Noam Chomsky versus Sam Harris

I have contacted Sam Harris through his site to discuss his meta-ethical example of the chess game. I’ll try to avoid this abstract and philosophical debate here, untill he has replied. I can accept he’s busy. I only mention this, so I won’t get a cease-and-desist for quoting almost an entire chapter from his (though outdated) book. First give me a reply Mr Harris! I’ve never mailed or contacted Noam Chomsky because I feel he’s busy enough, I have too many of his books to read first and he’s old (so I assume his time is too precious).
I’m also looking forward to reading Harris’ new book “Lying”. So far, he seems to be against it: “Even with Nazis at the door and Anne Frank in the attic, Howard [teacher of “The Ethical Analyst", the course Harris was taking] always seemed to find truths worth telling and paths to even greater catastrophe that could be opened by lying”. In the End of Faith, his utilitarian approach of equating do and allowing (which I agree with in principle mind you) is illustrated with Peter Unger, who “made a persuasive case that a single dollar spent on anything but the absolute essentials of our survival is a dollar that has some starving child’s blood on it.” (footnoting: P. Unger, Living High & Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996). Wikipedia (I admit not reading Unger’s book, because I agree as I already stipulated) says: “Unger argues that for people in the developed world to live morally, they are morally obliged to make sacrifices to help mitigate human suffering and premature death in the third world, and further that it is acceptable (and morally right) to lie, cheat, and steal to mitigate suffering”. Obviously, Harris either took the course after he wrote the End of Faith, or he’s using Unger to make a point. The point being that “intentions matter” (making Harris, at most, a rule-utilitarian; the rule being intentions matter, but letting people die is a bad intention and shouldn’t be a rule). However, as Chomsky points out in a conference (to be found on youtube, but I don’t think I need proof to make this general anarchist critique -if you find it; contact me, save me the hassle of looking it up myself and I’ll edit this part-), Hitchens (the war) and Harris are state apologists. I’ll quote Harris in the End of Faith: “But we are, in many respects, just such a “well-intentioned giant.” And it is rather astonishing that intelligent people, like Chomsky and Roy, fail to see this”. I’m currently reading Stephen Jay Gould’s book “The Mismeasure of Man” and most recently “The White Man’s Burden” of Rudyard Kipling was quoted. I don’t think I need to quote the entire poem of the response of Teddy Roosevelt (writing to Henry Cabot Lodge).
The next section of Harris’ book discusses “Perfect Weapons and the Ethics of “Collateral Damage”.
“Consider the all too facile comparisons that have recently been made between George Bush and Saddam Hussein (or Osama bin Laden, or Hitler, etc.)—in the pages of writers like Roy and Chomsky, in the Arab press, and in classrooms throughout the free world”. These “facile comparisons” are what most moral philosophers call “universality”. As Chomsky puts it:”That’s not what I was saying. The statement of mine that you just quoted is a very conservative statement, in fact it was articulated by George Bush’s favorite philosopher, Jesus Christ, who famously defined the notion of a hypocrite. A hypocrite is a person who focuses on the other fellow’s crimes and refuses to look at his own. That’s the definition of hypocrite by George Bush’s favorite philosopher. When I repeat that I’m not taking a radical position. I’m taking a position that is just elementary morality”. Harris continues “What would Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden do with perfect weapons? What would Hitler have done? They would have used them rather differently”. As if these people have a bloodlust and would not try to attain global domination/hegemony if it could be done without needless killing. They are the unhumans, it would seem. To claim the same of our leaders, is the make a mockery of democracy. However, if this is the argument which Harris proposes (and it’s not clear he does), then we are all indeed complicit in the crimes of our leaders and nobody in those towers was innocent. As the terrorists claim. I’d rather go with the analysis that half of the US population doesn’t even vote because “it doesn’t matter”. Of course, Harris claims they’re not crimes. They’re collateral damage. We just haven’t found the perfect weapon yet. But if our enemy had it, he would cause needless bloodshed. I won’t defend Islam. In fact, whenever I meet a believer of anything, I’ll discuss untill they kindly run away:”Any honest witness to current events will realize that there is no moral equivalence between the kind of force civilized democracies project in the world, warts and all, and the internecine violence that is perpetrated by Muslim militants, or indeed by Muslim governments. Chomsky seems to think that the disparity either does not exist or runs the other way”. As if The Troubles were settled with atheists from the Continent and their critique of what was happening in between Europe and America. Perhaps this is a false comparison, but it’s the first one that came to mind and seems plausible enough. I invite you to explain in the comments what’s wrong with it and I’ll come up with a new one if needed. Perhaps I don’t need to. The very next paragraph in Harris’ work relates to Saddam’s rule (so faith seems to be false enemy, it’s secular rule by a mob style ganster and his posse):”Consider the recent conflict in Iraq: If the situation had been reversed, what are the chances that the Iraqi Republican Guard, attempting to execute a regime change on the Potomac, would have taken the same degree of care to minimize civilian casualties? What are the chances that Iraqi forces would have been deterred by our use of human shields? (What are the chances we would have used human shields?) What are the chances that a routed American government would have called for its citizens to volunteer to be suicide bombers ? What are the chances that Iraqi soldiers would have wept upon killing a carload of American civilians at a checkpoint unnecessarily? You should have, in the ledger of your imagination, a mounting column of zeros”. To answer the questions: 1) If they had the same military might, it might not have been so different. But I can’t say with the same certitude as Harris, because we don’t live anywhere near that kind of society. 2) Perhaps they’ve seen more misery than our volunteer army (called mercenary army by Chomsky) and they’ve lost all humanity. 3) Israel seems to be a good case study of doing more with less. They do use human shields. I’ve seen the pictures (teens on the hoods of cars, younger childeren in front of IDF forces). But this questions was in parenthesis. Pure rhetoric and deserves no response as none was expected. 4) Suicide missions only seem to exist in the movie version of the US Army. Marines never leave a man behind, so the issue doesn’t arise. However, if the military is broken and citizens are needed to bomb the enemy, I’m sure they’ll have to risk their lives too. 5) I’m not sure the tearducts or Iraqi soldiers are unable to function. We hear the same stories from anti-war soldiers returning from Iraq. The story being that most of the company don’t care that much about Iraqis and it’s hard to get these stories out. Hate breeds more hate. Being in the war won’t make ‘them’ better people. It’ll make ‘us’ worse. 0) This is the only zero. I’m sorry Sam, but I have some imagination. Harris continues to claim “But you would not know this from reading Chomsky. For him, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all”. From reading Chomsky I get the feeling he’s saying the intentions of the population matters and if the population votes to go to war, maybe we should. Body count is relevant. ‘Liberals’ often take about the cost of war, never mentioning the human cost. He’s trying to side-step this “It’s moral, but we’re doing it wrong and it’s costing us too much money” discourse. He seems to be a ‘better’ utilitarian. Nevertheless, as a child of the Enlightement, Chomsky sees Kant as an extension of Hume and Mill and all those guys as one great tradition. He does not claim intentions are not important. He merely points out that geo-political interests (eg. oil) are often the true motivation and noble excuses are thought of later. Intentions are important for Chomsky when, say, he defends attacking fascism in the ’40′s after the fall of anarchism in the ’30′s. But Harris seems to be a libertarian and has his own ideological filter. One that allows for a Pax Americana it would seem. Or as he puts it:”We are now living in a world that can no longer tolerate wellarmed, malevolent regimes. Without perfect weapons, collateral damage—the maiming and killing of innocent people—is unavoidable”.

Happiness

Here’s what we know about (one, but arguably, the most important form of) happiness: It’s found when you do something with a certain ‘flow’.
What that means is, you don’t know you’re happy. Nor are you very aware of time passing by. If anything, it’s over before you know it. You didn’t know what it was.
A happy life would therefor be over before you know it.
It would be a (largely) unexamined life. Aristotle said this is not the life worth living. Then again, he also thought you’d be happy if you were virtuous. So far, I don’t think people who do supererogatory things are very happy. If they are, it’s because they don’t know. But that’s all speculation on ethics, aristotle and things we can’t know. What we do know, is that when life is truly depressing (if indeed, I have chosen the opposite of happiness correctly), time passes slowly and you’re well aware of your suffering.
If you’re reading this and you think: “Hey, this doesn’t apply to me. I feel fine!”, you’ve just analyzed yourself and have lost your flow. Sorry.

Second part of fiction

We always believe the masses were ignorant and the rulers unjust. But we now know better. There are no more rulers, yet everybody remains equally devoid of any sense of justice. Including the masses, whom were now everywhere and nowhere, had known for some time now what the problems were. To claim that they should have made radical changes, is to deny their humanity and the social and biological conditions we were faced with. But that’s all over. The radical change has occurred. A revolution, if that means a saltational evolution in the reverse direction. Even though it’s very clear that there was no direction. No progress, no obvious horizon.
It wasn’t always like this. But there’s no going back. We’ve gone back. In so many ways it has become unlikely… – nay – impossible, to revert to that ancient state of degradation. We have entered a new phase. Unwilling, yet fully conscious.

“Please, no more. This is torture”. The man nearest to me was visibly fatigued. After the exorbitant act of asking somebody to do something else -in this case me- than what they were doing, others nodded in agreement; only tempered by their shyness and sense of guilt to tell a dying human what to do. But we were all dying and I felt no sense of entitlement to say out loud what all already knew. They had gathered here precisely to make the last hours of their lives count, not the analyze themselves into a depression. When death is so imminent, there’s no longer any time for sadness.

We marched on. Leaving this group behind. Or so we thought. I talked aloud endlessly and my companions said very little of this habit. Ignoring my ramblings and being visibly enerved by some rants, they’d tell me to “be quiet for a moment”, but almost always because silence was needed to proceed. Never because the sounds I was making made a semantic impact. The meaning was already known to everybody. I was just contemplating out loud.

“Haboob!”, several exclaimed simultaneously. We saw the sandstorm in the horizon, rolling over the distant hill. It wasn’t going straight for us, but we were heading straight for it. There was no real cover to speak of and a sense of duty informed our actions to head back and help the others if they were still alive. They weren’t. By the time we had reached them, the sandstorm had passed outside our radius and they were all dead for all intents and purposes. That that there were many purposes left to help you motivate your intentions. We gathered all supplies we could find. But our group was over twice their size and they only planned on waiting to die for a couple of days. Needless to say there weren’t a lot of supplies to be found.

The cadavers made my companions uneasy and they wished to return to the city. There were plenty of people their in comparison, most of whom were alive. Unable to choose novelty over nostalgia, I remained silent and followed the group back to what seemed familiar, but had become as alien as the rest of the environment. To say I wanted to experience the rest of the world, to meet new people, would have been a fallacious statement. I kept my companions for the same reasons they headed back to the city dwellers. That is to say, I followed them and they me. To keep has lost its significance. It’s all so ephemeral. So finite. So very, very short. We did not tolerate each other out of some sense of justice. It was compassion and a lack of wanting to be just. For it was to cruel and vengeful. It was too late. The human race has reached to finish line. There’s no point in trying to be first, last, fastest or anything like that. Perhaps kindest. People remained kind and those who were kind were treated kindly. But how cynical it is to be kind to a member of a dying species. If we didn’t know better, we’d console one another with lies. Knowing the end is near and there’s no reason to be upset. The people who became upset were far too homo- and suicidal to have lasted this long anyway. We were free to do what we want, but nobody knew what they should want. All hope is gone now and people just want to be alive until they die. To hope for more is hubris.

This work is intended as fiction and is to bear no resemblance to reality.

There was nothing left. Nothing of value. After the crash.

I told them I used to live there and they asked me how. I didn’t know. I lied. I said the government provided for me. It provided for everybody. That what it was there for. Before. Before the crash.

They taxed the rich and that was enough, I explained. Enough for me to live here that is. The middle of the city. People close enough to provide for each other. All within walking distance. Able to provide the services needed to have some honor. Honor had become important again. And was distributed via the computing power the remaining technology had provided. The programs only worked with an equal playing field and we got it. Our history erased, our memories lost, our culture destroyed.

It had become a meritocracy. Not a democratic society, not a sudden apocalypse, no more violence, none of it. Life was too short and we’re all that’s left. “Is that why you take care of us?”, they asked. I shook my head, shoulders and body. It was a strange response to combine it all. I said nothing. I should have said, “Who says you’re not taking care of me?”. But I didn’t. And it never happened. A lost chance. One among many.

Though, perhaps, not that many.

I always thought the end of times, if it were to happen, would be an egalitarian society. Something we’d accomplished. We’d distributed everything fairly. But fair had become a different things. Sure, after the riots (and they were smal in scale compared to the significance of the event) there was no more violence. None. That was surely a good thing. It wasn’t demanded. Not be force. Perhaps by fear. Or worse, apathy. People had stopped caring enough to be willing to kill. Life had become finite and too precious. I say precious because it had a price. It was easily calculable now. There are X people. We don’t know how many there were. We know there will be no more people. We know what we have. There’s no more virtual economy. There’s no more real economy.

First there were news reports about bombs and murders and disasters. It all seemed normal. Nothing suspicious about that. But it was the last news we had before it all really went bad. After the internet pretty much broke down, electricity soon followed. There was screw ups in the food supply and soon everybody who wasn’t growing their own plants was dead. It all happened so fast. The disasters piled up and nature wasn’t pretty after our fragile last fragment of ecomanagement crumbled. The floods. I’ll never forget the floods. The floated around. I picked them up. We’ve been together since. It was touch and go there for a while. Where did that phrase originate from? I never bothered to learn. Good thing perhaps. None of the planes can fly anymore. None that depend on fuel anyway. Or can’t handle a decent storm now and then. The humidity was inhuman. It was always humid now. I looked at the building and realized that if I’d live there now, it would never be as it once was. Besides, the person who lived there now deserved it. I deserve a lot, but this was a little too lucky to be honest. We walked away. Too many building have collapsed in the city. With the quakes and the rats, we may as well leave and had for the nearest town. It would be difficult, no doubt.

The remaining people had huddled together and every nucleus of Peoples that remained had gathered all material wealth. Entire trucks of non-contaminated earth was brought in with the remaining bio-fuel. We couldn’t get to the fossil anymore. It was all gone, outside of reach. Since then, we’ve not had a chance to exploit our surroundings. We’ve failed as a race. Well, as the human race. The little race that could. A rat race. They’re the only ones that could have survived us. But they didn’t. Our lab rats were released and a success. Artificial animals, though not born alive, were among us for a long time. But to survive and adapt in this climate, they soon become movable molds. Clinging to whatever wasn’t blown away by the winds. It wasn’t the smell that bothered me. It was the air. It became hard to breath when they were around. Whenever humans were around too, but never that bad. And it was always worth it. If things still have value. But they don’t. They can’t. We moved on. A village with some people remaining had decided that all were equally worthy. They had no outside contact, so they were entitled to do so. Provided they didn’t need providing. But that meant death. Perhaps they were right. A quick death. They couldn’t have lived over a month after we passed through. It was impossible to survive without help. We asked how long they thought they’d last. A couple of days, a week tops they responded. They were all so calm about it. Everybody was, I suppose. There’s nothing to panic about anymore. It ends with us.

Politics and work

I recently heard Plato’s idea reflected that politicians should have no stake in the decisions they make. That they ought to live in some proto-communist society. In most European countries bribing politicians is illegal, in north America it’s called lobbying. Here’s my innovation: Let’s all be politicians. No doubt, we’ll be at least just as flawed. But the main flaw is that power corrupts, therefor we should all be equally flawed. Being able to make decisions without fear of repercussion. Risk aversion is a real psychological phenomenon. We’re afraid or too busy to think about these things. Making a decision without any repercussion isn’t taking a risk at all, so how can this be possible? We can’t guarantee the survival of the human species without interfering (further) with our habitat. There’s only one planet, we can’t pretend our resources are infinite. So what’s the solution to this very basic problem? My premise is that it is shouldn’t be left to someone else. Somebody who will take the time to think, the risk, the energy to investigate, the blame, … for us. Because we ARE all involved, whether we like it or not. We ALL have something at stake here. So let’s be equals in being able to make a decision. This is not centralism, nor leadership in the sense that it implies followers. Rather it includes the willingness to follow ideas and therefor the leadership to challenge them where they are not yet perfected. And they will never be perfected. Which is why we all have to pitch in. It’s not enough to leave it up to the ‘leaders’. YOU are the leader, just as much as you’re the follower. We can’t elect leaders, because we’ll effectively elect ourselves out of ‘office’. Now, nobody wants to be in the office. Not even politicians, they’re humans too. Some dare say that’s what makes (some) politicians voteworthy. I say it makes them equal to use. And no less, nor more qualified than us. On a brighter note, one could easily claim this is already the case. Therefor there’s nothing to worry about. Those who CONSIDER themselves to be entities with something at stake – be it lifeform, human, westerner, politician, etc. – already have such a system. Bankers profit from the socialism for the rich and the retards who refuse to be engaged end up with what’s often called capitalism. Which, using the strict definition (as I do), implies that some people have the money and others have the labor. Both are equally interchangeable at the marketplace which as only rule has Demand versus Supply. In labor markets, this implies simple things like: The more people are willing to work, the less their labor is (per capita) worth. So get off your arses and stop working! There are things to be done! I’ll come down to earth for a minute and keep some facts in mind. The problem with government is governing. The same problem exists within any structure of decisionmaking. These can claim to be egalitarian. However, in a socialist party there’s often more hierarchy than in others. This is hard to explain. I’ll give it a shot. Everybody gets behind the ideology rather than behind the idea of having ideas. Of course, a party system isn’t the only way. Nevertheless, it’s the one we see most clearly in what’s called the (in my opinion, very narrowly defined) political arena. When we vote, we are part of that system. Only at this moment. When we are unable to vote or influence this sphere, we are by very definition not part of that network. However, most people are at work most of the time (not voting). Who will defend your rights there? So far, if you’re ‘lucky’, it’s the unions. These are filled with human flaws as well as organisational flaws. But one thing is often left out. You’re there more often. This seems to be obviously stated in the premise. However, we don’t consider ourselves to be voting for our job (and working conditions) by showing up. But this is what we implicitly do by not getting fired. Now, being without a job is no fun. But neither is a job. This is what I mean when I talk about wage slavery. Now, one could argue that paying people to do something is the only way to go about things. It’s true, that being productive could and perhaps should be rewarded. But what would be the value of that? Is it to simply make the system function? Sure, you’re functional. But only in the way that you’re perpetuating a system. You’re being payed to be obedient, not to think for yourself. That would imply that you’re paying yourself Being productive enough so you’ll have freedom to be [a creative creature]. Most jobs however consist mainly out of not questioning authority. Authority generally doesn´t stand for that. That´s what I`m talking about when I refer to anarchism. This is not the same as anarchy, which can be used to refer to chaos. This term is often used with the implication that some consistent theory exists which can state the full description of reality which we all know and abide by, thereby avoiding chaos. The world is transparant and already at an optimum. This is a view I´ve tend to adopt when concluding that thinking more about the issue would be of little use. In that it´ll be too hard, depressing or exhausting.

Traffic quotations

Seth Abrahams is played by the same actor who played Eric Forman on that 70′s show, Topher Grace. Talk about typecasting. Unless you think vague cannabis references are different from using white chemicals that often include baking soda; sugars, such as lactose, dextrose, inositol, and mannitol; and local anesthetics, such as lidocaine or benzocaine, which mimic or add to cocaine’s numbing effect on mucous membranes. And almost always includes ether, ammonia, acetone and kerosine in transforming the coca paste.
Robert Wakefield is played by Michael Douglas. They couldn’t get Nicolos the Second for the part. Either way, the war is on. After all, drugs can ruin your life. And that’s the government’s job.
Source:
Seth Abrahams: [high on coke] We act like we have all the answers and we’re totally invincible, like our parents seem and their parents before them, and I’m sorry, that I have to be the one to say this, but it’s fucking bullshit. For instance I know that you jack-off to Caroline every night instead of Vanessa, who you’re supposed to be in love with. Whatever that… don’t even get me started on that convention, I mean, think about it. What is that convention? We’re this random collection of self-interest all of a sudden , and we just decide that we’re just gonna, we’re just gonna walk two by two down the fucking aisle to you know, Noah’s ark?

Teacher: [Robert Wakefield drags Seth out of class to help look for his missing daughter] Can I help you?
Robert Wakefield: Seth has to be excused. He’s going on a field trip.

Robert Wakefield: I can’t believe you brought my daughter to this place.
Seth Abrahams: Woah. Why don’t you just back the fuck up, man. “To this place”? What is that shit? Ok, right now, all over this great nation of ours, ‘hundred thousand white people from the suburbs are cruisin’ around downtown asking every black person they see “You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?” *Think* about the effect that that has on the psyche of a black person, on their possibilities. I… God I guarantee you bring a hundred thousand black people into your neighborhood, into fuckin’ Indian Hills, and they’re asking every white person they see “You got any drugs? You know where I can score some drugs?”, within a *day* everyone would be selling. Your friends. Their kids. Here’s why: it’s an unbeatable market force man. It’s a three-hundred percent markup value. You can go out on the street and make five-hundred dollars in two hours, come back and do whatever you want to do with the rest of your day and, I’m sorry, you’re telling me that… you’re telling me that white people would still be going to law school?

[walks into building with daughter in it]

[Robert Wakefield has offered the drug dealer a bribe for information about his missing daughter]
Drug Dealer: Who in the FUCK do you think you are? Where the fuck do you think you are, and why the fuck don’t I just put your ass in a dumpster?
Robert Wakefield: [Shaking, scared] … I… I got money…
Drug Dealer: [Infuriated] I got money!
Robert Wakefield: I’ve got a thousand dollars in my pocket; it’s for you.
Drug Dealer: If I want your money man, I will TAKE your money!

Rome is on fire

If we fight fire, we reserve something for it to feast on later on. I do not suggest we let it burn, while building new societies. But there´s something do be said for prevention and leisure.

Psychoanalysis and therapeutic effects.

Departing from Freudian analysis, I shall mainly take a more bioneural approach to the brain. Not disregarding concepts of the mind, as stablished by C.G. Jung and partners; this will be my main focus.

Sigmeund Freud has to be placed in historical context. In a time when fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes were hailing the use of cocaine, it did not take long for Freud to look at it as a “wonderous medicine”. He, of course, explains his increased libido as a central enforced personal trait. In patients, he sees it makes them “more normal” and administers it if they feel depressed. After some research is done on this chemically refined use of coca leaves, he is devasted by the scientific consensus: It’s highly addictive and worse than a cup of coffee (which were the effects when chewed as done by native americans for millenia). He goes on to work with C. G. Jung, who places emphasis on the collective consciousness. We have evidence from 5000B.C. that mushrooms were used in Central and South America were reverence. The molecular biology of
and deserves attention at this point.

These subjects are controversial because they were outlawed (but recreational users and medicinal research) during times of racism. A class of people was seen as not being able to control themselves. ‘Crazed negro’ with a ‘bullet to the heart…in self-defense’ would not stop a cocaine pumped agent of that class. This would leave a scar on our social consciousness and psychological freedom restricted to an irrational degree. After alcohol and opium, cocaine was pronounced as the third scourge of mankind. Pemberton treated his morphine addiction with a cocaine drink to provide an alternative to an alcoholic beverage (outlawed during the latest dry era). However in 1970 through the controlled substances act, research on psychedelics and cannabis (still described as marihuana to link it with mexicans rather than the industrial crop hemp) is prohibited. However, psychedelics are by definition:
From Greek psykhe- “mind” (see psyche) + deloun “make visible, reveal,” from delos “visible, clear.” Psychedelia is from 1967. Earliest in 1956, of drugs, suggested by H. Osmond in a letter to Aldous Huxley and used by Osmond in a scientific paper published the next year.
Fitting into a larger criminal market for over 300 billion dollars and over 200 billion euros a year, it remains outcast to the darkest corners of society.
Unlike coffee, alcohol in most countries and tabacco; these products are doomed to make profits near the size of oil revenus of users and addicts, none of whom receive any honest help from their government of social milieu. Most is based on myth and tradition, being biased one way or the other, without relevant data or educational information explaining levels of dependency, mortality rate and so forth.
This is part of the grander setting in which the Self must seated. The set, the internal framework of those who would use a substance to alter their state of mind and thereby enhance the effects of psychoanalysis and/or therapy. The id, ego and superego would in a freudian framework be connected to the set. The ego would be unable to reconcile with the superego on the basis that reality is slanted and only Id could possibly arise from such an irrational disaster.
In other words, the experience becomes tainted. Tryptamines are associated with trips, which are in turn associated with the possibility of a bad trip. In the free associations game that goes on during synaptic free firing neurons, such a view of reality is skewed and causes baseless conceptions of the world to enter what is essentially, a very delicate moment. In other, more ancient, cultures, traditions and rituals would do the same by declaring these as sacred. To view perceptions as real, say gods or aliens; would be to miss the point. Psychotherapy and sjaminism deserve no greater place on the cast system of society than mechanics and mathmeticians.
A lot of energy must first be invested in fixing such a society, which must divide and structure so competitivly.
No one occupation, status, class or use of leisure time should define a person in its entirety. I say it, because it’s a conceptual structure. This abstract person extends to all categorical aspects of life (social, political, economical, territorial, structural). The biological perspective has a lot of evolutionary twists and turns, so for now I’ll leave this page as it is. All of this should be part of the educational system. We ought to learn the basics of food. Nutrition and toxins for the body and mind.

Journal of a law abiding citizen

In Confoederatio Helvetica, a utupic future (and not so distant past), might look like this.
Morning, get up. Wash with water.
Need soap and shampoo from pant H. It grows on the mountainside and requires no maintenance.
Just water. Which flows because of global warming from our precious glacier.
I like the smell, so I made deodorant (also made from H) also smell like it. I´m not a lavander person.

Time to eat something. Ate last of my personally slaughtered chicken yesterday. Time for something less meaty today. Let´s see. Tomorrow I might eat soy, but for now, something more digestable. I´ll just take some seeds from plant H from the near brook. It´s got energy (567 calories/100g), Protein (30.6/100g), Carbohydrate (10.9) Dietary fiber (6), Fat (47.2), Saturated fat (5.2), Oleic (18:1 Omega-9, 5.8), Polyunsaturated fat (36.2), Linoleic (18:2 Omega-6 27.6), Linolenic (18:3 Omega-3 8.7), Linolenic (18:3 Omega-6 0.8). And zero cholesterol. About 5grams will be water from the near brook, but I’m cool with that.
It’s got Vitamin A, Thiamine (Vit B1) , Riboflavin (Vit B2), Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Calcium and Iron. So that’ll be enough for breakfast. Save some of the seed oil for treatment of eczema.
Also no gluten in it, so I can share it later with people who have celiac disease.

It´s noon. I just worked in the barn, feeding the animals with plant H I brought back from the mountainside. What they don´t eat can be used as hay. I´m exhausted. Still have a long day. Better eat something made of plant C butter. Can´t swallow the painkillers because they have too many side-effects on my stomach.

Evening. Just looked to see if plant C was doing fine. I try to keep it seperate from plant H. Otherwise it all turns H. Far relatives of hop, which I don´t brew. I don´t need to have an industrial only variety to make of for this lacking thirst as they call it. I harldy use Fords T-model. Made it after his and diesels design myself. Same fuel source and all. Made from, mainly plant H and runs on it too.
Time to relax. I eat some more butterscones from C. I throw some of the outdoor variety on the campfire, it was growing too close to H and might start mixing. I take some more blankets to keep warm, also made from H, as are my clothes.

As I write this down on paper made from H, I take some plants C and vaporize it to fight the depressing and grim reality. This isn´t utopia, this is the real world.

My plant H is of course, Herbicide. Plant C, Change.

Update: I couldn´t stop nature from crosspollinating. The plant spreads like a weed. Growing in all climates and deserts. Withstanding the conditions of central asia. Even though it originated from the rainforest. Started growing the domisticated variety, tribes used it a couple of thousand years in this manner. The molecule with medicinal values reaches 8% which is sufficient.

Happiness

Here’s a quick recipe:
SeX & Drugs: Euphoria is easily reached with these. In many (pre-)religions, meaning shamanistic traditions and rituals, these were held up as the essential activities of human life.
Rock & amp; Roll: Happiness has been said to come in small doses (Dennis Leary). It´s little things. But mostly, it´s relaxing with background music and entertainment. I include non-reality television in this category.
Meals and home: George Carlin said the houselessness is a problem. And he´s right in the Maslow sense that the lower basic needs need to be satisfied first. Here, I´m simply referring to the certitude that you will be able to feed yourself and go home (safe from harm) when you want to (regardless of the intensity of the above categories).
Knowledge and Wisdom: These are personal choices. I don´t know what you like more, maybe you think ignorance is bliss. It well may be. But I like to make (know all and the consequences of) my choices, not have just one presented to me.

If I´m happy without some crucial component of homo sapiens sapiens existence. Please let me know, I wouldn´t want to be happy unjustly.

Ah yes, Freedom and Justice are my ideals. But these are too broad and unrealistic. So for the sake of happiness, be happy.

Furthermore, the economy should serve these intrests and these alone (on the basis of utilitarianism).