Maximum Benefit for all
Yes. Science and politics should be working to create the maximum benefit for all, and not just a wealthy elite. It is tragic that we still have poverty, war and slavery all around the world when we have the resources to deal with this overnight if we wanted. We are ruled by a bunch of immoral politicians who feather their own nests and only care about power and wealth.
But I would add the proviso that all development should take place with one eye on the future and one on the environment. Our future is the natural world – our life support. Its diversity and health are fundamental to our future. We HAVE to develop in harmony with it without damaging it.
A future with a damaged environment is an impoverished future. Nature is fundamental to our mental and physical health.
As a biologist I see clearly that we already live in an impoverished world. Nature used to flourish to a far greater extent in the past. We live in the withered rump of what once was beautiful. We pay the price for that with the quality of our lives. Previous generations lived in a better world.
I see it as perfectly possible for a future regeneration of nature which would benefit human beings greatly. Nature refreshes the parts nothing else can reach.
Turning Our World the Right Way Up – Free Life (libertarianism.uk)
ULEZ expansion: damaging, dishonest, and a disgrace to democracy – Free Life (libertarianism.uk)
Opher, with your first paragraph, I couldn’t agree more. Except on one detail – there are a whole lot more groups of bad guys (and gals) than just the politicians!
On development, I take the view that we have to learn as we go along. If our development causes damage to our environment, more than the benefits we get out of it, then that is an issue that we will need to address and fix. And of course, we should never intentionally damage our environment.
But equally, we must not allow ruling classes to damage our environment in any way for the sake of some putative goal of “preserving nature.” Look at what happened in Sri Lanka recently, for example; green policies, supposedly to preserve nature, ended up causing a famine.
When I come to your last paragraph but one, I agree that we live in an impoverished world. And the impoverishment has been caused by ruling classes and their politics. And when you say previous generations lived in a better world, you are again quite right. Life is far better at times in which our nature flourishes – such as the best parts of the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution – than it is at times, like today, when our nature is suppressed by those (Downers) that have no concern for us human beings at all.
We do, indeed, need a re-generation of our nature. I see that as being the moral revolution, which is already starting, and is necessary before we can make the political changes which will elevate human beings, and bring down the bad guys and gals.
That’ll be all for today, as I am going to London this afternoon, and still have to do a fair few things before I leave. I’ll try to answer your other two responses to my rant tomorrow.