Hi,
So, wow, how rude of me, sorry for the late introduction, I kind of got all gung-ho and just got stuck into posting, neglecting this introductory section entirely! Please forgive me, I meant no offence, it was a combination of initial enthusiasm and later laziness.
The way it is for me is that ever since I can remember being capable of thinking, I've been wondering what in the world this place is in which we find ourselves, and how it's possible that it even exists, and then, on top of that, what its problems are, who/what is responsible for them, and how we can go about fixing them. I count myself a skeptic in the true sense of forming beliefs based on the proportionality of evidence, not in the scientific-materialist-atheist-dogmatist sense in which it is so often (aggressively) promoted these days ("pseudo-skepticism", in my view).
What I love about this forum is that it is based on truly skeptical principles, and that it takes as a starting point, there by now being sufficient access to evidence to demonstrate as much to the interested knowledge-seeker, that materialism/physicalism is false, and that the question now is not "Why is materialism/physicalism false?" but "What lies beyond materialism, and what are its implications?" I totally accept the need to split the forum's discussion sections between those who do accept this demonstrable fact and those who have not yet come to the point of accepting it, and who still want to debate it with those who do.
On a more personal level, I was born (as a caucasian) into apartheid South Africa, to (caucasian) parents who themselves were born into that system and who strongly opposed it. Despite that, I was during that period at times demonstrably racist myself (and no doubt continue to be in ways that despite myself I am not fully conscious of), which only goes to show the power of systemic racism to infect even those who ought to be most immune to it. Our family moved from South Africa to Australia when I was 10, in 1987, to, yet again, a black country invaded by white occupiers who view(ed) the occupation of the land of its indigenous inhabitants as incidental to their own aims, and who perpetrated ghastly terror upon those native inhabitants, and who continue to refuse to fully recognise the rightful sovereignty of its original inhabitants. I am not even sure what right I have to be here, yet somehow I am here and have not yet left. Perhaps the fact that I recognise indigenous sovereignty counts for something.
In general, I am very critical of "the current world order" (at least in the developed world), in particular the tendency for the profit motive, and greed in general, to catalyse and even inspire corruption and unethical behaviour, as well as for materialism to blind us to the bigger, more wholesome picture. In this sense, the recent podcast and thread with Bernardo have been fascinating and very relevant.
I tend towards socialist ideas, sometimes even ideas based in anarchism, but at the same time I am aware that socialism and anarchism are not without their own problems, and so I am wary of advocating them outright. I also tend, with relatively little qualification as for my socialist tendencies, towards socio-political organising principles based in direct democracy, in particular online democracy, but really whatever works to distil the inherent capacity for corruption and non-representative dynamics in so-called representative, "top-down" decision-making socio-political processes. I think that perhaps the key to "fixing the world" is making sure that everybody's voice is fully included in its decision-making processes.
There is a lot "even more" personal stuff that I could write about myself but that I will leave out for now, partly because it's a bit weird/embarrassing and partly because I think I've written more than enough for an introductory post already.
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Laird
