The Daily Blog Open Mic – 1st February 2022

BY Jove he’s got it.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018828605/a-c-grayling-we-re-heading-towards-a-series-of-catastrophes
If the world’s democratic deficits are not addressed now we face a dystopia where climate chaos, wars, social injustice and technological tyranny threaten the very fate of humanity, says philosopher AC Grayling.

In his new book, For the Good of the World, Professor Grayling outlines the biggest challenges he believes the world faces and warns that nothing short of an urgent, united response is going to save humankind from hurtling towards a series of terrifying catastrophes.

Grayling tells Jim Mora people in power need to accept the cost of change and confront the challenges facing the planet before it’s too late and that democratic mechanisms need to be strengthened, or governments face civil unrest and new “virulent forms of activism” by those pushing for change.
The doom of climate breakdown is now on the immediate horizon. “Too little is being done about it, even now,” he says.

“The second big problem is that technology is racing ahead of our ability to understand it properly, control it properly, deal with it properly,” Grayling says. “There are lots of technological developments that are very positive, especially in medical science, for example, but there are some which are very frightening.

“Invasion of privacy, undermining of our democratic processes through use of communication programmes on social media and on the internet. But one big one is autonomous weapons.

“All the major arms-producing countries in the world, the United States, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, are investing hundreds of millions in weapons which operate themselves and not under human control and this is serious destabilising misapplication of technology…
“We’re heading towards a series of catastrophes connected to one another during the course of this century unless we really do get our act together,” he says.
The current cultural quagmire of destructive ideologies, fear and ignorance is also blocking the potential to arrest the situation before it’s too late…
“But what we forget is that national boundaries and religious commitments are all of them historical artifacts. They all arose at a certain point in history. Almost all national boundaries are a very recent origin, just over the last few centuries.

“The great religions of today are very young religions. Islam and Christian less than 2000 years old and they follow on from very different conceptions of what religion meant to communities before them. And they introduced new ways of thinking about these matters, which are rather similar in a way to nationalism, because they bring strong identity commitments with them too. We can try to find ways of living differently, anew and afresh with one another.”…
One issue that remains a concern for Grayling is relativism – the philosophical position that there exists no objective truth, and that all assertions of truth and and falsity, right and wrong, are ultimately subjective and change according to cultural context and the individual.

A better way to deal with disagreements would be to simply agree to peacefully co-exist in a pluralistic society, without subscribing to relativism. He uses the example of the Iberian Peninsula in Spain, where once Christians, Jews and Muslims all lived together under the principle of Convivencia, finding a way of living together.
“That takes a great maturity of mind and it takes a great deal of benevolence, of good will to try to achieve it,” he says.
In a world of increasing polarisation he says addressing particular hatreds and conflict must involve removing the structural basis that underpins these.

He speaks to the important issues. He refers to Brexit which he thought was a bad idea. Good stuff.

2 COMMENTS

Greywarbler February 1, 2022 At 6:35 pm

BY Jove he’s got it.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018828605/a-c-grayling-we-re-heading-towards-a-series-of-catastrophes
If the world’s democratic deficits are not addressed now we face a dystopia where climate chaos, wars, social injustice and technological tyranny threaten the very fate of humanity, says philosopher AC Grayling.

In his new book, For the Good of the World, Professor Grayling outlines the biggest challenges he believes the world faces and warns that nothing short of an urgent, united response is going to save humankind from hurtling towards a series of terrifying catastrophes.

Grayling tells Jim Mora people in power need to accept the cost of change and confront the challenges facing the planet before it’s too late and that democratic mechanisms need to be strengthened, or governments face civil unrest and new “virulent forms of activism” by those pushing for change.
The doom of climate breakdown is now on the immediate horizon. “Too little is being done about it, even now,” he says.

“The second big problem is that technology is racing ahead of our ability to understand it properly, control it properly, deal with it properly,” Grayling says. “There are lots of technological developments that are very positive, especially in medical science, for example, but there are some which are very frightening.

“Invasion of privacy, undermining of our democratic processes through use of communication programmes on social media and on the internet. But one big one is autonomous weapons.

“All the major arms-producing countries in the world, the United States, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, are investing hundreds of millions in weapons which operate themselves and not under human control and this is serious destabilising misapplication of technology…
“We’re heading towards a series of catastrophes connected to one another during the course of this century unless we really do get our act together,” he says.
The current cultural quagmire of destructive ideologies, fear and ignorance is also blocking the potential to arrest the situation before it’s too late…
“But what we forget is that national boundaries and religious commitments are all of them historical artifacts. They all arose at a certain point in history. Almost all national boundaries are a very recent origin, just over the last few centuries.

“The great religions of today are very young religions. Islam and Christian less than 2000 years old and they follow on from very different conceptions of what religion meant to communities before them. And they introduced new ways of thinking about these matters, which are rather similar in a way to nationalism, because they bring strong identity commitments with them too. We can try to find ways of living differently, anew and afresh with one another.”…
One issue that remains a concern for Grayling is relativism – the philosophical position that there exists no objective truth, and that all assertions of truth and and falsity, right and wrong, are ultimately subjective and change according to cultural context and the individual.

A better way to deal with disagreements would be to simply agree to peacefully co-exist in a pluralistic society, without subscribing to relativism. He uses the example of the Iberian Peninsula in Spain, where once Christians, Jews and Muslims all lived together under the principle of Convivencia, finding a way of living together.
“That takes a great maturity of mind and it takes a great deal of benevolence, of good will to try to achieve it,” he says.
In a world of increasing polarisation he says addressing particular hatreds and conflict must involve removing the structural basis that underpins these.

He speaks to the important issues. He refers to Brexit which he thought was a bad idea. Good stuff.
Greywarbler February 1, 2022 At 8:34 pm

Two great links. We can do it here too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqLXXjvQXgI
Building blocks that are very worthy.

Arizona steals water from Mexico. But accidental good environmental effects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf8usAesJvo

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