Confessions of a Drone By David Swanson http://warisacrime.org/content/confessions-drone They told me I was the best, better than any human. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t think. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to think. I’d been taught to value obedience above all else, and I did so, and they loved me for it. [...]
(Photo: Elvert Barnes / Flickr)Coumba Toure | Bamako, Mali The Link to Humanity – Gift Economies Saturday, 21 April 2012 10:15By Beverly Bell, Other Worlds | “Birthing Justice” Series All of Coumba Toure’s work is aimed at keeping African values alive. As part of this, she is deeply involved in a women-led movement to keep the gift economy thriving. West [...]
Transcend Self-Interest opednews.com There seems to be a growing acceptance of the notion that we each are free independent individuals and as a consequence we not only can, but also should, order life in society accordingly. Being free independent individuals necessarily means people can freely do as they please or more specifically [...]
The Matrix of Four Forms of Racism By Ethan Indi (about the author) According to the Hopi, there are red, yellow, purple and white people synonymous with the colors of corn. Each color is related to an element and anyone can potentially lose their way and become two-hearted. The term two-hearted comes from the Hopi [...]
By Susan Okie “Wired for Culture: Origins of the Human Social Mind” A book by Mark Pagel “Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are” A book by Sebastian Seung What makes human beings unique? What accounts for our species’ planetary dominance, for our self-consciousness and awareness of our mortality, for our impulses [...]
Why Socialism? By Albert Einstein This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is. [...]
Socialism and human rights ENRIQUE UBIETA GÓMEZ SOME days ago, I wrote in my blog about a simple and moving personal experience. It was around 6.00 p.m. In my usual rush, I crossed the far corner of Havana’s Capitol building, facing the remains of the Campoamor Theater — or the Capitolio [...]
There has been a large number of new posts added to this site. Some with a preface written by me and an article written by me that looks at the question of consent. On one hand these are exciting times when you look at what is a new level of appreciation of how the rampant [...]
Evolve A case for modernization as the road to salvation Illustration: Thom Lang / Corbis BY MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER AND TED NORDHAUS Published in the September/October 2011 issue of Orion magazine SOMETIME AROUND 2014, Italy will complete construction of seventy-eight mobile floodgates aimed at protecting Venice’s three inlets from the rising tides of the Adriatic Sea. The [...]
h. Unlike other species, humans can modify their environment to cope with decreasing fitness levels [GALLO/GETTY] Humans are undeniably complex, and proud of it. No case, we believe, needs to be made for our biological superiority. Our biological functions are exquisitely regulated and resilient to external variations, owing to complicated webs of interactions. Unlike other [...]
War Without Humans Modern Blood Rites Revisited By Barbara Ehrenreich For a book about the all-too-human “passions of war,” my 1997 work Blood Rites ended on a strangely inhuman note: I suggested that, whatever distinctly human qualities war calls upon — honor, courage, solidarity, cruelty, and so forth — it might be useful to stop thinking [...]
Barbara Ehrenreich, The Fog of (Robot) War Posted by Barbara Ehrenreich at 6:06pm, July 10, 2011. Last week, William Wan and Peter Finn of the Washington Post reported that at least 50 countries have now purchased or developed pilotless military drones. Recently, the Chinese had more than two dozen models in some stage of development on display at [...]
Noted biologist once said that as an experiment by nature the human species has been an unfortunate failure. Despite the obvious truth of that observation there is still much work being done on human evolution. George Ikners ikners.com Human evolution: the long, winding road to modern man Professor Chris Stringer tells how conflicting theories and new discoveries have shaped [...]
