People living in Tokyo, San Francisco, Naples, know that maybe their house will be destroyed tomorrow and half their family will be dead. Yet they carry on with their lives. Many of them even manage to live happy lives, while they never forget altogether what might happen.
How about the rest of us? [more]
Do you remember my ‘mirror of justice’? I say that justice is when you’d gladly swap for the symmetrical position in society. Let us apply this tool in a very specific and very illustrative case, but first, let us start with a story.
We humans grew up as serfs. We have a double servility history: a personal servility history when we were kids, and a collective servility history when we were ruled by kings. Wherever we went, whatever we did, whomever we met, there was always someone or something telling us what to do, what was good and what was bad. What to wear, where to live, what to do for a living, whom to marry, which God to worship, what to love, whom to hate…
Then we gained freedom. At least in some lucky places, we are free on an unprecedented scale. Our forebears, crushed under the weight of injustice, fought dearly and won. It was a strange victory, in which they did not defeat injustice, but they won freedom, and passed it on so that we could be born free. But are we grown-up enough to be endowed with such an awesome gift? [more]
‘For as long as we both shall live’: how long might this be? To back up Litlove’s recent illustration of this question, let me point out that a couple of centuries ago, people who had survived to the age of marriage could reasonably expect to live until 40. This means that roughly half the people died before that age. Therefore, the probability that someone would stay married to the same person for more than 20 years was at most one in four. Nowadays, the probability that both husband and wife
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In a discussion at On Philosophy about the good life, Peter argues that the pursuit of happiness is a mirage, and that people should find themselves a more suitable quest if they want to lead a good life.
I am probably the happiest person in the world. At least, this is how I feel each time I marvel at how happy I am. And I do not mean just now: for as long as I can remember, I have been happy, suprisingly steadily happy.
The more American victims in an air crash, the heavier the financial burden for whomever is found responsible in the tiniest manner. Having worked in the aircraft manufacturing industry, with passenger safety constantly in mind, I have long had issues with this fact. I could not help wondering what were the moral/logical grounds to value loss of life in terms of financial compensation.
Checking all explanations beyond the obvious is one of the core abilities of a scientific mind. I have always liked to use this ability to advocate strange or adverse viewpoints, even when I personally disagreed with them. [more]
Recent studies (although fortunately controversial) in the US and France show that life expectancy could soon be decreasing because of the obesity and diabetes ‘epidemic’, chemical poisoning and other lifestyle-induced effects. Hard to believe when everybody has always told us that we would live longer and longer. In a recent radio broadcast (see [1]), agricultural engineer and whistle blower Claude Aubert provides the following explanation. [more]