Actual Freedom – Selected Correspondence by Topic

RESPONDENT No. 12: Truly this is the greatest time in all of history to be alive. It will take time to bear collective fruit, but I think your discovery will gradually wash over humanity in due time, if humanity doesn’t destroy itself first (which is a very real possibility).

RICHARD: Ha ... as what you are saying, in effect, is that every single man, woman and child on the planet – all 6.5 billion – are going to be destroyed, as a very real possibility, by every single man, woman and child on the planet (aka species extinction) then here is a ‘word of the day’ for future reference: hyperbole: a figure of speech consisting in exaggerated or extravagant statement, used to express strong feeling or produce a strong impression and not meant to be taken literally; [synonyms] exaggeration, overstatement, excess, overkill. (Oxford Dictionary). (Richard, List D, No. 12, 21 November 2009).

RESPONDENT: Hi Richard, I would wish read your pragmatics comments about this topic (human race extinction), because maybe this subject can be much more than one hyperbolic speculation to us. UGK also made some predictions: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/7498 (quoted from http://www.well.com/user/jct/reddi.htm)

RICHARD: G’day No. 14, Reading down from the top:

1. Mr. Uppaluri Krishnamurti is self-contradictory about it being [quote] ‘the sheer terror of extinction’ [endquote] which will save humankind as he also says [quote] ‘no power on this earth’ [endquote] can halt extinction.

Besides which, extinction of identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty will do whatever saving is necessary (not that any such altruistic action ever occurred to him though).

2. He was wrong about the US being only [quote] ‘one of the superpowers’ [endquote] as the collapse of the USSR left it the only superpower (which says a lot about a market economy versus a command economy/ privatisation versus nationalisation/ democracy versus autocracy and so on).

Besides which, having also lived through the ‘Cold War’ era myself it was obvious to me at the time how individual capitalism was streets ahead of state capitalism in terms of generating wealth (and thus economic, military and social might).

3. He was dissembling where he said [quote] ‘I am not a god man’ [endquote] as he unambiguously categorised his state of being elsewhere as ‘sahaja samadhi’ (the sanskrit term for ‘natural state’) which is generally held by more than a few to be superior to ‘nirvikalpa samadhi’.

Besides which, it is obvious to anyone with the eyes to read how he still had the entire affective faculty intact and, thus, ‘being’ itself (usually capitalised as ‘Being’).

4. He was wrong about it being [quote] ‘the separative structure of thought’ [endquote], which has [quote] ‘created the violent world’ [endquote], that will probably push [quote] ‘life on this planet to the brink of extinction’ [endquote].

Besides which, the non-cognitive consciousness of many and various animals has not precluded them from creating their own violent worlds (so to speak) which has pushed other species to extinction.

5. He was wrong about [quote] ‘the first and the last freedom and all the freedoms that come in between’ [endquote] pushing humans into [quote] ‘a manic-depressive state’ [endquote].

Besides which, political freedom, economic freedom, social freedom, and so on, has resulted in health, wealth, leisure, pleasure and safety for the average citizen on a scale which is unprecedented in human history.

6. He was wrong about how human self-consciousness, in contra-distinction to the way consciousness functions in other species, is [quote] ‘threatening the extinction of all that nature has created with such tremendous care’ [endquote].

Besides which, only the human animal (with its unique capacity for self awareness and intelligence) can adapt blind nature in ways beneficial to a continuance of life.

7. He was wrong where he said [quote] ‘no power on this earth’ [endquote] can halt that above extinction and how [quote] ‘Man is doomed. He has no freedom of action’ [endquote].

Besides which, so what were the human race to die out sooner than later as the planet itself – indeed the entire solar system – is not going to last forever anyway.

8. And he was wrong in saying [quote] ‘all we can do is to wait for the end of the world’ [endquote].

9. But he was right when he said that all the above may sound like [quote] ‘an apocalyptic warning of a prophet of doom’ [endquote].

As anyone would be well-advised to take everything he said with a pinch of salt then a large salt-shaker is a worthwhile investment prior to reading his books.

RESPONDENT: Before we have discussed more about it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/7083. What the error behind Mr. Gaede’s theory? (quoted from http://www.youstupidrelativist.com/08Ext/00SumExt.html)

RICHARD: Quite simply, Mr. Bill Gaede bases his hypothesis on the premise that, because palaeontological evidence – fossilised remains – demonstrates how more than 90% of all species ever living are now extinct, the human species will likewise be soon to die out.

He says [quote] ‘all living organisms are born to die, individually and collectively’ [endquote] yet fails to take into account how the vast majority of those extinct species are either single- or simple-celled organisms, which were quite obviously barely sentient, or that even the higher-order creatures lacked self-consciousness (the capacity to be aware of sentience) and, thus, agency (the self-referential, self-serving ability) let alone the self-reflective facility called intelligence and its concomitant capability of language (rather than just the incoherent way of basic animal communication).

In other words, a flawed premise is bound to result in a flawed (erroneous) conclusion.

By way of illustration: in a famine or drought animals, just like plants (unless hardy), languish and die whereas humans, with their unique ability to observe, recall, compare/ consider and implement beneficial action do not only survive but can also prosper as well.

The survival of the fittest does not necessarily mean, as more than a few take it to be, the survival of the most muscular but clearly speaks of the survival of the most fitted (adapted) to the environment living long enough to pass on their genes; and the human animal, with its exceptional capabilities, is not only well-fitted (adapted) to the environment but can also fit (adapt) the environment for beneficial outcomes. (As in tool-making, animal husbandry, agriculture, food-stocks, water-supply, horticulture, aquaculture, mining, industry, cold-storage, hygiene, medicines, vaccinations, and so on and so on).

Although I am in accord with his take on theoretical physicists and had the odd chuckle at his expressive phraseology – his doom and gloom scenario left me decidedly unimpressed. Yet another doomsday merchant.

RESPONDENT: He also put the blame in our Human Condition because it created and allow this artificial economy fated to a global collapse (we can live without God, computers, sex and even without virtual or actual freedom, but never without edible FOOD, the actual money in a natural economy).

RICHARD: An internet search quickly showed he has hopped aboard the latest bandwagon to arrive in town: he has been peddling his scaremongering online for quite a few years and back in 2001, for instance, he was predicting the human race had less than 500 years left to live due to an inversion of the population pyramid. Viz.:

• [Mr. Bill Gaede]: ‘The population pyramid for EVERY country in the world without exception is inverting! (...) Octogenarians don’t typically have babies, so more than likely they will not perpetuate the human race. (...) If nature has its way again, the last of the hominids will walk the Earth in less than 500 years. We are not the eternal gods we have so arrogantly allowed ourselves to believe for so long, but just another mortal animal in Eden’. (04/10/2001, psyclops.com/hawking/forum/printmsg.cgi?period=&msg=36991)

Now, fast-forward to the world-wide monetary situation of 2007 and, all-of-a-sudden, the end is nigh now! (And all because of a global financial situation which, although some say it is a global credit crisis/ a global liquidity crisis, is more a monetary crisis brought about by an unprecedented level of both private and public debt per favour an inherently inflationary fractional banking system and non-governmental control of its nation’s fiat currency).

The man is clearly a doomsday opportunist; wait a few years and he will be haranguing a gullible crowd from yet another one of his scaremongering barrows.

RESPONDENT: Maybe something like an imminent menace to humanity can awake our potential altruism.

RICHARD: Ha ... the only imminent menace to humanity (to use your term) is gullibility.