[FRA:] Enlightenment under attack

[matthew piscioneri]

Steve,

at the risk of incurring your wrath, I tend towards the view that a more 
productive critical line in the issue of *mass extinction* is to concentrate 
on the social psychological-n-social control aspects of the debate...how 
*both* sides are locked into a self-seeking campaign of generating social 
fear. I'm getting tired of having to de-brief/counsel my 8 year old about 
the end of the world. The same old religious hogwash about humankind's fall 
from grace and guilt and self-hate from the one side; and the same old 
exploitation of the material fear and greed instinct from the other.

It might be useful to remind people of Darwin's thesis that all species have 
a finite lifetime and that ours is one twig on that big tree of life -- we 
were never destined for species' immortality or eternal dominance of the 
earth...no, the ongoing rise of the machines should put an end to that 
species' self-delusion. Now that should put real some fear into those 
useless buggers out there who find it difficult to rub two brain cells 
together at anyone time :-).

cheers,

mattP