John N Gray
Philosopher
John Gray is a British philosopher best known for his critiques of humanism and Utopian thinking. He has written several influential books on politics and philosophy, including False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (1998), which argues that free market globalization is unstable and is in the process of collapsing, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2003), which attacks philosophical humanism, a worldview which Gray sees as originating in religious ideologies, and Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007), a critique of Utopian thinking in the modern world.
Gray sees volition, and hence morality, as an illusion, and portrays humanity as a ravenous species engaged in wiping out other forms of life. Gray writes that 'humans ... cannot destroy the Earth, but they can easily wreck the environment that sustains them.'
Gray sees volition, and hence morality, as an illusion, and portrays humanity as a ravenous species engaged in wiping out other forms of life. Gray writes that 'humans ... cannot destroy the Earth, but they can easily wreck the environment that sustains them.'
You’re trying to really pit your wits against history, but we’re all in that situation.
What one can do is absorb and act on the insight that events which we’ve been taught are abnormal are in fact normal and that normal collapses, normal breakdowns, normal crises occur within most human lives.
You need to make a decision about how much thought and anxiety you’re going to invest in an attempt to prolong your life, which may be thwarted by the normal contingencies of human history.
By occupying or inspecting or exploring other views of the world you can potentially identify some of the blind spots in our own views.
A background in general education enables you to approach what is on the Web and determine that some things are just impossible, pure nonsense.
This question touches on one of the most fundamental issues that is addressed by anybody who thinks about mortality, the end of mortality.
Forget about immortalizing yourself. Don’t waste money. Don’t waste time. Don’t waste thought or anxiety on having yourself frozen or your brain frozen. Don’t curtail all your everyday enjoyments […]
The technological utopia known as the Singularity–when mankind merges with machines–will not bring immortality, says the philosopher John Gray.
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