This is 's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following 's activity
Interests: kiteboarding, artificial intelligence, evolution, sea kayaking, energy and environment, molecular manufacturing
Recent Activity
Chris Phoenix is now following The Typepad Team
Mar 15, 2010
Good piece, Robin. You're obviously right that humans have a built-in bias to look at complicated situations and reduce them to simple binary choices. It wouldn't be hard to develop a theory of evolutionary psychology that supports your thesis. And I don't think a comparatively few centuries of Enlightenment will quickly overcome our hundred millennia of evolutionary development.
So, what's the solution? We've come a long way already through the spread of freedom, equality, education, and the benefit of a fossil-fueled prosperity. Yet, as you point out, we're still inclined to look for right sides and wrong sides, good sides and bad sides, ready to choose up and fight.
As a transhumanist, I wonder if the availability -- and, perhaps, popularity -- of enhancement therapies to increase our intelligence, moderate our psychology, and maximize our wisdom will someday open a door into a new way of thinking and living without the reflex need for conflict.
Prefer Peace
As fiction authors know, compelling stories need conflict; readers love to root for good guys against bad guys. As college professors know, students perk up when academic topics are posed as conflicts. Sophomores love to hear each subject posed as a conflict between several possible isms, espe...
Subscribe to ’s Recent Activity