Thirty Theses

Morality/conscience is essential for human survival, as we are a social species. Hard for one human to survive on its own, the need for cooperation mandates moral systems.

Moral systems are highly flexible and cultural, can differ from one group to the next. This was not a problem when the foundation of morality was in polytheistic religion, easy to add your god to my list of gods, little cause for religion-inspired inter-cultural clashes when polytheism is dominant. You may worship the Harvest and I may worship the River, but both are equally real. Even primacy of one god over others doesn’t cause much strife.

Monotheism presents a problem: now the sole existence of my god invalidates the existence of your god. If belief in my god is a prerequisite for a good life and salvation, then enter crusades and missionaries and evangelism.

Enlightenment thinkers attempt to ground morality in something other than the supernatural, deontological ethics one example. Still requires “divine inspiration” or rather some set of moral axioms as a starting point, however.

Utilitarianism/consequentialist ethics comes along pruports to solve this, but has the issue that one must choose a quantity to optimize for. If you choose to optimize for total happiness, then you’re going to allow for bizarre situations that don’t mesh with many preconcieved notions of good and evil (kill one annoying person to make many people slightly happier).

Proposal: the thing to optimize for in utilitarianism is diversity. Evidence for this: it is the quantity that has been increasing since the start of the universe. It is an outcome (or perhaps a driver?) of evolution/natural selection/the change in life on earth.

Stated another way: diversity is what causes a \(\Delta\) in population distribution. Differences in individuals allow for different strengths which allows for different aptitutde towards reproduction.

Also in this section: critique of the notion of “progress” as a foundational myth of our society. Points to Christianity as the place which created the myth of progress; before Christ worse than after Christ (see Paul’s letter to the Galations). Earlier traditions thought history was cyclic or linear but getting worse.

Natural selection a tautology: those things with greater propensity for replication will replicate more.

Belief in the supremacy of man are quite ubiquitous. Christianity and Judaism obvious (Gensis 1:26) but also the Iriquois and the Aborigines.

Two big blow to our myth of supremacy: Copernicus tells us we’re not the center of the universe/solar system, Darwin tells us we are products of the same natural selection which produced the other animals.

The things we think of as “unique qualities” of humans are not unique in kind, but in amount. Language? Communication? Other animals have both, we just have the most. Culture? The ability to learn things? Again, other great apes and whales and elephants have these things, we just have them more.

Humans are a part of the Community of Life, through and through. We are not the creation of a despotic short-sighted diety, nor are we doomed to rule the rest of life from an icy tower. We are of this world, we are animals.

What the title says, it’s well argued and clear. Highlights:

Green Revolution in the 1960s: turning the power of oil towards the production of food. Daniel Quinn calls it the “Food Race” and likens it to the Cold War Arms Race.

Russel Hopfenberg, “Human Carrying Capacity is Determined by Food Availability.” It demonstrates that food availability is an incredibly good predictor of human population.

Closes with a quote about a class of problems called “no technical solutions problems”. One such problem of “how do I win at Tic Tac Toe?” There is no technological solution to this problem, if your opponent understands the game, you can’t guarantee a win. The quote posits that the “human overpopulation/food” problem a no-technical-solution problem, in that the people who usually discuss it wish to avert all the evils of overpopulation without relinquishing any of the pleasures they presently enjoy as a result of it.