Below are two radically differing views on what constitutes freedom and value. Each is strongly and narrowly phrased. We are reasonable people, we don't like nuts and screwballs (well, we DO have a soft spot for Paul Milne...). Yet these views seem to be mutually exclusive.

These choices are not as unreal as they seem. (1) expresses ideas that are also reflected in Daniel Quinn's books and many others. (2) is the 'natural' culmination of the techno-civ all around us today. I'm interested that people can hold such divergent ideas so strongly, with only the dimmest awareness of their counterparts (in fervency) on the 'other side'.

(1) Edward Abbey on the Earth-destroying juggernaut of industrial civilization:

Once upon a time there was a continent covered with beautiful pristine wilderness, where giant trees towered over lush mountainsides and rivers ran wild and free through deserts, where raptors soared and beavers labored at their pursuits and people lived in harmony with wild nature accomplishing every task they needed to accomplish on a daily basis using only stones, bones and wood, walking gently on the Earth. Then came the explorers, conquerors, missionaries, soldiers, merchants and immigrants with their advanced technology, guns, and government. The wild life that had existed for millennia started dying, killed by a disease brought by alien versions of progress, arrogant visions of manifest destiny and a runaway utilitarian science.

In just 500 years, almost all the giant trees have been clear-cut and chemicals now poison the rivers; the eagle has faced extinction and the beavers work has been supplanted by the Army Corps of Engineers. And how have the people fared? What one concludes is most likely dependent on how well one is faring economically, emotionally and physically in this competitive technological world and the level of privilege one is afforded by the system. But for those who feel a deep connection to, a love and longing for the wilderness and the wildness that once was, for the millions now crowded in cities, poor and oppressed, unable to find a clear target for their rage because the system is virtually omnipotent, these people are not faring well. All around us as a result of human greed and a lack of respect for all life, wild nature and Mother Earths creatures are suffering. These beings are the victims of industrial society.

Cutting the bloody cord, thats what we feel, the delirious exhilaration of independence, a rebirth backward in time and into primeval liberty, into freedom in the most simple, literal, primitive meaning of the word, the only meaning that really counts. The freedom, for example, to commit murder and get away with it scot-free, with no other burden than the jaunty halo of conscience...

My God! Im thinking, what incredible shit we put up with most of our livesthe domestic routine, the stupid and useless and degrading jobs, the insufferable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating and the slimy advertising of the businessmen, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our real enemies back home in the capital, the foul, diseased and hideous cities and towns we live in, the constant petty tyranny of the automatic washers, the automobiles and TV machines and telephones! ah Christ!,... what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote!

Such are my thoughtsyou wouldnt call them thoughts would you?such are my feelings, a mixture of revulsion and delight, as we float away on the river, leaving behind for a while all that we most heartily and joyfully detest. Thats what the first taste of the wild does to a man, after having been too long penned up in the city. No wonder the Authorities are so anxious to smother the wilderness under asphalt and reservoirs. They know what they are doing. Play safe. Ski only in a clockwise direction. Lets all have fun together.

(2) Wired Magazine, random grab-bag of quotes from various articles in the 'Special Anniversary Issue (Millenium Free Zone)'

... by 2100, Moore's Law will have given us tiny quantum computers powerful enough to upload a human soul. God-fearing churchgoers at the turn of the next century will, in fact, rejoice at in silico life. It is a necessary step in carrying out God's plan - to go forth and multiply throughout the universe.... near the end of time our progeny will have turned every last atom in the universe into computing machinery... I'm looking forward to when bioengineering moves from technology to handicraft... People with tiny little goldfish swimming in one ey or feathers growing out of their backs. I'd love to be in a world where women grow penises because it is fashionable, or you can have an eye replacement of a different color or from a different species... Replace defective DNA before a baby is even born ? Absolutely ...

Each wearable [computer] is intimately aware of its user's state. It knows the postion of its user's limbs and where its user is looking. Display devices built into eyeglasses or contact lenses deliver high-resolution image to each eye, covering a programmable portion of the user's vision. The user can overlay natural vision with imagery from the Digital Gaia... By 2040, ... computers will be 70 million time more powerful than they are today. You'll go everywhere accompanied by a halo of generic processors and input/output devices that will converse with you in natural language. They'll watch facial expressions and biometrics to determine your mood, they'll communicate with one another... things bioengineered for specific purposes. A nice gift might be a new kind of plant that lights your garden path at night... This is the 4th revolution in our history - the ultrahuman revolution... people will enjoy multiple sex organs, polymer skin that changes color like a mood ring, and virtual reality eyeball implants. ... "We have to deal with the human naturalists,... those people who think it is nonhuman to live 200 years, or the religious deathists, ... and the limits-to-growth camp...

-- CCB (CountCatBlue@anna.lit), January 06, 2000

Answers

Runway Vronsky?

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), January 06, 2000.

The goal of evolution is apparently to get us off the planet, man's womb. If we end up pooping in our mess kit before then, then it would seem our particular species dies out as part of the natural selection process.

-- a (a@a.a), January 06, 2000.

This is a great example of what our modern civilization has rendered - the manipulation of facts until the truth becomes relative. I call you on your assumptions. There is a great wide spectrum of views and you imply that there are only two.

Examine what you are doing. You are polarizing. You are "packaging." You are coloring facts. What you are doing is trying to manipulate the reader into "siding" with your particular religious view from the perspective of "Mother Earth" worship - or "deep ecology."

You are the problem. Until you and others like you open up you minds and actually listen and relate with other people in searching for similarities among beliefs and focussing on common goals, problem solving and ways to achieve those goals without doing so on other people's economic backs, you are the problem. Masslow said there were many roads to the "truth." I view our world from a perspective of law history and an America that is a government of laws and not men. The integrity of the law is its consistency with traditions and precidence back to Roman and Saxon roots. The law is the law because it is not arbitrary and vulnerable to sudden popular whims. I look at our law today and see that it has suffered the same torture of relativism as science and y2k. It has been spun, stretched, manipulated and twisted. It is no longer a rock, but a rug that can be pulled out from under us at any momment.

Mister, yours is not the only perspective in the world. I, hereby, open a window and let in some fresh air. Move over. You share this planet and I sit here greatly different in opinion from you and refusing to be manipulated by your "meme."

-- anon (anon@anon.anon), January 06, 2000.

CCB: Here is what I think is an important question in trying to understanding the apparent discrepancy: Is a return to Quinn's 'leaver' paradigm even possible? Certainly, some hold the view that this is the way things should be, but how realistic is it given our present sociological structure and mindset? If you answer this, you can then go to the next logical step, if needed, and consider what alternatives exist.

For example; there was an interesting related discussion over at HD a while ago. We (or at least most of us) came to the conclusion that it wasn't feasible to return to what Quinn describes as the 'leavers' (similar to what Abbey relates above) unless a whole lot of people (the majority of Earth's 6 billion) died. Even then there are many questions about if it would happen, how long it would take, and importantly, how long would it stay before evolving (devolving?) back to a 'taker' society. I have not read Beyond Civilization yet, but have heard that some of these things to which I have been referring are further discussed - particularly the 'how' of getting from where we are now to where Quinn describes we came from.

My point is that in the probable absence of Quinn's ideas being realistic, alternatives are identified and explored. They would be anyway since there are as many different 'answers' as there are people who have given this serious thought.

Here is where the 'ultrahuman revolution' comes in. It has long been my belief that people tend to expect that the future is an extension of whatever the present trend is. Since the present trend greatly involves technology, genetic engineering, etc., it seems logical to many to expect that this is where the future will be. This is one 'alternative'. Unlike Quinn's paradigm, since this alternative is undefined and in the future, it cannot be compared to a previous paradigm of precedent to analyze the possibilities regarding the associated ostensible merits of freedom and value.

Quinn and Abbey look backwards to where we came from, and where they believe we should return, while the Wired Magazine looks forward into a future of uncertainty, projecting the present trends to what they they envision as one possible 'next level'.

It seems the very definitions of freedom and value are subjectively differentiated depending on the view. Yet human nature is immutable. If common ground is to be found, it is here that it exists and should be searched for. This is where I believe we can attempt to find some understanding regarding people that "hold such divergent ideas so strongly, with only the dimmest awareness of their counterparts (in fervency) on the other side". I would guess that for Quinn and Abbey, there is no 'other side'. They have found their answer, and may not be inclined to look further. So too with the proponents of the alternative, though possibly less tenaciously. Human nature tells us that people resist change and do not want to 'see' things that threaten or disagree with their fundamental beliefs. Fervency is their badge of conviction.

-- (sonofdust@freedom.value), January 06, 2000.

Hi anon, oh not all all! I sure recognize there are more than 2 views. Tons in fact. What I'm illustrating here are 2 interesting poles (in a multipolar world, but hey the post was getting long!)

Just appreciate these as interesting representations of 2 widely held (though sometimes unconsciously held) viewpoints that have potential to massively affect our world. (2) is in the ascendancy currently. (1) was behind the recent anarchist disruptions of the WTO sessions. There are many others, phrased equally extremely, for example religious viewpoints.

Thanks for reading! Sorry it got under your skin.

-- ccb (ccb@anna.lit), January 06, 2000.