Important Issues in My Lifetime: The Next 50 Years

I’m thirty now. Supposing I shall be so graced as to witness my eightieth birthday, I wonder about the next half a century. What are going to be some of the most important worldwide issues between now and 2060?

Well, here are some of them:

1. The Environment

We cannot keep acting like Saruman and think we’re safe in our self-constructed tower. Our twisted minions will not keep us from the green revenge of Treebeard & His Many-Leafed Company.

Seriously, though: The environment is simply the name for EVERYTHING on this planet, and EVERYTHING is pretty darn important. We humans are not self-sufficient beings; we are a hundred percent dependent on everything around us. In the next fifty years, we just absolutely have to get a grip on ourselves, send our orks into the fires of doom, and re-plant some trees in Isengard. Otherwise the whole place will come down.

2. Over-Population

Like C. S. Lewis already noted in 1959: “We shall fairly soon hopelessly overpopulate this planet and that population will be as defective in quality as excessive in quantity.”

We cannot keep multiplying indefinitely. We will reach a limit. The only question is how that limit will be reached. Through huge disasters? Or through rational, peaceful population control? I opt for the latter.

3. The Economy

Most thinkers of the past would have been horrified at the foundation of our economic system today, which is usury – money begetting money. It’s a system out of line with reality. Will it be able to last?

Aristotle would have probably said no. As he wrote in the third century BC:

“The most hated sort [of wealth-getting], and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural.”

4. Religion

Maybe I put too much emphasis on this, since I’m particularly interested in religion, but it will be very interesting to see how religion is going to develop in the next fifty years. Will Fundamentalism – meaning a narrow worldview that leaves little room for discussion – win the upper hand? Or will Atheism spread and marginalize religion completely? Or will a more mature, balanced, open-minded form of religious practice win the majority?

We’ll see, but I propose it will have a big effect – including on the first three points.

How TV Provides Nutritional “Education”

Here are some amazing (and very sad) facts:

I just learned that by the time the average American graduates from high school, he or she has watched 360,000 ads on television. Yes, three-hundred-sixty-thousand.

The majority of these are food ads, and now here it comes: 95 % of the advertised foods are actually unhealthy. Speak of nutritional education, or rather indoctrination. A bad ad or two might not influence a person right away, but thousands and thousands of junk-food ads? Who can withstand that kind of brainwashing, especially as a child?

Clearly, laissez-faire capitalism doesn’t have the answers here.

What We Eat, Why We Eat and the Key Role of Food in Modern Life

In the time of the health-care debate, the giant elephant in the room is clearly our actual health and the often self-inflicted lack thereof. Health care is important, but much more essential is food, our lifestyles, and how they affect society as a whole.

Yale offers a really good course on this topic, and it’s for free on the web. Here’s the first session: What We Eat, Why We Eat and the Key Role of Food in Modern Life.

Want to make the world a better place? Start with the plate right in front of you.

“Who is John Galt?” – The Tea Party in Washington

Over the weekend, I watched a CNN report on the Tea Party demonstration in Washington. Behind the reporter stood someone who carried a sign that read “Who is John Galt?” – a reference to Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Rand, who was born in Russia but chose to become an American, wrote her book in the 1950s largely in response to Marxism. And she does an incredible job showing why Marxism ultimately does not work.

However, I’m less convinced by what she puts in Marxim’s place, namely laissez-faire capitalism, meaning capitalism (almost?) completely free of government intervention. Here are two questions I have for proponents of laissez-faire capitalism:

1. How will unrestrained capitalism be able to protect our environment (and thus, in the long run, us)? Without restraint, capitalism will self-destruct and take the planet with it.

2. How will unrestrained capitalism prevent the cancer of virtual money from spreading? By “virtual money” I mean the fact that money is nowadays primarily a virtual entity that does not necessarily stand in proper relation to the material word. Money can beget money to the point where it utterly exceeds the actual value of work and property. Theoretically, someone could  multiply his virtual money to such a degree that they owned more than the real value of all human property in the entire world. Needless to say, this destroys the balance and stability in the world. How will laissez-faire capitalism reign this in?

Somone carrying a sign with a reference to Atlas Shrugged seems to suggest that laissez-faire capitalism is the answer to the problems we are currently facing. To me, this is naive. I can forgive Ayn Rand for ignoring the destruction of the environment and the existence of virtual money in the 1950s. But now? Now that it has become glaringly obvious how very serious these issues are?

Let John Galt stay in the world of literature. In the real world, there are other solutions required.

Oh the Irony! Time’s Article on Wikipedia

Just read an article at Time.com entitled “A Brief History of Wikipedia.” It discusses, among other things, how accurate the online encyclopedia can be.

The irony is that the article itself contains a major error. It says: “The Dutch-language version is the next largest, with more 900,000 entries, but there’s something for readers of every language.”

Dutch the next largest? That tiny people group? Someone at Time should have known this couldn’t be right.

As it turns out, German is the next largest with more than 900,000 entries.  And “German” is “Deutsch” in German, whereas Dutch is “Nederlands” in Dutch. Confusing, I know. Even a professional at Time might get it wrong – that is, if he only briefly glances at the homepage at Wikipedia.org where it lists “Deutsch” and “Nederlands” with their respective entry numbers.

Want to Know More About Iran?

Then you might want to watch Persepolis. It’s an artsy movie that is informative, pensive and provocative at the same time – not to mention beautifully crafted. I watched it when it first came out and it’s stayed in my memory more than most movies. Here’s the trailer:

Priests Obsessed with Sex: The Abuse Scandal in Ireland

You don’t hear much about it in the international news anymore, but the recent disclosure of sexual abuse by Irish churchmen continues to be a topic here in Ireland. I hope I am not making light too much of a very serious issue by posting this cartoon I drew a while back:

What made me draw the cartoon was not any sex scandal, though, but the curious fact that many believers throughout history have almost been obsessed with their sexuality, whereas many (or at least several) forerunners of secularism have been rather indifferent on the topic.

I’m thinking of St. Augustine, for instance. When he became a Christian, he ditched his long-time friend and lover, Floria, with whom he had a son, only thereafter to give into his passions and satisfy his cravings with another woman, exchanging love for mere lust. And throughout his life – even as a bishop – he struggled with his sexuality, as one can read in his Confessions. The Greek philosopher Epicur, on the other hand, taught openly the importance of pleasure, but the greatest pleasure for him lay in the contemplative life. The one man sought contemplation and struggled with pleasure; the other sought pleasure and found contemplation.

The second observation that went into the comic strip is the irony that some of the most famous unbelievers seem uncommonly obsessed with the idea of God and can’t stop talking about him, whereas many believers grow apathetic in their faith and might even feel embarrased to talk about God. A dead God apparently intrigues people more than a live one.

Perhaps it’s all due to law vs. freedom. If you have to think and talk about God, and you have to abstain from sex by all means, the one becomes a burden and the other an obsession. But if you are free, well, then you can find out your true interests.

Stephen King’s “The Stand” and the Swine Flu Virus

I started reading Stephen King’s The Stand shortly before the swine flu virus broke out. For those who don’t know, The Stand is about a highly contagious virus that kills off most of humanity.

A kind of creepy coincidence. Though it’s unlikely, of course, that the current virus will ever reach King-sized proportions.

Bono Talks to Bill Hybles about Jesus, Christians, and Being Real

Gay Rights and the Definition of Marriage: Hasn’t the Definition Changed Already?

Proposition 8, which outlaws same-sex marriage in California, was recently passed by a small majority. One argument that is often used against same-sex marriage is that it would change the definition of marriage, and the definition of marriage has to be protected.

I’m wondering, though, whether the definition of marriage hasn’t already changed.

Historically, the civil institution of marriage (as opposed to a religious interpretation of marriage, which is no business of a government) was supported by states because:

a) Sexual intercourse produced children, and children needed nourishment, love and protection.

b) Women were not financially independent and needed a husband.

As far as I can see, those are the only two reasons that a government has any business in making marriage laws.

These two points, however, have changed dramatically over the past century, due to:

a) A wide range of contraceptions.

b) The (financial) emancipation of women.

Sex doesn’t necessarily produce children anymore and women don’t necessarily need men for financial support anymore.

When a man and a woman marry today, having children is optional, as is the financial dependence of one spouse on the other. It is perfectly legitimate that two independent adults marry simply because they love each other and want to make a commitment to each other, with no thoughts of creating a functional environment for offspring or of one marriage partner becoming dependent on the other. In fact, marrying for love rather than social responsibility has become the ideal motive for marriage.

Two independent adults marrying out of love, while offspring and financial dependence of the one are simply seen as optional – that, seen historically, is a radically new definition of marriage. And isn’t that definition exactly the same one as that of a same-sex marriage? The only difference is that it’s not male and female, which one might not agree with as a religiously sanctioned marriage, but shouldn’t be something that concerns the state.

If the state actually wants to do something to protect the original definition of marriage, it should only grant special tax status to couples with children and/or where one spouse is financially dependent on the other. Seen financially, that makes more sense anyway, because two working people already have financial benefits by sharing a household and thus reducing personal costs.