In last week’s meeting of the group ‘Medical Doctors for COVID Ethics’, I was asked to debunk the myth of overpopulation as the ideology has evolved from Thomas Malthus to Francis Galton to modern Transhumanism. We contrast this ‘dismal science’ of the imperial ‘science of limits’ with the more healthy tradition of open system renaissance economics as advanced by Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Quincy Adams, Henry C Carey and many other great statesmen both American, Asian, European and beyond over the course of the past 250 years.
I'm getting a lot done while listening to these! During this one I made tempura zucchini blossoms stuffed with lemony ricotta, fish tacos with homemade tortillas, and prepped the chicken with rhubarb vinaigrette.
I'd never read Malthus before but he's a horror! I'll respond to some of this in a future episode but I wanted to mention Yuval Harari, who I've done three episodes on. The latest, linked below, wonders if he's using his role (consciously or subconsciously) to warn us away and give specific advice on how to resist the GR. There are a couple of especially astute commenters who add some examples of this.
And I completely agree with the disconnect of living in Israel and how that prevents him from thinking clearly about ethics and state identity. In my first episode (linked in the latest) I quote him talking about nations making us behave better to each other and the obvious contradiction in that. Thanks for another great history lesson!
Thanks Matt for helping us to benefit from your great insights. On a minute pedantic matter, the river Thames is pronounced with a hard T (Tems).
I'm getting a lot done while listening to these! During this one I made tempura zucchini blossoms stuffed with lemony ricotta, fish tacos with homemade tortillas, and prepped the chicken with rhubarb vinaigrette.
I'd never read Malthus before but he's a horror! I'll respond to some of this in a future episode but I wanted to mention Yuval Harari, who I've done three episodes on. The latest, linked below, wonders if he's using his role (consciously or subconsciously) to warn us away and give specific advice on how to resist the GR. There are a couple of especially astute commenters who add some examples of this.
And I completely agree with the disconnect of living in Israel and how that prevents him from thinking clearly about ethics and state identity. In my first episode (linked in the latest) I quote him talking about nations making us behave better to each other and the obvious contradiction in that. Thanks for another great history lesson!
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/yuval-harari-and-the-metawealth-miniverse