-ism as
Harvey
> described was typical of ancient Hebrews, and other beleivers in gematria.
If
> every group of sheep in a field stands for a number or prophesy as a
concrete
> fact, it is easy to see how the gnostics would regard their 'knowledge' as
being
> fact based rather than just theology.
Ascending paradigms are those which revolve around spirit and deny matter-
descending paradigms are those which revolve around matter and reject
spirit. I'm borrowing this from Ken Wilber.
> This is quite so, but not dogmatically. If you know anything about the
Gnostics,
> the main reason they were declared a heresy by Rome was their refusal to
bow
> down to dogma. Refusal to accept dogma is not itself a dogma, something
about
> which you seem to be confused.
Sure it's a dogma. Even reason itself requires faith.
-Nicq
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