I don’t feed my daughter any vision of the future- pessimistic or otherwise. We agree I think that we are acting in aid of a future- and if the future someone envisions working toward is one of challenge, effort and risk, and said person finds these things thrilling or invigorating then the future and present probably look reasonably bri…
I don’t feed my daughter any vision of the future- pessimistic or otherwise. We agree I think that we are acting in aid of a future- and if the future someone envisions working toward is one of challenge, effort and risk, and said person finds these things thrilling or invigorating then the future and present probably look reasonably bright. If, as I have, a person was laboring in aid of a future of worldwide and universal comfort, luxury and pleasure- then it looks pretty bad. The problem of the expectation that future people’s will be productive and rise to challenges is that for a lot of people being productive and rising to challenges is unpleasant. It is painful. It can be damaging- maybe not everyone survives the challenge, maybe there is failure and waste of precious resources. No matter what strides we make in climate change my daughter will probably see the extinction of notable species in her lifetime- that concept is devastating to me- how strong and enduring are we requiring people to be?
Of course working toward a future of luxury, comfort and leisure is an attempt to escape (I’d say more like overthrow) natural, persistent “truths” of existence- is that not the entire point of human society and progress? And how much “challenge” are we requiring the average modern human endure? Whatever arises? Is that all we have to show for our modern civilization?
I don’t feed my daughter any vision of the future- pessimistic or otherwise. We agree I think that we are acting in aid of a future- and if the future someone envisions working toward is one of challenge, effort and risk, and said person finds these things thrilling or invigorating then the future and present probably look reasonably bright. If, as I have, a person was laboring in aid of a future of worldwide and universal comfort, luxury and pleasure- then it looks pretty bad. The problem of the expectation that future people’s will be productive and rise to challenges is that for a lot of people being productive and rising to challenges is unpleasant. It is painful. It can be damaging- maybe not everyone survives the challenge, maybe there is failure and waste of precious resources. No matter what strides we make in climate change my daughter will probably see the extinction of notable species in her lifetime- that concept is devastating to me- how strong and enduring are we requiring people to be?
Of course working toward a future of luxury, comfort and leisure is an attempt to escape (I’d say more like overthrow) natural, persistent “truths” of existence- is that not the entire point of human society and progress? And how much “challenge” are we requiring the average modern human endure? Whatever arises? Is that all we have to show for our modern civilization?