I am having another diamond moment. I am all too aware of the submerged, dissenting aspects of me, with their arguments and emotional lures. Religion, nationalism, irrationalism, racism, mind candy, they all sit, repressed, the evils in my mind. And when I get tired, they attempt to rise up. I can draw on them to understand them, their power and appeal, their arguments. But I worry that one day, the tower I am building to get away from them may fall. I do not know enough about the long-term dynamics of large chunks of ideas in the mind.
Enlightening questions? What questions and lines of reasoning have led me somewhere in constructing my self?
- Environment. Does the environment respect property lines? Can we live without a biosphere? Could certain environmental actions thus constitute an assault on everyone on the planet? Should nonhuman animals ever be granted rights?
- Efficiency. What resources are not renewable? For important nonrenewable supplies, can we make do with what management a market can provide? How can the problems of commercialism be limited without coercion?
- Social org. Should your neighbors collectively be able to rule you? Shouldn't their coercion to you come at some cost? Will you tolerate their dipping into your pocket to play with space toys or otherwise perform nonessential tasks? Should 6th-grade dropouts really have equal political voice as PhDs? Would it really justify anything if the KKK managed to get a town to vote successfully to lynch someone? Do you remember what it was like in a committee? Was that an example of good thinking?
I could think of more. Perhaps this is a good topic for an essay. Speaking of that, although I've updated a lot of stuff in my last essay, some of the updates were bad in that they put essays that are not quite ready on the site. Face of Man ends in the middle of a sentence. I don't remember how I got distracted when writing that. Hmm.
