Peace Legacy

I've been very remiss not to post for so long, and so much has been happening it's hard to know where to start, so you might think my choice is a bit strange. It's this article from Foxnews on the end of life of our good planet. The take-home point is that our planet might not be liveable all the way until the end of life of the Sun. This is because the Sun's heat slowly increases. From being maybe 30% cooler when the Sun first formed, it will end up maybe 30% hotter than it is now. This will mean the Earth will pass from the 'habitable zone' into the torrid zone, the oceans slowly evaporate, the Earth's natural thermostat fails, and the planet suffers runaway heating until all life is gone.

To give you the flavour of it, here is a short clip from the article:

Earth could continue to host life for at least another 1.75 billion years, as long as nuclear holocaust, an errant asteroid or some other disaster doesn't intervene, a new study calculates.

But even without such dramatic doomsday scenarios, astronomical forces will eventually render the planet uninhabitable. Somewhere between 1.75 billion and 3.25 billion years from now, Earth will travel out of the solar system's habitable zone and into the "hot zone," new research indicates.

Very interesting. The only problem is this is old, very old, news. In the "Tree of Life" book Gitie and I wrote in 2003 we discussed this very problem.

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Most people I know are appalled by the amount and horrific nature of the cruelty to animals of all kinds, going on all around the world.

If you want to take a small step towards stopping this evil, there is now a petition you can sign. Just click on the link.

I was sent the latest missive from Australia's "GetUp" campaigning group today:

Welcome to our "new normal."

Our country is still in the middle of a record-smashing heatwave with temperatures soaring above 40 °C and hundreds of fires blazing out of control around the country. We're being told to "get used to it" but while the nation rallies to fight fires, repair damage and console loved ones we're struggling to have the conversation about our warming planet, let alone get used to it.

The growing mountain of evidence tells a sobering story - a story that needs frequent and urgent repeating if we're to have a chance of preventing the worst of predicted catastrophic climate change.

Do I need to say that I'm less than impressed? First there's the embarrassing fact that even the alarmists admit that Australia's carbon tax, even if it were so extreme as to shut down Australian industry completely, would save at most a few thousandths of a degree by 2050. So what the heck sort of action do they want us to urgently and repeatedly ask for if they have any hope of making a noticeable difference?

I came across an interesting article from invisibleserfscollar.com on the theory behind modern education practices. It should have been obvious to anyone not in a coma that children are taught the ideological views of their teachers. But the educational theories and the policies that follow, being enforced as part of the curriculum, takes this danger that has always been with us to a new height. In essence, education is no longer developing an individual (ability to think, knowledge, ability to learn, literacy, etc.). No, now it is:

“In the socio-cultural perspective, learning takes place as individuals participate in the practices of a community, using the tools, language, and other cultural artifacts of the community.”

Ah, that word "community"! Every good and positive word in the language has been corrupted, but few so much as this one. "But surely being part of the community is good!" you might say. My answer: only when it can be a free choice. The difference between a good community and a bad one is that good ones are optional - we join them because they nurture us and give us an opportunity to nurture others. Bad ones, like the ones all our children will soon be subjected to, are compulsory. Fall in love with an unapproved man in the middle east? You get murdered. Now, want to be a rugged individualist in the 'enlightened' west? You become stigmatised as a sociopath who won't cooperate and "participate in the practices of a community." Over-dramatic? Don't laugh. That just demonstrates you haven't paid the least attention to what is going on around you.

Regular readers of this blog will know that we are committed to the Principle of Goodness as a critical necessity for getting out of our current morass of bad policies and directions. I'll point out one critical reason why the Principle would hinder this totalitarian socialisation of children: there is a gap, a space, between being good and being evil.

As you read the following, please ask yourself why, if this "scientific theory" is so scientific and so well confirmed, all we ever get from its proponents are ratbag acts like the following. Why can't they win by simply convincing us with the weight of evidence? Instead it is pulling down the integrity of the once-respected institutions of society. like universities and governments.

The story is in this email from Gordon Fulks:

Hello Everyone,

In theory at least Oregon State University (OSU) seems to be a bastion of academic freedom, diversity, and tolerance. A wide range of ideas are openly discussed. The most viable rise to the top and the least viable fade away. But it is all a fairy tale, because OSU operates under a politically correct regimen that dictates what is acceptable to say and what is not. Transgressors who dare to be different are eventually weeded out so that the campus maintains its ideological purity.

OSU is not yet as swift or efficient as the Soviet system when Joseph Stalin was trying to quash dissent among biologists who refused to go along with Trofim Lysenko. If warnings to compromise their integrity were not followed, Stalin simply had biologists shot. That quickly thinned the ranks of all biologists and persuaded the remaining ones to comply with Stalin’s wishes. Of course, it also destroyed Soviet biology, because Lysenko was pedaling nonsense. And Russian biology has never recovered.

We learned over the weekend that chemist Nickolas Drapela, PhD has been summarily fired from his position as a “Senior Instructor” in the Department of Chemistry. The department chairman Richard Carter told him that he was fired but would not provide any reason. Subsequent attempts to extract a reason from the OSU administration have been stonewalled. Drapela appears to have been highly competent and well-liked by his students. Some have even taken up the fight to have him reinstated.

In December, the Pure Land Buddhist Centre in Toowoomba (Queensland Australia) hosted a major conference seeking friendship amongst religions. Here are the slides from a talk that I delivered. I hope you like them. The text of the talk follows the slides.