New Member

omar vega wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
> George Sessions in the paper "Deep Ecology and the New
> Age movement" claims that all the ideas related to
> future and space are just harmful dreams that stop
> people from getting right into the important issue: to
> save the Earth. Those guys thinks that all development
> has to stop ...
>

Well, I think of myself as pretty "Green," but I don't think
development has to stop, it just needs to be more aware of limits to
growth and the unexpected side effects of new development, ideas, and
technologies. We know now that we can damage the planet by acting
inauspiciously. It behooves us to proceed with caution in certain areas.

>
> ... population has not only to stop growing
> but shrink (and as fast as possible) ...
>

I believe the Earth is overpopulated. I believe that many of the
problems that we're beginning to see are a result of trying to support
six billion people on a planet that can sustainably support far fewer
at any lifestyle above that available in the least-developed parts of
the Third World. I believe that in the face of this, intelligent
people should limit their progeny. But I can think of only three ways
to rapidly reduce the population of this planet: Global famine and
resulting war; a global epidemic of a virulent, deadly, and
untreatable disease; and the idea that governs this group.

Someone should tell the Greens that the least-damaging way to quickly
reduce the strain that we place upon Earth's ecosystem is to give
humanity somewhere else to go and a really good reason to do it.

>
> ... and that people should respect nature, the real center of things.
>

If not Nature, what *is* the real center of things? If we
sufficiently disrespect Nature, we as a species won't survive long
enough to spread away from our native planet.

>
> In the same paper Sessions accused Teilhard de
> Chardan, Fuller and other thinkers of being dreamers
> and the ones guilty of people thinks' in technical
> terms only. He thinks futurism is an evil idea.
>

Sessions (I've never read him) sounds to me like a popular zealot. I
dislike zealots in general, because they can never accept any idea not
generated from the focus of their zealotry; and I mistrust popular
zealots in particular, because they have a personal stake in their
fanatacism. If more pragmatic or centrist ideas/beliefs become
accepted, the zealots become marginalized and their popularity (and
power) diminish. So it behooves them to remain stridently at the far
end of the bell curve.

Thank you, Omar, for your thoughtful and informational response.

Steve