Monday 9 August

"Security hike fails to stop ID thefts": which is another reason why we need a National Identity Database based on each individual's biometric and DNA profile.

Friday 30 July

Have just read "The Third Chimpanzee" by Jared Diamond, I wrote this email to the author: Saving the Third Chimpanzee from Extinction.

Sunday 25 July

Yet more evidence for man's "more animal than human" nature is provided by a survey carried out by the All-Russian Research Centre of Social Opinions, according to which, young people between the ages of 18 and 24 put "successful businessmen and oligarchs" on a pedestal and even idolise them. It found that oligarchs were second only to pop stars in the popularity stakes with 42% of those polled expressing deep admiration for them ("Young Russians ogle the oligarchs") .

When I hear talk of sending men to Mars in the foreseeable future, "Ticket to Mars will cost the Earth", it seems to me a premature and irresponsible venture, far too expensive (in that the money could be more effectively and profitably invested in unmanned space exploration) and risky in terms of human lives. Hopefully, men will stand on Mars one day, but it is something that should not be rushed and for the time being, at least, not attempted.

Attempting to put men on the Red Planet in the foreseeable future will be yet another expression of man's "more animal than human" nature, of his arrogance and stupidity, and a further act of denial of the dire situation we have managed to "develop" and "progress" ourselves into.

Like the blind addicts we are, we are pressing ahead with plundering our planet, not just continuing, but ever increasing the non-sustainable drain and strain we are placing on its limited resources and carrying capacity, in compulsive pursuit of an insanely growth-dependent economy and the insanely (because utterly unsustainable) materialistic lifestyles it engenders.

Thursday 22 July

The remarks by David King, director of the pressure group Human Genetics Alert, quoted in today's Guardian ("Green light for 'designer babies' to save siblings"), I thought noteworthy for their gross stupidity: "It is wrong", he says, "to create a child simply as a means to an end, however good that end might be, because to do so turns that child into an object. This violates the basic ethical principle that we should not use people as tools."

Monday 19 July

Reading the comment, "The Right to Bare Arms"  in today's NYT, I assumed it had to do with religious dress codes. I soon discovered that it was about the right to "bear arms", but  knowing myself to be a bit dyslectic, initially assumed it my mistake. But that is neither here nor there.

Growing up in Britain in the 1950's, I never saw anyone carrying a gun until I moved to Germany in 1973, where it took me years to get used to seeing policemen carry them. They scared and intimidated me: mind your step, or I may shoot you . . .  Gulp!

Carrying a gun is a "display of power", and -  excepting those who do it professionally - a clear expression of our "more animal than human" nature. In different cultural circumstances men might bare and display their hairy chests - or their penises. 

If they only realised what monkeys they are making of themselves (showing themselves to be - the planet's "Greatest Ape") when they insist on their right to bear arms, they would be acutely embarrassed and very ashamed of themselves.

Wednesday 14 July

According to last Sunday's Telegraph, the British-based Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky, insinuates that the Russian Forbes Editor, Paul Klebnikov, was murdered for "telling lies" about himself and his fellow billionaires (Murdered writer 'was like a bull in a china shop'). I am not informed enough to form a definitive judgement on the matter, but under the circumstances, I think it far more likely for someone to be murdered for telling the truth than for telling lies. 

It seems to me that what has happened in Russia since the fall of Communism, with a small number of clever people grabbing vast amounts of wealth for themselves, is a classic and tragic case of man's lower, animal nature winning through against his higher, human nature. It is ironic, instructive and hardly coincidental that the attempt to impose "more human than animal" values on the Russian people (in the form of Communism) should have backfired so badly and produced a society in which man's animal nature dominates even more forcefully than in the West, which, through the rule of law, has sought to temper, harness and exploit man's animal nature.

When Jesus said, "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven", he should have let it stand, instead of immediately contradicting himself when challenged by adding that "for God all things are possible", i.e. even for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Although I suspect that the contradiction was added by some of his early followers who did not want to put off the rich from joining or supporting their sect. 

The fact is that the pursuit of and attachment to material wealth and power (which are closely related and often identical) is based on our more animal than human nature. Those who wish to progress spiritually (i.e. become less animal and more human - or, if you prefer the language of the Bible, to enter the kingdom of heaven) have to overcome their primitive urge for material wealth and power and put their talents to more enlightened use.

The trouble is that because of our animal origins we are all programmed (by our genes) and conditioned (by society) to be respectful, fearful, envious and desirous of material wealth and power, despite our protestations to the contrary and modern democratic society providing considerable, although still wholly inadequate, protection against their misuse.

In the West, the pursuit of wealth and power is regulated, albeit very inadequately, by the rule of law, but the underlying animal drive is ruthless and lacking all humanity, as exemplified by the tobacco industry's long, tenacious and continuing fight against regulation of its addictive, harmful, and for many lethal, products.

But it is not just the tobacco industry. Virtually every industry and everybody places their own (or their family's) material and financial self-interest above everything else, is encouraged and expected to do so, provided it is legal, of course.

Wednesday 7 July

The "problem" with nuclear energy, which Patrick Wintour and Paul Brown refer to in today's Guardian ("Blair reignites nuclear debate") is not "that it is both expensive and the industry takes a decade or more to find sites and get planning permissions", but that - in human hands - it is inherently dangerous and poses an unacceptable level of risk, not just to ourselves, but to coming generations for thousands of years to come. 

Certainly, "projected" energy demands cannot be met without it, but to take the nuclear path will be entering (or rather, re-entering and confirming) a pact with the Devil, which our descendents will surely curse us for.

We are at a cross-roads. Either we can carry on the way we are already heading, have been heading since the beginning of modern times, pursuing perpetual economic growth and ever-increasing material wealth for ever more people (including motor cars and frequent air travel for at least 6 times the number of people who "enjoy" them now), which is already placing a non-sustainable drain and strain on Earth's limited resources and finite carrying capacity and must inevitably lead to our downfall, OR we can begin a radical reappraisal of our situation and of the materialistic (more animal than human) values, attitudes and aspirations which got us into it, because on which our economy and lifestyles are based.

If we were worthy of our scientific name, Homo sapiens (wise man), I would have no fear of nuclear energy. However - and this is the essential point, about which most people, especially those at the top of their professions, are in denial - we are not worthy. Even the most cursory glance at our history or the current world situation, with all its manmade conflicts and madness, should make this blatantly obvious. That it doesn't is because we are in denial of it  ("No one is as blind as he who will not see"). It is always others - never ourselves - who are responsible, or co-responsible, for the madness.

A far more appropriate name for our species would be "Homo stupidus". 

Individual men and women can, of course, be very wise, at least from time to time, although the wiser among us know how stupid even we can often be. And unfortunately, it is our collective stupidity which dominates, far more than we realise, over our collective wisdom; again most people, especially the more clever and talented, are in denial of it. Understandably, we all like to focus on what we see as our successes, greatly playing down, if not downright denying, our short-comings and failures.

If only we can muster enough wisdom to recognise and accept that we are not yet wise enough (knowledgeable, intelligent, clever enough yes, but not wise enough, not by a long chalk), to make safe use of nuclear energy. Any use we do make of it should be kept to an absolute minimum, at least for the foreseeable future, until social and economic insanities, injustice, war, terrorism etc. have been banished and we are worthy of the name, Homo sapiens.