Here are some thoughts I've bottled up for a long while.
Humans and all other creatures on earth are threatened by at least three dangerous myths:
Myth #1: Perpetual economic growth is desirable and achievable.
Myth # 2:The air, water and land of our planet
have infinite capacity to absorb all the poisons we dump in them.
Myth # 3: The world is bountiful and spacious enough to accommodate the 7.2 billion people now
living on it and has room for many millions more.
The hard realities are that perpetual economic growth is NOT
achievable; the air, water and land of our planet are gravely harmed by the
foul poisons we have been dumping; and the world has a finite carrying
capacity, probably at least one order of magnitude lower than the number
presently alive; we began to exceed the earth's carrying capacity several
decades ago, if not longer.
Prospects for humankind would be more promising if the world's population was 7 hundred million rather than 7 billion, and was stationary rather than increasing by 30-50 million annually.
Loosely speaking, people to the right of centre believe these three myths and live accordingly; and people to the left of centre tend to disbelieve the myths or at least are skeptical. It’s intriguing that these differences in beliefs appear to be associated with observable anatomical differences in brain structure and presumably brain function. I commented on this and gave references to sources in a post on March 7, 2012. I’m sure there’s much more about this intriguing fact on the web but I’ll leave readers to chase after it.
I'll say more about these myths, especially the first and most dangerous one, in a future post.
I'll also comment on other dangerous myths, in particular some myths about aggressive behaviour of individuals, groups and nations, and myths about gender inequality.
Prospects for humankind would be more promising if the world's population was 7 hundred million rather than 7 billion, and was stationary rather than increasing by 30-50 million annually.
Loosely speaking, people to the right of centre believe these three myths and live accordingly; and people to the left of centre tend to disbelieve the myths or at least are skeptical. It’s intriguing that these differences in beliefs appear to be associated with observable anatomical differences in brain structure and presumably brain function. I commented on this and gave references to sources in a post on March 7, 2012. I’m sure there’s much more about this intriguing fact on the web but I’ll leave readers to chase after it.
I'll say more about these myths, especially the first and most dangerous one, in a future post.
I'll also comment on other dangerous myths, in particular some myths about aggressive behaviour of individuals, groups and nations, and myths about gender inequality.
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