Category: conflict
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On meaning (Part 3): communities
This is the last part of a series of posts on meaning, like the meaning we could give to things or which we aim to find in life. Part 1 discussed absolute limits to meaning. Part 2 considered individualistic philosophical views, and Part 3 looks at the role communities can play. Among the three, it…
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Life in a Petri dish
On January 20, 2025, shortly after his inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States a second time from the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. This is another high-level example of how we humans are incapable to act in the face of overwhelming…
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My body, my choice: birth, sex, drugs, death.
Content warning: this post mentions rape and suicide. Also note the atheist premise of the blog. Please leave any comments below or send them to input@ponderer.io. The first and maybe the only uncontested thing anyone can claim ownership of is their body. Absent the viable option to upload your consciousness to some form of a…
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On meaning (Part 1): nothing really matters
This is the first part of a series of three posts on meaning, like the meaning we could give to things or which we aim to find in life. It discusses absolute limits to meaning. Part 2 considers philosophical views. Part 3 looks at the role communuties can play, and how these can reconcile the…
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The survival problems of homo economicus
All humans today are homo sapiens, the wise man – I know, unbelievable. Archaeology tells us that there have been multiple human species in the last two million plus years. Our last cohabitating cousin was homo neanderthalensis – a couple of tens of thousands years back. This is not that long ago in archaeological terms.…