When I read the article I thought it was 1600 words saying the author had discovered the sky was blue. To anybody that has spent a decade on the internet it was so plainly self evident, it hardly needed saying.

And then I read the comments here. I was wrong, I guess.

Peter Mac “Let them eat cake” and yes we are both on the same history page….

And it went to her head, almost before it added to her hips

Vanna – I found your urls to artificial photosynthesis very interesting….

I can see how research in this area will be hugely beneficial since it would seem to be the shortest journey between two points from energy source (sunlight) to something useable which could satisfy energy demand (presumably as a gas)

I also agree with the life qualities we all benefit from which result not simply from gender diversity but also individual diversity.

Open minds need room to discover

The author of the article clearly has no imagination and not much intelligence because

No one knows when someone will discover another magic pudding or silver bullet and we are all too ignorant to presume we have discovered and invented all that is possible –

although the hubris of green watermelons and AGW zealots and their political arms are sufficiently arrogant to declare we have.

What a sad world they must live in – so different to the one I look out over – I sometimes feel it must be some other planet……. But strangely, it is the same….

it must be something to do with how different peoples brains work (and research suggests a lefties brain does not)

Squeers:"Would love to say more but am pressed for time."

I'd love to hear what you have to say on this, Squeers. As someone who perforce approaches most problems from first principals, given a lack of genuinely broad reading of the classics, I'm appreciative of the chance for a discussion with people who have greater knowledge of the prior art.

I can't see where my logic falls down, on my own first principles, but I'm very happy, indeed hopeful, that it is shown to be wanting.

I think the nihilist view of an individual in command of his own existence for its own sake is very compelling. It dismisses any need for an over-riding principle and places all the responsibility for "how shall I best live" on the individual to do with as best he can. He sets the bar and he decides whether to jump it or not.

It seems to best explain the problem of existence to me, without falling back on claims of received wisdom in order to justify some imposition of external compulsion. If one does the job of living well, one will prosper and be happy: do it poorly and one will live in squalor and unhappiness. It's all up to you.

Antiseptic,

my only substantial first principle is humanism and all that that entails. It means rather than hiding behind the excuse of fatalism, trying to improve the human lot, including the individual's in the social context, and the social context in the global context (a collectivism that the neoliberals have created and affect to despise!). The neoliberal "individual" doesn't exist; s/he emerges hubristically out of privilege; a caricature of individualism; pure delusion corruptly constructed. All your talk about setting the bar is nonsense; the society sets the bar at different heights according to nepotism, favouritism and random considerations. The neoliberal "individual" is a pathetic parody of what the individual might aspire to.
That's all I have to say here and couldn't care less whether anyone bothers to think about it or not.

squeers, a rather disappointing response, given you said earlier "I'd love to say more but am pressed for time", then you disappeared, so I reminded you.

Your argument is essentially vacant, it seems to me and doesn't address my own position at all or the question I asked you. Shame, really.

Are you sure you really understand your own point of view?