The fat-cat backers of National clearly see democracy as an impediment to enriching themselves at the expense of others.
Monthly Archive for May, 2008
This is hugely disappointing. The proportional voting system in NZ is one of the things that makes me look forward to living in NZ again, and National wants to roll it back.
It’s a truism like no other that the large majority of us value life, and as an extension of this—being a measure of life—biodiversity.
That human beings, therefore, are to blame for a massive and ongoing decrease in biodiversity is the most incriminating piece of evidence to reveal just how badly out of sync human institutions are with their values, and, of course, how out of sync they are with life itself.
The Gaia hypothesis indicates that one way or another humans will stop being the cause of this decrease in biodiversity. Whether that means the end of our civilisation or its adaptation remains to be seen.
One disturbing practice of humans, at least since we turned to agriculture, has been to seek our and destroy other species that compete with us for food and territory. The following video of Joshua Klein at TED touches on this topic in an inspiring way.
Protesting The Protesters
17-05-2008 Update: And they do exist. Here’s the latest: Matthis Chiroux
Sam Harris is undertaking what is apparently a first: the study of religious faith at the level of the brain.
If you’re interested he’s put out a request for volunteers—particularly Christians—to take part in a survey to help refine their experimental stimuli:
We are preparing to run another fMRI study of belief and disbelief, and we need volunteers to help us refine our experimental stimuli. This promises to be the first study of religious faith at the level of the brain. By responding to the four surveys I have posted online, you can make an enormous contribution to this work.
Please answer as many of the surveys as you can. If you only have time to answer one, please choose at random (otherwise, we will have many more responses to the first than to the others).
Feel free to post this message to your blog or to forward the relevant links to your friends. I especially need Christians to respond, as one of the goals of these surveys is to design stimuli that a majority of Christians will find doctrinally sound.
I will, of course, pass along the results of this work the moment I have something to report.
Many thanks for your help.
All the best,
Sam
samharris.org
Note: Each survey starts with the same first page of questions.
Belief Survey A
Belief Survey B
Belief Survey C
Belief Survey D
External links:
- What Your Brain Looks Like on Faith | 14 December, 2007
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