A Citation to Asimov(bookandsword.com) |
A Citation to Asimov(bookandsword.com) |
That's a really interesting question. I guess I can't judge myself without bias, and I've most often been told I'm too hard on myself. So again the answer would be no.
This reminds me of Asimov persuading his own children not to have children because he decided that population growth was an issue.
Thanks to that we have a pretty advanced society, unlike any other being on the planet. And we also have ethnic cleansings, religious prosecution, terrorism... Also unlike any other being on the planet.
And this is also where Human conflict originates from. Any conflict of any kind. Bestest group decides being right is no longer enough, the other side must also be made to lose. A smaller group feels marginalized, they recruit and reach to grab power. Rest of humanity is horrified and organizes against it. Peace is restored, we sign treaties and build monuments. And then the cycle repeats.
All that to say, humans are fundamentally flawed but kind of magical beings given we have survived all cycles for over 2 million years now
I disagree that the fulfillment of this need must beget violence.
If as a culture we de-emphasized dominion over others, de-emphasized reward and punishment, and instead emphasized respect to oneself and others, there would be a lot less violence.
Like if any of us are superior, why can't we reason past what chimps are doing in their evolutionary local maxima?
In order for us to be superior to anything, we need to be able to use logic to move past animalistic behaviors.
I'm sad that atheist discourse has moved away from Vonnegut/Sagan/Le Guin-style humanism. Starting with Hitchens, prominent intellectuals seem like they hate God more than they believe in people.
Are there any current writers or public figures that have taken up the human-loving atheism of my youth?
Many. Kim Stanley Robinson for instance.
> I miss Isaac Asimov, and I miss the America that created him.
An America with a typically right-wing Mensa bias (and likely upper class society)? That's the America that the author misses?
Some of my best students were motivated by their competitiveness with someone else in the class.
The greatest ecologist and the patient in coma have the same worth as in “both have the same right to live, to be happy, etc.”.