Reddit reviews Straw Dogs

I think Mr Ranters misandry is ubiqutious, not racial ... It's from John Gray's book, Straw Dogs I think :) and is a reference to sapiens and monkeys evolving from the same linege. The irony of course being the teaching of Evolution being phased out in the great state of Texas :)

Philosopher-turned-crumudgeon John Gray has entered the point of his career where he sees the flaws in just about to everything, and writes a book about it. His attack on humanism is called [Straw Dogs] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374270937?qid=1425697191&sr=8-1&vs=1) .

People being critical of our ideas is never fun, but it can be valuable. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but it fits the bill of what you're asking for.

1. Strongly disagree with Fukuyama and Pinker. History is cyclical. Free market is good, but neoliberalism sucks. Neoliberalism is just bureaucracy that removes big players from skin in the game. See Nassim Taleb and John Gray.
   
   
2. No, because our desires for technology and science themselves still stem from our biologies. See Straw Dogs by John Gray. Even transhumanism ultimately is an integration with biology and still driven by irrational biological impulses. Humans can do whatever they want, but that doesn't mean that there aren't black swan risks and hidden consequences.
   
   
3. Vague question. Individualism vs. collectivism is an illusion. Everyone is connected in networks.
   
   
4. How do you define unions? Many 20th century structures will be replaced by smart contracts.
   
   
5. Political correctness = fear/denial of skin in the game. No, Christian fundamentalists were trying to ban violent video games, prostitution, etc.
   
   
6. Political correctness has always existed... it's just it used to be local, now it's universal. Universalist morality, first introduced by Kant, is the greatest crime against humanity. Kant is worse than Marx. Kant and Unitarian Universalism led to Progressivism, denying the world of Tradition.

Non-mobile: Straw Dogs

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You should check out Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray

>A radical work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From the Enlightenment to Nietzsche and Marx, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world.

>Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism think of humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. Even in the present day, despite Darwin's discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals.

Great clip, thanks. He is simply applying to transhumanism specifically what he wrote about more broadly in "Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals".

Straw Dogs

I think you'd like this book.

There doesn't seem to be a Dutch version of Amazon, but alas.

It could be lost surprisingly fast. Think of the Dark ages. If the world fell under a dark, oppressive cloud of Islam for example. Obviously Muslims are not a race but the races that hold on to Islam are breeding very fast and invading Europe at the same time. They will raise their children as Muslims who will then go on to have children themselves and raise them as Muslims. All the while white European birth rates plummet (and places like Japan). Don't think they won't literally burn down all the libraries of "infidel blasphemy", destroy technological infrastructure etc. while yelling Allahu Akbar! if they get the chance. Things could change very quickly if all the defences were dropped. As much as you want this great world where everyone is united and working together to explore space it just isn't reality not totally anyway. People are still just tribal, pack animals at heart. There are people out there that hate you and your way of life and they want to destroy it. They are training, they are armed and they are fuelled by a powerful, delusional belief.

Here's a (kind of related) interesting book suggestion I think you might like:

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

>In a work of thoroughgoing iconoclasm, British philosopher Gray attacks the belief that humans are different from and superior to animals. Invoking pure Darwinism, he savages every perspective from which humans appear as anything more than a genetic accident that has produced a highly destructive species (homo rapiens)--a species that exterminates other species at a phenomenal rate as our swelling numbers despoil the global environment. Gray explains the human refusal to confront the darker realities of our nature largely as the result of how we have consoled ourselves with the myths of Christianity and its secular offspring, humanism and utopianism. Human vanity, he complains, has even converted science (which should teach us of our insignificant place in nature) into an ideology of progress. But neither hope for progress nor confidence in human morality passes muster with Gray, who envisions a future in which the human population finally contracts as a world politics that grows ever more predatory and brutal shatters all such illusions. As a work of ruthless rigor, this provocative book will force readers to re-examine their own convictions.

It's good to talk about this stuff and I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Gray is great. In philosophical terms, he's a "hedgehog" not a "fox". He has knows one big thing, not lots of little things (it seems to me that he gets a lot of the little things wrong) - so if you read one of his books, you've read them all. I'd recommend Straw Dogs - in my opinion his best.