The title here, as expressed, was Deep Ecology and Transhumanism, which kind of sets this up to be somewhat adversarial. And so let me suggest an alternate title, which would be Deep Ecology and Transhumanism. And there's more than a semantic difference in the verses and language use, and that's one is trying to hold what might be apparent opposites together into a dialectical, whether we call that a synthesis or we call that a dialectical pairing together. So some of you guys may be aware of Deep Ecology and some of you may not be. If you were paying attention to Carl's just lecture that happened, I'm sure Deep Ecology is more resonant with the Ishmael type approach that is going to be very aversive to most transhumanist. So I'll go ahead and start out and then we'll see what we can do with our discussion. So professionally and personally, I have been convinced by approaches to addiction and mental health that balance acceptance strategies and change strategies. Acceptance strategies sometimes framed as mindfulness and other contemplative practices focus on being, whereas change strategies such as problem solving and more active interventions focus on doing. Acceptance and change form a dialectical pair of apparent opposites. Being and doing form another dialectical pair. Forgive me, I'm advancing your slides because it seems like you're moving on. Do you want to tell me if I'm going too far? You can keep it right there for now and then I'll just, I'll just, I'll just say next slide when it's coming up. So you can keep it right there. So basically Carl's got the slide up showing this dialectical formulation. You've got thesis antithesis. And then if you want to go to the next slide, you've got the synthesis is the basic simplistic Hegelian model for it. And so, and I'm talking quite a bit, I'm thinking a lot about acceptance and change in my domain, my professional domain as a psychotherapist. Most people seeking out psychotherapy, whether they're going themselves or they're, they're encouraging their spouse or their child to go in. They're wanting something to change. And yet what we find in psychotherapy domain is that acceptance as things as they are tends to lead to more sustainable change. So, so we tend to try to balance and get really strategic about how we use acceptance and change. And they both kind of, you could say have their shadow side to them. But we hope we try to hold this dialectic, these dialectical poles together. So moving on in the types of, so I mentioned that. So today we're discussing much larger systems than the ones I work within my profession. I work with individuals, couples and families. But today we're discussing the earth, our relationship with the earth itself, and perhaps our relationship with the universe beyond the earth. So I have a bias toward dialectical thinking, acting, relating and dialectical solutions. Do you want to go ahead, Carl, to the next slide? Here's another dialectical pairing. David Hume wrote a lot about this one, the tension between is and ought. Things as they are, things as they should be. And we're going to be talking a little bit about the tensions and convergences between transhumanism and deep ecology. Both of them as frameworks, like most frameworks, they describe things as they are or how that specific framework sees things. And they describe things how they should be and they give us, so they give us a description and a prescription. So go ahead to the next slide. So you guys know what transhumanism of course is, so we don't need to, I don't need to describe that to you, but we'll go to deep ecology. It's an ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of living beings, regardless of their instrumental utility of human needs. Plus a restructuring of modern human societies and according to such ideas. This is from that great website Wikipedia. But what I'm proposing is that movements of deep ecology and transhumanism can be seen as dialectical polls through which to discuss issues of environmental renewal, flourishing of life and approaches to well-being for all sentient beings and living systems. And we might find synthesis between these two apparent opposites, but we don't have to force synthesis. We can hold opposites together and kind of sit with the tension as well. There might be more convergence than you would think as well. So some similarities between the two. Both movements are concerned with the flourishing of human and non-human life. Both are considered extreme by many in the mainstream. Both have had kind of prophetic like figureheads. Joanna Macy has been almost like a profitist type figure for deep ecology and Ray Kurzweil for transhumanism. I believe that both groups will have increasing adherence in the coming years. And both have platforms that are philosophical statements with practical applications and we'll look at those different platforms because they're very interesting in that they, I think they both have eight tenants to them. And you can see where there's some congruence and you can see where there's gonna be some sharp contrast. The difference is so whereas transhumanists most often have faith and hope in science and technology to solve problems of human and non-human flourishing, deep ecologists tend to not share that same faith and hope or they want to slow progress and growth down. Or at least they want it to serve the value of kind of deep sustainability and kind of following the planet, the lead of the planet. It's as if natural living systems are sacred to deep ecologists and there's no inherent value in progress per se. And what humans see is progress or innovation to the deep ecologists. So I do see deep ecology as a kind of doppelganger to transhumanism. I imagine that deep ecologists would be skeptical and of and possibly even revile transhumanism and that transhumanists, especially non-religious or non-ethical ones would feel similarly towards deep ecology. I would encourage in our exploring this and discussing it a compassionate approach to enemy ideologies. So if you find yourself having a reaction to deep ecology, that makes sense. I'm speaking at a transhumanist conference. And I would encourage a sense of what Adam Miller, some of you might know him, he spoke at the conference a few years ago. He wrote a great essay about approaching enemy ideologies with compassion, with charity, and that will actually, what comes out of that, however that transforms us will be more helpful to our own ideology. Then if we approach it with a kind of reactive shutting down. I don't necessarily find myself in either camp. I kind of find myself in both camps and yet that might seem impossible. I am deeply concerned with human and non-human wellness and flourishing and compassion. I'm skeptical of our ability to do away with suffering. And yet very wanting and committed to do away with unnecessary suffering. Also aware that many of our attempts to do away with unnecessary suffering may have unintended consequences that exacerbate suffering. So there's a lot of different minefields to take care. So if we want to go to the next slide and we'll go ahead to the transhumanist declaration. Some of you are familiar with the transhumanist declaration. In fact, David Pierce was one of the authors of it, which was exciting to have him on today. But there's eight statements on this slide is the first four that humans will be profoundly affected by science and technology in the future. I think there's no doubt that that is true. It goes on to describe broadening of human potential and let's see where are we at? Yeah, humanity's potential is mostly unrealized. Humanity faces serious risks, number three and number four. We need to understand these issues and deliberate how to reduce risks in expedite beneficial applications.  And then we've got, this should say five, six, seven, eight. So these are the next four from the transhumanist declaration. So the reduction of existential risks are important, basically. The policy should be guided by moral vision. We should take seriously opportunities and risks, respecting autonomy and individual rights. I think most of us look at these and we would agree that these are good tenants to, I like on the third one here. This is actually the seventh tenant says we advocate the well-being of all sentience, including humans, non-human animals and any future artificial intellects, modified life forms or other intelligences. So this is a place where I think deep ecologists and transhumanists find a lot of common ground in that advocating the well being of humans, non-human animals, artificial intellects. Deep ecologists would add on to that all living systems. So not just non-human animals, but plants and the earth itself as an organism. So let's go on to the deep ecology platform, which also has eight kind of points. So their platform, they say the well being and flourishing of human and non-human life on earth have value in themselves. They want to promote the richness and diversity of life forms. They say pretty boldly humans have no right to reduce the richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. So this is a big breaking point whereas transhumanists say humanity should be going to our greatest potential. Whereas deep ecologists are saying humans don't have a right to reduce the richness and diversity of the planet through science or technology, except to satisfy our vital needs. You got about three or four minutes left just to let you know. Gotcha, thanks Carl. So you can read these further, but basically they're concerned with human interference and human interference and intervention. Okay, go ahead to the next slide. So they also are concerned with overpopulation and this was in 1973. I think you Carl, Soylent Green came out that same year. 1973 is when Arne Moss coined the term deep ecology. So they were very concerned with overpopulation as were many other scientists of that time. So they're very concerned with policies that will affect economic and technological change. They believe technological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality. So dwelling in situations of inherent worth rather than adhering to an increasing higher standard of living. So I think there's some more convergence here, especially as we in the world become more concerned with the environment and climate impacts. But there's definitely some tensions here. Let's go ahead to the next slide. So this one especially, this is from the website Foundation for Deep Ecology. They list the roots of current problems and you'll see the third one on there is going to be the one that is going to make transhumanists really mad. They say technology worship and unlimited faith in the virtues of science. The modern paradigm that technological development is inevitable and very good and to be equated with progress and human destiny. They're saying that's one of the root problems of our situation. So that of course sets them up to be adversarial to transhumanism. But I'm interested in, go ahead to the next slide. I'm interested in back to dialectical thinking. We have things as they are and things as they ought to be. Things as they should be and go ahead to the next. Another way of thinking about this could be things as they are and things as they could be. And the reason this is important to me is because it's very hard to us, whatever ideologies we're talking about. We could be talking about liberal and conservative. We could be talking about any ideology. And when as soon as our idea of what should be contrast with someone else's idea, what should be, it's hard for us to collaborate. 13 more minutes. Sorry guys, we got some people who aren't muted. Go ahead, Jordan. Yep. So in discussing and dialoguing with ideas evolved as humans to the point where we're very good at it, right? We're not very good at dialoguing when we have extremely opposing ideologies. And one of the reasons is I think because of the is and ought idea. So ought brings should with it and should is a judgment. And when we feel judged or our group feels judged, we naturally get defensive. And so back in the micro world of working with individuals and families, I do a lot of practicing with families how to change our language and our cognitive frameworks when we're dialoguing with each other. From an is versus ought to an is versus what can be. So we get rid of the language of should or shouldn't and we talk about what could be or what can be. Now, of course, you can't just get rid of should or ought, it exists. So, but we place it in the realm of what is. In other words, what is is that we as human beings, we do judge. We do have shoulds. We do react strongly to things we don't like. But if we keep it in the realm of is, then when we discuss the thing, other things and potentialities and our choices and our actions and the things that we must do and how we're gonna be active in the world to help frame the world, we can talk about things as they could be more. So there's other dialectics here. There's that movie Interstellar, I think Julio referenced it last year. In that movie, it's very a transhumanist movie saying we're not caretakers, we're not stewards, we are explorers, we're pioneers. I would put that up here as another dialectical pair. Maybe we're both, maybe we are explorers and pioneers and we are stewards and we're caretakers that we can practice acceptance and change. We can practice understanding things as they are, even if it's a dire picture. And we can see things as they could be. So deep ecology and transhumanism, I'm interested in where these could overlap. If you go to the next slide, we'll see some discussion areas, some ideas here for what we could talk about. Areas of resonance with deep ecology, areas of discomfort. Can human flourishing be benefited by assuming a non-anthropocentric orientation? What are the implications of that? What are implications for viewing life on our planet and in the cosmos as fundamentally interconnected in a web of living systems? That's kind of related to the one before. This next one has to do with agency somewhat. What does consent have to do with our relationship with interacting with? With interacting with and taking from the non-human world or just interacting with the non-human world. So the idea of agency being more radical and distributed than we might realize. And the next slide, these are just some further, go ahead to the next slide, Carl. So I think it's very possible and likely that some extreme or deep ecology idea of like abstaining from technology is kind of ridiculous. Even if we tried and I don't think we want to and I don't think we could. I think that's a part of us and that is part of the natural world as we arise from the natural world. But the idea is how can we change our relationship to our tools and to our technology rather than necessarily changing or slowing down technology. How do we change the way we interact with them? I mean, this discussion could go off in a million different ways. But one that I'm very interested in is identity and identification. I see a lot of the conflicts throughout history and presently as conflicts between who we identify with and what the other is.  And oftentimes in the history of tribes and human species for thousands of years that's been a tribal other or it's been a predator or or something like that with the climate crisis and right now with COVID-19. There is this kind of opportunity to identify ourselves together beyond the national identity or racial or gender or class or age that we all have this common threat, which is we could say the climate crisis is a common threat or we could say COVID-19 is a common threat. But I think deep ecologists have something and maybe transhumanists, we have a version of this too, to go beyond that and identify ourselves with more than even our own species that we identify. And this is where religion and spirituality can help it. Religious convergence of these ideas might help us identify ourselves, if we call it the family of God, that the family of God would be all living things or all living systems even expanding beyond the earth. But if we identify ourselves in that way, I'm interested what would that do to the way we see these dilemmas that we face and these questions of how we manage resources and how are we stewards? Are we dominators? Are we conquerors? Are we primarily explorers or are we primarily stewards? Or is there something in a way that we're both? So that's the kind of short and dirty version of it, maybe a little longer than we wanted to. But I'm interested in what you guys think and any discussion we can have on some of these issues. So what I would say is we're over time, but since lunch is next, like what we could do if you want is we could all go grab something to munch on if we haven't already. And we could continue the discussion for a little while during the break, if people would like to. I would certainly like to if you don't mind, I'm going to go get some non-precision fermented food. And hopefully that'll change soon. Well, I only want it as quickly as it actually tastes good and is good for me. So, but anyway, yeah, I'm going to go take a quick break and I'd love to continue to engage. Also, this is Caleb. Hi, great presentation. I wanted to ask, and I don't know if you've seen this, but there's a while ago on Hidden Brain podcast. They did one talking about narratives and facts and how the human mind has a very difficult time when its narrative is displaced. Unless it a new and equally or more compelling narrative is offered to them. That's compatible, that they see as compatible or attractive. And I was curious if you thought about talking about how do you take very different or even opposing worldviews and reconcile them kind of the role of narrative and acknowledging each other's narratives, but also offering up new narratives and ways to do that. Yeah, I think that's true. Narratives, that has to do with identity too, to mean that narratives are stories, stories have protagonists and antagonists. Stories have, and we are always situated as a protagonist in our own story. I think even, I tend to believe that even people that we, most people would agree are objectively evil. Someone like Adolf Hitler, that they saw themselves as the protagonist in their own narrative, and they didn't see themselves as the antagonist. So I think narrative is more influential than facts in terms of motivating the way we interact with the world. Something that actually I was thinking about as preparing this was, there was a, I think Caleb, you know Dan Witherspoon. He has a podcast, Latter-day Faith, I think it's called. But he did a podcast with, what's his name, Steven. Not Steven Peck, but it was a Steven who's very interested in narratives and stories. And they discussed circle narratives and straight line narratives. And they were kind of talking, a straight line narrative was this kind of, they were talking about it in relation to orthodox Mormonism versus some sort of post or non-orthodox Mormonism. And they were talking about the straight line narrative of one that's this kind of linear, logical line through life. And the circular narrative, that's one that's more holistic and moving around. And they eventually got, they were kind of saying, we're stuck in this linear line story and we need to get back to the circular. But they were also talking about some dialectical synthesis. And as I was listening to that, I was thinking of the spiral. I was thinking of different, I was thinking about your, Caleb, your presentation a few years ago with the fractals. But I think that in some ways deep ecology is kind of like stuck in a circular narrative where they are idealizing indigenous cultures. They are idealizing some noble savage past that we have to get back to. And I think, and this is a stereotype for both. And I think transhumanism to some extent might be stuck in a linear narrative at times that it's worst, right? In terms of not acknowledging benefits of non-rational thinking, not acknowledging benefits of learning in ways that we don't understand right now, like indigenous ways. And so there's this kind of, I'm interested in where in the narrative is there a circle with a line narrative? And I think in our best stories, there is both. There's Frodo leaving and there's clearly a march away from where he is and there's growth, and yet he returns back to the Shire. He's not the same, but there's a circle kind of thing going on there. I don't know if that's approaching at all your statement or question, but it prompted that thought. No, that's a good response. And just briefly, I'll comment, I'm forgetting her name, but she's a lesbian Jewish rabbi, and she gave a TED talk about basically how our stories, we need to anticipate our stories failing us. And this, I think, goes to the circular aspect of how can we recover from that and adapt to it and then author new, compelling, flourishing narratives, right? And just acknowledging that cycle is part of the human experience. Yeah, yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, I'll pick up the... Never mind, go ahead. Yeah, so one of the quick things I just wanted to mention as I was watching your talk that struck me was the idea that technology is an unmitigated blessing I think would strike most, like would be rejected by most transhumanists. So I don't necessarily see deep ecology as being incompatible with transhumanism in that sense. I think a lot of transhumanism, transhumanists are actually quite concerned about potential failure scenarios and risks, existential risks related to technology. So I think there may be more commonalities between them than at first appear, but partly it... I think partly what needs to happen is that some deep ecologists need to understand that or need to fully confront what the alternatives are, right? Like you were saying, it's not possible to just abandon the technology that's brought us here. In fact, a lot of the things that ecologists think are part of the natural world probably are not. They're probably partly what emerged with the co-evolution of all the different species on the planet, right? So one example is like almost all agriculture, even like heirloom plants are things that actually came from, that were cultivated by humans, right? So ultimately products of technology, even tomatoes are products of technology, right? So anyway, just some thoughts there. Yeah, I think that's great. And I'll just say and then go to you. I think I'm interested in the applied aspects of this debate, but also getting back to this fundamental question of, as human beings and with our technology, we are part of nature. We arrive from nature, so there's kind of sometimes a false dichotomy between the natural world and the man-made world. Where do we draw that line? And part of what our nature seems to be this ability and desire to extend ourselves and to strive against what is natural or what is ever like we can do things that animals can't do in the sense of we can go against our fight or flight reflexes. You know, other species cannot do that. They can't go against their fight or flight, you know, their instincts. And we can. And Bryant, I can't remember his last name, but he posted on Facebook the other day, Bryant, he's a he's a member of the MTA, I believe. He posted a thing about Margaret Mead basically putting forward when when she thought human civilization started and it had to do with when they found evidence of a femur that had been broken and had been healed. And the point was civilization started when people sacrificed for someone else. Other animals, they didn't find this evidence, but people sacrificed for another human and carried them took care of them long enough for them to heal and survive. So just really quickly before I shut up here is that I think this is where religion and specifically Christianity is interesting in that to me Christianity, we still don't understand the evolutionary power that's radically in Christianity, which is, you know, this whether you believe literally in Christ or not, his message is kind of lose your own life, like, like submit to death, you know, to save to lose yourself and identify with something bigger to to identify to save something else or to to save something bigger. And I think that's what human humanity can do. We can in the face of of ourselves being threatened, we can we can connect with a value that's bigger than our own mortality or our own suffering, we can have compassion, which literally means suffering with. That's where I'm pretty adamant that I don't I don't think our goal should be or is best meant to be to get rid of compassion or get rid of suffering, but rather unnecessary suffering. Anyway, yeah, sorry, I'm talking a lot. Yes, over here. So thank you for your remarks. And I think you and I have a bit of a different perspective because I am one of those people who perceives an intense opposition between transhumanism and deep ecology. One of my earlier works of writing is a science fiction novel called Eden Against the Colossus. And you can see what these metaphors stand for. But the Eden is not the Mormon Eden, it is the deep ecologist Eden. In fact, in that novel, it's exemplified by this alien species whose entire society is based on gradations of the experience of suffering.  And so the protagonist who represents a transhumanist civilization and is on an expedition to this planet has to figure out the mystery of the species and why it came to be. And it turns out to be a species engineered by a deep ecologist coup within the human civilization and that these are actually descendants of humans, whom these deep ecologists are trying to turn into the social experiment for how a deep ecologist Eden would be. So my concern with the whole deep ecologist vision is it is a vision that is centrally premised on suffering. You can't have the deep ecologist Eden without massive death, without massive predation, without 99.9 percent of all species that ever existed going extinct. And for me, it does seem like the imperative for transhumanists is to overcome that, to find something that's better, that's more humane, that values the individual. And I think the key tension is the deep ecologists value this circle, as you said, this cycle of natural processes, whereas the transhumanists value the individual and the preservation of the individual. So I don't want to die.  I don't want any good person to die, but that's deeply contrary to how evolution has worked throughout history. So in my view, we need to take the future in our hands and essentially convert existence from these cruel evolutionary processes to humane processes that fully exemplify our ethics. So I'd be interested in your thoughts on that. It seems like a chasm that really can't be overcome. It's more a matter of persuading more people to adopt our outlook rather than the deep ecologists. Yeah, well, first of all, I want to say I want to read your book. It sounds really cool. So that sounds really awesome. And you probably know a lot more about deep deep ecology than me. I'm a I'm a therapist in my day job and I study this stuff kind of on the side. And I haven't really gone further in deep ecology because I haven't really found deep ecologists around. There's but there's this whole group of Mormon transhumanists that I found. So I like engaging with you guys. But I do hear deep ecology, as I'm sure you do, coming through like the the the the woman, the adolescent from Germany, Greta, who's who's like our kind of figure right now in in saving the planet.  In an inevitable progress that that's we shouldn't think that of that as an inherently good thing. And so you hear you hear deep ecology coming. And I think there's I think there's a lot of people that resonate with it because they're afraid of certain things or they value, you know, the natural world, whatever that means to them. But to your point. One of the things that's been interesting to me and it works on the micro level. When I say micro, I mean individuals like psychologically, behaviorally, families and couples. One of the things that works is it's this paradox with acceptance and change that accepting things as they are doesn't mean that you will stay stuck in things as they are. It like in other words, the only thing constant is change. You can't we can't get rid of change. Change is who we are at our most fundamental level. So accepting things as they are doesn't mean that you're giving up and you're saying fine, I'm never going to do anything or change anything. It means that you you can see more clearly things as they are. And you can come from a place of instead of reactive fear, you can come from a place of what do I value? What do I care about? How do I move forward? How do I collaborate? And so again, I don't know how this works on the macro level or on these bigger ideas, but in an individual psychological process, like, let's say I'm working with a person who is struggling a lot with anxiety and their anxiety is so bad that what happens is is anxiety is that fight or flight mechanism that we share with animals that are non human. We have this fight or flight tendency or freeze to to escape something aversive. And the actual way to get out of anxiety is to sit with it to change our relationship to it rather than to run away from it. That actually makes it worse. Now, anxiety is good if it is actually an existential threat. But if it's if it's an anxiety disorder, it means there's not an existential threat in us. But our mind is is perceiving one and we we've been conditioned to believe in one that's there. And so the acceptance strategies actually allow us to to escape that suffering, the unnecessary suffering of an anxiety disorder more than the change strategies have continued to avoid or just don't be anxious or take or develop another medication that will take my anxiety away. That tends to make us more fragile. And so what I'm part of the things I'm interested in on a macro level is the idea of anti fragility as well. Anti fragility is a concept that Nassim Taleb has developed. And he's kind of, you know, trans political in that, you know, sometimes his ideas really fit with libertarian ideas. Sometimes they don't. But the idea is that natural systems tend to be more fragile to unpredictable events, black swan events, whereas manmade systems tend to be more fragile and tend to cause more unnecessary suffering. So that's an area where I think transhumanists can can can look at that and say, OK, what does this mean for our our goal of enhancing human and non human flourishing? How can we learn from from these counterintuitive and paradoxical acceptance measures that actually might help us change things in a more healthy way? If that makes sense. So it's more of a matter of building resilience and robustness in the event of adverse outcomes. And I would fully support that. I mean, I've been advocating for a massive buildup of the hospital infrastructure in the United States in response to this pandemic, because we shouldn't have a situation of just in time inventories of supplies when it comes to health care. We need to have so many supplies and stock and so many resources and medical professionals that the system should never be overwhelmed. And we shouldn't have this ridiculous curve flattening strategy in response to scarcity. There are certain areas of life in which we should simply not admit scarcity to begin with. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of ways to think about it. I was at I was at the Hoover Dam a couple of years ago and the Hoover Dam is this amazing feat of human engineering. And it's it's amazing, right? The Hoover Dam came about partially because a lot of the the areas, you know, I don't know the tributaries like the cities like Yuma and other areas were being flooded every year. And the people that live there were asking the state and federal government help us out. We're being flooded. This is too, you know, too much. And indigenous populations that had come before never had that issue because they were nomadic, right? And they would move with the seasons and they would move. And so they had for thousands of years been moving out of the way during certain seasons. Our our natural way of living is is more fragile, of course, to things like hurricanes because we were not nomadic. We live where we live. We stay there. And because we, you know, if there's not a hurricane for 10 years, then we're excited to build by a house on the coast and and have a beachfront property. And but the problem, of course, with that is as the climate crisis continues to develop, we're going to see how we're fragile in way more ways than COVID-19. We're fragile in so many ways. And so the idea with anti fragility would be to say, look at natural systems. Look at an anthill. Look at look at indigenous cultures and how did they deal with hurricanes, earthquakes? How did they deal with some of these things? And it doesn't mean we have to idealize the noble savage, but it means like we should definitely be for learning, you know, and learning and being open and curious about what the future might look like. And I think that's where some kind of creative cross fertilization between these two very opposing ideas could be fruitful for people that are transhumans. Real quick, guys. So we're going to reconvene at 1240 in the main hall. So I just wanted to give everyone that update and we can keep chatting until then. Maybe are there any other thoughts? Catherine just shared something. Thanks for a stimulating discussion, Jordan. Yeah, I just I feel like like even in my own talk, I didn't have a whole lot of time and I didn't want to convey the impression that like everything is just going great and everything's going to be fixed by technology. I did want to like counteract the impression that like destruction is inevitable and that the only solution is like the annihilation or vast or massive decimation of the human race. Yeah, because I think that each the very concept of carrying capacity is totally dependent on technology. Like the carrying capacity of the planet in the days of hunter-gatherers was like way, way lower. Like their technology was so bad that that even a small group like them could really seriously devastate the planet, you know. And in a similar way, like we're constantly running into new ways that we mess things up and that we threaten the balance, right, the delicate balance. And while I don't want to downplay the serious threats we face, like I think that the only we can't go back by like killing off most of the population. We have to we have to try to use our ingenuity to fix things and make them more balanced and sustainable. Absolutely. I really liked your in your presentation. I want to find out more about the I want to watch the documentary, The Apocalypse Cow. Looks really interesting. And I think that's I think I'm hopeful, actually. I am very hopeful. I think we will have we will have unpredictable, unpredictable things happening. And I, I, you know, I believe that humans more deeply than we want to escape pain, we want to love. I believe that I believe we, you know, sometimes I'm cynical and I don't believe that. But I think more deeply than our desire to escape pain reactively is our desire to connect in a healthy way. And so I am hopeful. And I think I mean, I engage in these ideas from a very different place. But I it's amazing the way that compassion and opening up to an acceptance of of pain, including, you know, the imagining and the inevitability of our mortality and our death and our suffering allows for possibilities to arise. And so and this kind of, you know, last year we talked about death and I was defending death, right? But I wasn't defending death as a value in itself, but death as a part of life. And I don't see our I don't see that we're going to be ending our our quest to end death any time soon. I don't think we should. But I think that our it's possible and maybe even likely that our quest to to overcome death might actually be hastened if we accept death. Acceptance doesn't mean we like it. It doesn't mean we agree with it. It means we we see it as it is in the moment, right? We experience what it brings to us. And so so for me, acceptance, I have this kind of rule of thumb in working in my with myself, my family and the clients I work with, it's acceptance first and change comes out of that. In the in the religious domain, it would be grace first and the work as an extension of grace. And so I I'm not and I'm not a I'm not a deep ecologist. I believe I'm a transhumanist, a religious transhumanist, but one that has a that believes that science, at least behavioral science is telling us that acceptance strategies and mindfulness strategies and contemplative practices that go way back thousands of years are more powerful and more effective in transforming, you know, our psyche individually and collective than we may realize. And so that's that's maybe my my wrap up. But I appreciate you guys letting me come here because I know sometimes I might appear as like a thorn in your side. Oh, no, I love it. The contrarian thorn or something. I love it. And I I hope you think of yourself as a part of the group and welcome here. Like, definitely, like we have lots of different viewpoints and perspectives. And all we ask is that people share them respected respectfully, right? So thanks a lot for your presentation. Yeah, it's something like Greg wanted to add something. We got like one or two minutes, Greg, you want to. That's fine. Yeah, that's good, because you don't want to ever give me much more than a minute. Um, so I just wanted to say I appreciate your presentation. Kind of like hanging here and listen to you guys talk about this because I was born again in 2015 and been listening a lot closer to Jesus. And he's been teaching me he was preparing me a long time ago for my mission, but he brought an awareness that I have a pattern I see throughout the scriptures is that he uses means to deliver us. So yeah, he delivers us, but uses means. And those means another word for them are technology. I'm trained as a sociologist. And so we have a wide definition of what technology involves. It's not just a device, but it's the ideas and essences around those devices. And so I I resonated what you were talking about regarding acceptance, because that's where Jesus has been leading me towards an Eastern mind. So I was colonized by a Western mind very strongly because I I'm a I'm ENTP on the Myers-Briggs. And so really laying heavily on my intuitive thinking about I've been brought as I get closer to Christ towards the Eastern way of thinking, the dialectic. And that is technology because that's because that's what I view. Ultimately, you have a superior being who's way smarter than I am because he says, go, go, go slow to go fast.  And those are three key things I have to review every day. But that's what I think I was attracted to transhumanists. When I first saw it, it was just this morning I was brought to my attention again by the Holy Ghost, like, oh, I guess I'm supposed to go to that. So I plugged in and just I wait to see what connections there are. But I like the emphasis on technology because I'm a I can't share many of these ideas, but you guys have minds that understand that that very thing that you're looking for technology to solve these problems just as Nephites were looking for breastplates to solve very practical problems. And those things are revealed from above, but they're also part of the endowments that we carry with us. So I'm guessing the breastplate guy probably had some experience like Brigham Young had a mind that could conceive of how to colonize the Joseph. Hey, Greg, sorry, sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt. I really appreciate your thoughts. It's about time for us all to rejoin the main hall. Thanks, Greg. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. I'll see you there.


Hello, I'm Angelica Bosch, responsible for the Thunder Monitoring dashboard being OpenAR Product Manager. In this presentation, we'll be discussed what the Thunder Monitoring dashboard offers to whom and how one can join OpenAR. And at the end of this presentation, there is a case study with the Austrian founder FWF, the Austrian Science Fund. The Thunder Monitoring dashboard addresses to all European and international founders who want to join OpenAR. And through this service, the founders are able to increase their impact by monitoring and ranking their investments, updating information from the real-time updated OpenAR analytics. The Monitor OpenAR.eu was built to provide transparency and increase research impact through statistical analysis. The analytics are derived from the data displayed on production, more specifically explore.openar.eu. And this has the result to classify the founders by jurisdiction here in the Monitor, the OpenAR founders, whose data are on production. In the next few months, it is expected to display more founders who are in a beta phaser right now. We aggregate content by using text mining, the Monitoring, on the full text, which enables us to discover hidden structures and identify useful patterns, similarities, correlations, trends and communities. We also apply cleaning, transformation, disambiguation processes to identify relationships among all research entities, application, data, funding, researchers, organization and data sources. Moreover, among others, we identify grant IDs in publications, data, software, acknowledgement, sections and make the appropriate links to funding information, specifically program information. Furthermore, through this service, you can find information to learn about OpenScience, how to manage your data and more support materials. In the near future, we are going to release the research statistics tool, which will be used only by the OpenAR founders using their credentials, ensuring though security and privacy. Its main feature is to enable founders to produce by themselves limitless statistical reports in real time and save them in their personal device. The founders making a selection of the produced statistics. They can publicly publish them in the funders monitoring portal to provide transparency increase though their impact. However, are you a founder and wondering how to join OpenAR or are you a NOAD and going to provide information to the funders how to join OpenAR. This is the answer and the funders that they need to do is to provide OpenAR with a very limited set of metadata fields from their database and we will take it up from there. Such as this metadata fields are the project identifier, project title or acronym, funded name, start and end date of the projects, which are mandatory to provide it. Moreover, there are more datasets that could be updated such as funding streams, organization involved, recommended acknowledgement statements, start date of OpenAR access mandates, which are optional. However, the more datasets a founder can provide, the more matches we will have during the mining process. And as well more results. This information will be helpful to be provided by an Excel file. You can also find these requirements, statistical requirements to join OpenAR in the new funders fact sheet, as well as the all the information related to the OpenAR monitoring services. Here we can discuss about how a funder about the workflow of the integration of a funder. When updating this list of projects, the integration workflow starts immediately. It consists of several processes as shown in this slide, for example NOAAD, contact funders and provide this list to me, the product manager, where in turn I provided to the technical team to run all the appropriate processes. So as to aggregate content to link the resources to finding programs through mining text analysis and much more. Here is the second phase where after matching projects to publications, software and data, we publish this information to the beta.etflore.eu and ask from the funders to take closely look and provide feedback. We implement changes, if any, according to this feedback. And then we proceed in the third step, where we provide the final results in the production. This is the explore.openAR.eu and also ask from funders to take a last look in order to say if everything is okay or find any inconsistency with the metrics. Here we can see that the graded funders being in production as well as their research results related to the projects and publications. Apart from the technical team aggregation schedule, the frequency of obtaining an updated list of projects also varies from funder to funder. So there is a general agreement to obtain this list of projects twice a year. It is possible. Here we also can see for funders who are in beta. And now we can proceed to the use case of Austrian funder FWF. Here we depict the integration workflow of the FWF. And as you can see, first of all, they provide us with a list of their projects where in turn we match these projects with publications. And then we display these results on the beta.explore.openAR.eu. Here is more specifically this. A funder in order to join OpenAR should follow the steps I'm displaying now. First of all, the funders should visit OpenAR web page and under the support tab, combine the frequently asked questions. The questions related to the funders monitoring dashboard are entitled as reporting a statistics. However, in this section, a funder can be informed about everything related to OpenAR. After acquiring all the appropriate information and making contact with us, a funder should provide us with an Excel file where should be listed a very limited set of metadata. The mandatory fields, as mentioned before, are the project identifier, project title or acronym, funder name, start and end date of the project. There are also more optional metadata that the funder can provide. But keep in mind that as much information we get, the more easier and faster can be the mining process. This information can be accompanied with agreement for data exchange in order to proceed in the funder's integration workflow. Finally, when fine results, we display them into beta production and monitor in this specific queue. And asking always from the funder to provide us with feedback. Here we pick a small sample of the charts that are displayed in the monitor.openair.eu under the page of the FWF funder. As it is mentioned before, we are glad to encourage funds to provide us feedback and their statistical requirements based on their needs in order to provide more personalized and customized statistical reports. That's all for me and I'm glad to hear your questions.


Okay, we're back, we're live, we're talking to Gowrie Kandekar, our correspondent in Brussels, that's how we call it, midnight in Brussels, and we usually catch her sleeping, and then we talk to her, and she tells us what the news is in Europe. So we try to stay current, you know, on what is really going on in Europe, and we've talked about so many things over the past few months, and there are tons of things still to talk about happening in Europe that we here in Hawaii never hear about. So we are delighted to have her on the line with us. Hi Gowrie. Come here again. What an honor. We'd love to have you. So you sent me an email with no less than 30 possible news stories, and so we'll start at the beginning, and we'll see how far we get. So there was a meeting recently, I guess on Brexit, between Merkel, Holland, and what's his name from Italy, three of them, yeah, frenzy, and this has implications. They're trying to shore up the situation and trying to get the EU strong. Why did they have the meeting? What did they talk about, and what was the reaction after people heard what they did? It's a show of unity, most importantly, until Britain left the EU, it was one of the three largest countries along with France and Germany, but now that the UK will be leaving, Italy has taken its place as the top three largest countries in the EU, and these countries also need to lead the EU, because that's how it works in terms of voting and political pull, basically, and Italy is a strong international player as well. So this is basically a show. It's to reassure markets and reassure the populations that Europe is going to move stronger and go ahead in terms of integration. But what's interesting is that the meeting in a specific island called Ventotene, where a manifesto for a federation of European states was signed. But also it was Altiero Spinelli, and he was an anti-fascist. He began writing this federation of Europe. So it's more about also a symbol to counter nationalism, which is of course growing across the world, as we see now, even in the United States, so it's more symbolic. Yeah, really, I mean, we have an interesting mix, and I guess you can say this is happening in 2016. You have some people, and sometimes the same people, who want to go back to nationalism, and then you have other people who want to do away with borders entirely and feel that borders are irrelevant now these days, and we would all do better without them. And in Europe, I think you hear both voices speaking in Europe. So these guys are talking about putting down the borders, I guess for the most part, but also protecting their nationalist constituencies. So which one seems to be dominant now, putting down the borders or bringing the borders up? Well, to be honest, it's still quite a struggle. You have so many people in Europe, even supporting the cause of the refugees. Media seems to fluctuate between the plight of the refugees, and recently I'm sure people must have seen this seven-year-old boy who was picked out from the rebel and he's bloodied and he's covered in dust. And that becomes a symbol. And then you have main media fluctuating between, okay, there's a huge influx too, we should do more. And the same with the population, there's so many who are supporting it. So I think that's one of the biggest issues which is leading to a rise of nationalism apart from economy, of course. Just recently, the European Commission's president. So the European Commission is one of the three main institutions of the EU and it proposes law. It's like a bureaucratic body of the EU. And the president of that body, Jean-Claude Junker, who pleasantly surprised me and he said, we need to bring down borders. They're the worst invention ever made by politicians. And it was sweet. And it's basically he said that people need to fight against nationalism and they need to not follow populists. Because of course, as he said, the work ultimately leads on. It's so true. The future is quite uncertain at the moment here in Europe. Yes, and there was some privacy laws, some strict privacy laws that have been considered in Germany. But now they're being reconsidered because people are not so sure they want to protect privacy given the problem they have with terrorism and with the migrants. So it seems to me that 2016 is kind of a tipping point all over Europe. Which way shall we go? Shall we go to repression? Shall we go to humanitarianism? Shall we protect ourselves on a national level? Or shall we try to strengthen ourselves on an EU level? And I feel that anything could happen at an event or two, a terror attack or two, could change the way the tipping point works. Right, you're completely right. And there are lots of changes happening here in Europe. I mean, Jihadist terrorism is a relatively new phenomenon in Europe. Of course, Europe has faced a lot of terrorism, but in the 70s. And that was, well, you know, the IRA in Ireland and the UK and so on, various terrorist organizations. But these were mainly intended at nation states and a particular country. And this is, of course, a very different modus operandi of terrorism. It's an organization which crosses borders. And most countries don't know how to deal with it. I mean, we've spoken about how Belgium dealt with so poorly with the terror attacks and it could have been avoided or, you know, how they've coped up with it. And just before, so I've done quite a bit of research actually on counterterrorism. And what is surprising is in 2008 to until very recently, most websites, there's very strict laws protecting freedom of expression and even child pornography websites were not taken down. And so when you have this Jihadist content, what do you do with it? You know, if your laws don't support you to take strict action. But that's changing. Countries are now mulling over how to best tackle terrorism. Would it mean giving up liberties or, you know, patrolling borders externally? How to do it? So Europe is really coming to terms with it. But what's surprising and shocking I read today even is that the German government has told its population after the Second World War actually to stock food and water for at least five to ten days. And this comes right in the aftermath of all those attacks, especially in Munich last month where people had to clear malls and streets and basically go into strangers' apartments to take shelter. So this is a new development. Yeah, that's new and it's a little scary. And at least I think Germany and France, there's issues about the burkas and attempts to require people not to wear them to make it, I guess, criminal to wear or they can't come to school and wear. What have you heard about that? Yeah, I think it's a silly debate, honestly. And there's so many people who support it. Basically, two cities in France, Mies and Kahn have banned the burkini. For those who don't know it, it's kind of an Islamic, okay, swimming costume which basically looks like a wet suit with a hoodie as well. So it's a covered swimming suit in lycra. The debate is more tipping on racism, I feel. If you go to the French beaches, people hardly wear anything or who cares what they wear or they don't wear. A lot of French beaches, they don't wear anything, right? Of course not. The New Day's beaches, a beach should be the last place where you have fashion police and the people who are now wearing burkinis on the beach are being fined and fined heavily, actually. But I think it's silly. I think it's a silly direction. It's baseless and if you have a fashion police or there are a lot more for-pass committed in Paris than wearing a burkini. My only suggestion would be don't wear a black one or you're going to get mistaken for a seal by choice. I have to get to Europe so I can see what's going on. But the French... Go ahead. No, the Deputy Prime Minister also came in support of this ban which I really feel is so ridiculous, you know. But that's where we are going now. We have a lack of... We have an identity crisis. Yes, that's what it is. People don't know where to go. And I think that that creates opportunistic possibilities for people like Mr. Putin and for that matter for the terrorists. They can see that Europe is a little bit disorganized right now. It doesn't have a combined response. It doesn't have a level of collaboration to deal with these difficult issues. And I think opportunists will take advantage of that. I think the opportunities are within Europe. Is this populist party, the far-right, the extremists who would exploit the agenda, come to power because so much of this nationalist movement is about power and it's about elections. And it's about staying in power. So you have mainstream politicians who have made really silly and unfortunate decisions like David Cameron made with the Brexit referendum to stay in power. And I think the biggest enemy of Europe is within at the moment. Well, you know, it's very interesting is that people saw Brexit it was only 60 days ago. They saw Brexit as a blow to the economy of the UK and for that matter a blow to the economy of the EU. And now we've had 60 days to kind of cool down about it. And I wondered, you know, what people think about it now both from the EU side and the UK side. And I've noticed on your list of articles there's some articles talking about how some of the politicians in the UK want to appoint themselves as emissaries to Europe as if Europe was further off, you know, a more foreign country than before. And they want to be the representative of the UK in Europe. What is happening? I mean, it's a new mindset, isn't it? Yes, it's very confusing. I mean, Theresa May, the new Prime Minister came out saying Brexit means Brexit. But what does that exactly mean? Nobody is clear. The only one who had a plan was Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of Scotland. And she knew exactly what to say and what to do. Nobody has an idea what Brexit actually means, what it's going to entail, how much losses they're going to be already. The pound has gone down so much against the euro and other currencies. It's created quite a bit of loss to the UK economy. The problem is that the media have not reported as much about opinions now as they had before and during the referendum. So that's the main issue. So the information is not being circulated properly. I think Britain and most of the people here think that the UK made such a bad decision and it's only going to get worse because they're going to be locked out of a market which is basically the world's largest economy. Together the 28 countries make up the world's largest economic space. If you read also some of the reports which came, for example, farmers in Wales voted against the EU but they get 60% of their salary from the EU because of this common agricultural policy which subsidizes them. That seems silly to vote against it, yeah? They voted against themselves. They're shooting yourself in the foot. Yes. And now the latest reports say that Brexit will happen. So the British exit from the EU will happen by the end of 2019. First it was 2017 but now it's 2019 and I think it's going to derail the UK and the EU's external relations which is also, by the way, the topic of my next paper which I'd be happy to share. Yes, tell us about your next paper because it's directly on the channel here. No pun intended. So my new paper deals with what Brexit's impact will be on the EU's relation with the world, especially Asia. And I think it's going to completely derail relations. This is for a couple of reasons. So the EU has negotiated a set of agreements, free trade agreements with a lot of Asian countries. They're under negotiations still. The only one signed, of course, is with Korea which of course the US also has. But the other agreements are going to be in jeopardy because they are no longer valid and these negotiations have lasted for example 10 years in the case of India, but a lot more as well. So already trade is going to be impacted severely. FTAs are so important and the US already has the TPP so it's way ahead. But the other impact is going to be because Asian countries have traditionally interacted more with the EU's individual member states. So this is only going to get worse both for the EU and the UK. Well, it was kind of predictable but now it's happening in case people are wondering it's happening. I mean if I were far away, if I were in India or China, I would look at the EU and say that place is less together than it was. It is less a power to deal with both on a geopolitical level and on an economic level. So I don't take it as seriously. In fact, I would like to compete and win against it economically. Don't you think that the weakness offers a kind of economic opportunity to other people and they will see what happened as a weakness and then it will reinforce itself as a spiral. It's not a good thing for the EU, no? Definitely not and I think what it has done is probably strengthen the position of the US because the US appears as the more reliable western partner. Until now it was the EU. It was a huge union of 28 countries, politically united, economically united of course. But it has left the US as the only credible western partner. That's interesting. At the same time the US is trying to shore up Britain's prospects and trying to do deals directly trade deals with Britain and so maybe that helps Britain but I don't think it helps the EU much. But then I wanted to ask you about Corbyn, the labor guy. Wasn't labor against continuing in the EU and yet Corbyn is still active on the issue? He's been in the news. What is going on with him? Yeah, apparently the labor party is in shambles because nobody wants Jeremy Corbyn in leadership, his MEPs, his colleagues. But he has support of the public somehow which is an enigma. He's not a charismatic leader. But he's joined Donald Trump. He's allied himself with Donald Trump. Yeah, well, you know, you can understand. I mean, it's a group of motley fellows. Yeah, it's an odd group now because you have a socialist labor leader who's now aligning with Trump and I don't know who could align with Trump. Strange, strange, strange beyond strange. Strange bad fellows. Just going down your list, there's one more thing before we do a break and I saw a very brief, abbreviated reference in your list of news possibilities that there was a suicide bombing in Turkey and it was at a wedding.  And 50 people were killed at the... And that probably was so brief because the people that were reporting the news didn't have any detail. Has there been any detail since then? Very unfortunate details. Apparently the suicide bomber was a 12 to 14-year-old boy. It's really sad. It was a Kurdish wedding and it was politically motivated but the fact that they're using children like this is the worst possible thing you could imagine. So there's the saddest bit coming out of Turkey. Oh, that's so sad. We have a lot of challenges today. Not only with the Kurdish history and the ongoing struggle but with ISIS and with the EU and also itself. After the coup, Erdogan has strengthened his hold on the country so significantly, he's liberated even prisoners, 35,000 prisoners to make place for coup protesters. Sorry, the ones who he thought supported the coup and the list includes a lot of academics as well. And it's the worst move for Turkey. Yeah, not good. Not good in a region which is not having a good time. Well, let me take a short break, Gauri. That's Gauri Kandikar, Global Relations Forum. We're catching up on so many things in Europe. We'll be right back after the short break. Welcome to ThinkTechHawaii.com. This is Johnson Choi, your host. My focus is Asia in reveal. We talk about interesting subjects in Asia. Be sure to check the ThinkTech.com website on the next topic. Thank you. Great content for Hawaii from ThinkTech. Hi, I'm Kili Iakina, president of the Grassroot Institute. I'd love you to join us every week Mondays at 2 o'clock p.m. for Ehana Kako. Let's work together. We report every week on the good things going on in our state as well as the better things that can go on in the future. We have guests covering everything from the economy, the government, and society. See you Mondays on Ehana Kako at 2 o'clock p.m. I'm Kili Iakina. That's a lot. We thought not much was happening in Europe, but in fact a lot is happening. So much is happening that we can't possibly cover it all. So we'll have to get Gary back in a few weeks and catch up on these things. But let's turn east. Two pieces that occurred to me here is one is eastern European countries are launching campaigns to lure citizens back from the west. It's no surprise I suppose that a lot of countries in the eastern part of Europe are losing their citizens to the glories of the west I suppose. And now they want to lure them back. What's that all about? It sounds like more nationalism Gary. It's a little bit to do with nationalism but I think it's also to do with demographic change. When the central and eastern European countries joined the EU and it was a huge expansion. Ten countries joined the EU in 2007 followed by Romania and Bulgaria in 2012. At that time when these countries joined they were much worse off I would say. They were economically backward and they saw western Europe as an area of huge development and job opportunities and so a lot of central and eastern European educated workers educated people workers and all kinds of populations moved to the west especially to the UK which is one of the reasons why Brexit also was pushed forward in the population but also to Germany and Belgium and all the other countries. However with the economic crisis and the recessions that followed western Europe has been reeling it's still reeling from the economic shocks but at the same time thanks to Europe central and eastern Europe has developed a lot because what the European Union does is also have distributed funds called structural funds and these are used for development, infrastructure, etc. etc. also human resources. Now these countries are in a much better position and they do need the labour back the qualified labour now the labour also has a lot of experience and there is employment. So now they need the undies for a back because they're in growth phase well you know what's very interesting about that is that the Brexit was a blow to the EU a disruptive blow and now it's sort of sorting itself out again as indicated by our first new story where Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande and what's his name from... Matthew Renzi from Italy met and you wonder what was their common point is that they are the three biggest economies I suppose in Europe but Europe is in flux and we may find, I'm interested in your thought about this we may find that there's a rebalancing going on an economic rebalancing where the next time you look at Europe the next time you look at the EU you may find that the Eastern European countries are stronger relatively speaking perhaps a stronger part of the EU is this happening? Is the economic power drifting East now? Is that what's going to happen? Well funnily enough or sadly enough Italy's debt to GDP output ratio is just better off than Greece so it's the second least attractive in Europe it's the worst off, second last worst off so it is huge debt growth across Europe is quite poor it's not a growing economy it's not like Asia which is growing at rapid speed the Nordic countries continue to do better they're the ones that are the richest at the moment of course Sweden, Finland are much better off and have remained that, remained so Germany is still leading the EU in terms of growth and GDP and output and economics but you know what's going to happen this is somehow a good trend that Europe is balancing itself out because these countries used to be really more poor off they just come out of the Soviet block and they had to be integrated well and now that they are well off they are more independent less dependent on structural funds the EU can really push for more economic integration most of these countries share the euro so they need more fiscal coordination a proper monetary and fiscal union and so they can better coordinate the economic create a more level playing field in a way and that's probably a good thing for the EU to see that new vitality and it's okay to have the focus shift a little bit to the east but I wonder if Mr. Putin would agree I rather think that he doesn't like the idea and will have his own measures waiting to to undermine this process don't you think yes for Putin Ukraine and Belarus are the limit NATO in particular should not expand beyond and that was one of the reasons which led to the annexation of Crimea and more control over Belarus so Putin sees those as a buffer between Europe and himself between NATO and Russia basically and that's you do see recently more aggression in towards Ukraine there are a lot of political opponents that are being killed off in Ukraine more Kremlin opponents it's got Mr. Putin's signature all over it doesn't it it's an open secret in a way who's doing it it's a resurgent aspect in Russian foreign policy and the more Russia builds up near Ukraine's borders the more control it's going to seek and this is what's happening basically at the Ukraine borders I will be tweeting later on a map which shows how much military Russia has built up near Ukraine's borders that's one of the scariest things about the Donald Trump campaign is his connection with Putin and what Putin is doing lately I read a very funny quote which said that Russia an article actually New York Times which said that Donald Trump is actually a Russian oligarch well in a way they make a good couple I think Putin and Trump they have a similar wavelength so I think it would be a new detour for Russia-U.S. relations well I have only one more thing to ask you before we close Gary and that is this thing which I had never heard of before which was in your list of articles it's called Uber Eats Uber Eats that's the Uber car company but now they're delivering food and they're coming to Brussels you must be excited about that we haven't heard about that but apparently you're going to have the benefit of it soon I am really excited about it they're going to deliver food I don't know exactly how well they're going to work but I mean anything that delivers good food quickly is okay in my books I'm super excited for Uber Eats to come to Brussels we'll have to keep in touch with you about that because I think you're the test market and later on we'll have the benefit only if it succeeds in Brussels I will be your lab rat yes Gary it's wonderful to talk to you thank you so much for joining me today it's Gary Kondekar he's the director of the Global Relations Forum headquartered in Brussels thank you so much for talking to me every couple of weeks thank you Gary enjoy the rest of the summer and vacance here in August and we hope to see you in September


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This feels like we're hitting some big stuff here Sadiq Bay rookie yang for the thunder You missed your favorite card Reds rows and bowls they have parallels to that. Hey a gold Ben Simmons nine of ten for the nets I Was one of those people that was like, oh Ben Simmons is definitely gonna be better than Yanis Ejala del rookie jersey auto pelicans and then bought Ben Simmons card instead of Yanis To be fair at that time you were for sure not alone There you go pelicans Ejala del rookie jersey auto and walker kessler pink to 25 jazz rookie auto There you go jazz walker kessler ranger Bradley with the boom Bradley big-time walker kessler 16 to 25 Well mag the walker kessler this we're only three boxes into this break. We've had a mag in every single box. I think Oh, he's got Palo in 11 He's the magic He's got Palo. He's only jumped in here and everybody's seen every single Palo Everybody says what's up roots of greatness Stockton and Malone for the jazz That would be kind of funny if we like sold the magic as like the magic and then the palo spot Go look at prison premier league. It's like holland and then like every oh one else from man city I know got yo vichy rookie ivy pistons debuck red and a gold kade cunningham four of 10 Geez good god second-year kade gold Yeah Which one do I do first? Yeah Please excuse parentheses Rookie jerseys colloco it's a 49 for the raptors. I can't solve Yeah, I don't remember pem das very well. I know the order But I don't know how it goes still and max christie rookie jersey auto for the lakers sneak in that second color up top there This is an insane half case Before I keep going.  I think they left the other jaylon out Literally haven't seen one part of his I think they just left them out There's like there's too many of these jaylon williams is Uh, kennedy chandler grisly's lamello red van veleet. I see what I did red van veleet raptors and a green to 49 wait Why is this green to 49 other green was the five? And the variations maybe Are they different greens or forced? I mean, it's a little like I guess it's technically a little different, but I don't I don't know man I was the 49 for the heat. That's what I think it might be slightly different I'll have to check the checklist Yeah 35 kings keegan murray Nice patch with the kings Yeah, I'm Maybe because of lebron. He's lower numbered. I don't know before just isn't a product like that Rookie Otto warriors patrick baldwin jr I got pal this they don't start right away mcdonald's checklist I mean, I can give you the mcdonald's checklist. It's out Or should I say the menu number one big mac meal number two gold originals wizards johnny Davis eight of 10 Here's johnny all work and no play makes jack a dull boy That what he says red jalen brown selthex and a green to 49 rookie jaden hardy mavericks. Nice He doesn't much creepier though. Oh, this is neon neon to 49 rookie jaden hardy mavericks It is very like why just showed i'ma show it again. It is a very close Molach tight one of one royale and cheese. How do they call it a royale with cheese? Great great hardy there is a mobility rookie jersey for the cavaliers Some he looks very much like the other mobility. They must be brothers And kennedy chandler grisly's gold rookie auto to ten.  Thanks again everybody. Unfortunately don't have time for recap. That was some crazy stuff though Moving on


Hello everyone, today we are going to talk about Ethical Naturalism. It says, whatever is explicable is in the ambit of nature. Now, this is a very, this is a metaethical theory, which talks about the role of nature in understanding the moral domain. Now, let us take a moment to reflect on our understanding of the world. Now, Ethical Naturalism, as you could surmise, the origin of the word naturalism is coming from the word nature. Now, what is naturalism? How, what is Ethical Naturalism? And, what is it as a metaethical theory? Now, you would recollect that earlier, we have talked about various ethical theories. Now, we are dealing with metaethics, which is the foundation of ethical theories, the very possibility of morality, the very justification of the ethical domain. Now, today we are going to talk about something called Ethical Naturalism. If you look at the slide, it reads that well, whatever is explicable in the ambit of nature. Now, stay with this for a while, and let us not confuse us that well, what is there in the ambit of nature is enough, or the domain of nature is enough to explain, analyze or understand everything in the cosmos. Now, let us go ahead to see, what do we exactly mean by this? Well, first, what is naturalism? Naturalism is a metaethical or a philosophical theory that claims that the universe is totally explicable in the parlance of nature. That is, we do not need to postulate any supernatural notion to complete our understanding of the universe. Well, what is a natural entity? Is it the same thing as empirical, as an empirical entity? Well, now let us take a moment to reflect on, what is naturalism? Now, naturalism is a philosophical metaphysical theory of which ethical naturalism is a derivative or a component. Now, naturalism as the very name suggests, gives importance or foundational importance to nature. Now, by nature, we do not necessarily confine ourselves to trees, plants and wildlife as one interpretation of it could have. But well, when we talk in philosophy about nature, we mean everything that is empirically perceivable, that is, comprises of the cosmos. Perhaps, this is one concept that can easily be understood, if we give examples of what is not nature. Well, things that are postulations or entities that are supernatural, starting from the postulation of God as a supernatural entity, of mystery, of unexplicable intuitive power. Now, these are examples of supernatural notions, and this would make, this is clearly out of the ambit of nature. So, clearly nature is not as the philosophical understanding of naturalism would go ahead. It is not confined to just, what many botanists or biologists or people would believe to be only plants, trees, animals and life on earth. But, it comprises of everything that is almost empirical, that we can know and perceive, that is not strange, that is explicable. So, naturalism by that currency is a very powerful or all-encompassing theory. When we seek an explanation for a behavior, when we seek that well, Venus is passing over the sun to the other side. Now, we seek a natural explanation to this, which is that well, the satellites or planets revolve in their orbits, and their orbits sometimes overlap each other, and therefore, there is an overlap in their paths.  But, if I say, if I postulate that well, one planet is a life form, which is visiting another planet, or that God is arranging the motions of these satellites. Well, these are supernatural explanations. So, now, as we would see most of the disciplines that we study, most of our knowledge in the world is quite naturalistic. We know that well, examples of naturalism would be that well, if I take this kind of a drug, I have seen that drug X empirically correlates with the phenomenon Y. So, doctors prescribe a drug X to treat the phenomenon Y, or likewise. Now, this is a very naturalistic explanation. But, what if the doctor tells you that, why do not you go and pray for the healing of your condition? Now, that is a supernatural claim that well, having praying as a form of treatment is not naturalistic, is not governed by natural laws as we know them. It is a part of a supernatural domain. Now, well, having known this explanation, perhaps we would think that well, most of the way the world works is naturalistic, and most of the studies that we do, and knowledge that we have is naturalistic, and that is all. Why this talk of supernaturalism? Well, now, having had a little clarity about what is naturalism, let us proceed to see what is ethical naturalism, and then try to analyze it as a theory. So, I repeat what naturalism would mean, that it is a metaphysical and philosophical theory that claims that the universe is totally explicable in the parlance of nature. We do not need to postulate any supernatural notion to complete our understanding of the universe. What is a natural entity? Is it the same thing as empirical? Yes, mostly when we are understanding natural entities or we are naturalistic in our understanding, we would comprise almost everything empirical. However, rational truths or self-evident truths can also be subsumed under the domain of naturalism. So, what cannot be subsumed under the domain of naturalism is what we would generally understand as mystery or something which is supernatural. So, as we see mystery, supernatural as something which is not natural. Now, coming on to the next slide, let us take a look at what is ethical naturalism. Now, ethical naturalism is a variant of metaphysical naturalism, and it claims that ethical claims can be analyzed into natural facts and properties. The domain of ethics can be understood without any assumption of the supernatural or mysterious. It is complete within the natural order that there is no mystery or explanatory gap in the understanding of the ethical domain. Now, let us proceed step by step into understanding what exactly do we mean by ethical naturalism. Ethical naturalism is a variant of metaphysical naturalism. So, naturalism is the broader theory which talks about explanation of any domain in terms of in the natural parlance. Ethical naturalism specifically confines itself to the domain of ethics which can be understood in terms of natural facts and properties. The domain of ethics can be understood without any assumption of the supernatural or mysterious. It is complete within the natural order. Now, let us take a look. If we are ethical naturalists, what are we saying? We are saying that well, what is it for an action to be right or wrong or good or bad? These classifications can be analyzed and explained in terms of natural facts and properties. Now, does it appear very obvious or a little problematic? Let us take a look. What would an ethicist mean or what would this metaethical claim mean of claiming that all ethical claims can be reduced or can be understood in terms of natural claims. That means, ethical claims can be for example, be psychologically felt, not intuitively felt. So, when they are saying say, when I can feel something as right or wrong, which is clearly what ethicist would not like to mean similar to intuition, because that would be a part of supernatural domain. So, I will give you an example, perhaps to make things clearer. We will talk about it in detail say, when I say what gives me happiness is the right thing to do. Now, we have talked about a moral theory which has this as its premises. So, what gives me happiness is the right thing to do. If that is the case, then I am equating what is right with what is with happiness, which is a very natural phenomena that I feel. Now, in this case, so looking at the slide, presentation slide, we see that there is the third bullet would be saying that there is no mystery or explanatory gap in the understanding of the ethical domain. So, we need not postulate anything supernatural to explain the ethical domain. Now, coming to the next slide, well what is an example of ethical naturalism? Perhaps it is clearer, one would be clearer about ethical naturalism, when we see an example of ethical naturalism. Say for example, an action x brings along suffering, which is a natural property because it can be felt by the agent. Whereas, action y brings about no suffering in anybody. Thus, one ought to choose x over y. This is the moral claim, assuming one values the absence of suffering over its presence. This is our assumption. Now, this ought claim or a value claim can be understood in terms of natural property. And what is that natural property? That natural property is suffering. Now, let us look at this claim. It appears quite simple and perhaps, most of us would agree with it. That if an action brings along suffering, whereas action y brings about no suffering. x gets suffering, action x gets suffering, action y gets no suffering. So, most of us would perhaps choose x over y. Well, if that is the case, then we are making, if that is the case and we go ahead and make a prescription, make a moral claim that x is the right thing to do over y or x is right and y is wrong or x is good and y is evil or that one ought to choose x over y, we are making this as a value claim. Now, if this is a value claim, what is the basis of the value claim? The basis of the value claim is suffering. And what gives it objectivity is that well, of the two choices x and y, one gets more suffering than the other. Suffering is a natural phenomena, which can be experienced and felt psychologically, not intuitively. It can be felt and experienced psychologically. And this ought claim therefore, can be understood in terms of a natural property and suffering. So, this is an example of ethical naturalism. Now, let us go ahead to the next slide. Now, what does it mean that therefore, suffering is bad, it is to be avoided and the lack of it is good and is to be aimed at? Well, the moral theory utilitarianism comes to mind. This is the moral theory that I was referring to. It is a classical example of ethical naturalism. Utilitarianism is a classical example of ethical naturalism, wherein the parameter of good and bad is the natural or psychological property of happiness and suffering. Thereof, ethical naturalism faces many of the difficulties that utilitarianism faces. Now, let us take a look at the assumptions that we have come across. That suffering is bad and the lack of suffering is good. That, to put it more simplistically, happiness is desired over suffering and that this is how the case ought to be, is what ethical naturalists say. Now, if you would recollect from our earlier themes and discussion on utilitarianism, what we meant was well, utilitarianism is a moral theory that promotes the greatest good of the greatest number. That, once judge is right and wrong by the psychological feeling of happiness and so forth, which seemed quite obvious. But, the metaethical assumption for utilitarianism was ethical naturalism. Now, we did not talk about the metaethical assumption, because these are perhaps sometimes so implicit that we take it for granted. But, when we explore the foundations of any moral theory, we are bound to arrive at deeper philosophical claims and naturalism here is one such of an example. Because, this such a philosophical claim would entail its, it would color the moral theory that is based on such a claim. Now, for utilitarianism, ethical naturalism is the foundational metaethical claim and what is the metaethical claim that well, suffering, it is true as an empirical fact that human beings or living entities prefer the lack of suffering over suffering. But, that this is what ought to be the moral parameter or the ethical parameter is the claim of naturalism. But, when I can make a judgment that well, one ought to, now let us take a look at the board. A simple claim like suffering is worse than no suffering. Suffering is worse than no suffering or no suffering is better than suffering. Now, if we make a second claim, suffering is bad, are these two claims one and two, the same thing that is the question that this is the division that would bring about the presence of the metaethical claim in this moral theory. Now, if you agree that suffering is worse than no suffering well, I understand that these are very generic statements and well, one could argue for various gradations of suffering what exactly do we mean by suffering. But, let us take it in the most generic sense that you would like to understand. In whichever sense you would like to understand suffering or in whichever degree or magnitude you would like to understand suffering hold on to that magnitude and if you agree that suffering is worse than no suffering. See, studying overnight in the lack of sleep for an examination is also suffering. Now, if that suffering is worse than no suffering, you would rather sleep peacefully or watch a movie and sleep peacefully rather than study. So, you are suffering when you are preparing for your examinations, then suffering is bad, would you say that? Well, it seems a very intuitive jump from one is to two that well suffering is worse than no suffering well, suffering is bad. Well, this jump is only possible if you are holding an ethical naturalism as a metaethical claim. Therefore, if there is, if you believe that well, what is bad or suffering is something that you do not desire, you desire to stay away from, then that makes it bad. So, you are therefore, making a naturalistic claim. So, suffering is bad or the equivalent of it that one ought not to encourage suffering that one ought not to encourage suffering. Now, such claims that suffering is bad and one ought not to encourage suffering assumes that this is a value claim, this is a psychological fact or a natural fact. Now, this value claim can be derived from this factual or psychological fact only if we have this middle assumption of ethical naturalism. Now, most of our ethical or metaethical assumptions are almost implicit and very subtly implanted in the way we think and therefore, it is sometimes too obvious or too trivial for us to be true, because consider this when we have a difference of opinion, it could mostly be a difference in the theory or the metaethical claim that we have. Now, somebody who is not an ethical naturalist would be of the opinion that well, yes psychologically I would prefer no suffering over suffering, but that does not make suffering anything evil or wrong, because suffering could be on its way to a greater goal or suffering could be a way that human beings, there are various explanations given, suffering could be a means to get the best out of human beings and various other claims. So, thereby making a claim that well, suffering is bad and suffering is not bad in fact, that too cannot be arrived from one. So, that is an example of a non naturalist claim. Now, this is one of the difficulty as we look in the slides, this is one of the difficulty that the ethical naturalist faces, because this is a difficulty also which is faced by the utilitarianism. How can one move from a factual claim to a value claim? This is a question which we will tackle later in context of a particular philosopher called David Hume, that how do we move from a factual claim to a value claim. For instance, now let us take an example. Suppose I do an action B, which is by a DVD of a movie, I saw at my friends place and liked it, it has a small budget and a new maker, implying that insufficient or just barely sufficient funds. Now, if I do this act B, what could be the reason? Now, I have already watched a movie, I do not intend to watch it again, let me mention that too, do not intend to rewatch or narrow cast or share it with anybody else or I do not have any value for keeping it as a collector's item. I purely buy a DVD of this movie, which I have seen as a vote to the movie maker. Now, why do I do this B? I do this B probably, I do this B not probably, but definitely to transfer resources to the movie maker. Now, why would I like to transfer resources to the movie maker? Well, first to encourage the movie maker to provide resources say money to settle dues or invest in new project. Now, if this is basically the reasoning that I go through, that I buy a DVD of a movie, which I saw at my friend's place, I like the movie, but I do not intend to rewatch the movie or to narrow cast it to anybody or to have it as a collector's item. I see that the movie is a small budget movie by a new movie maker, so barely the movie maker would be having sufficient funds. So, I decide to buy a DVD or a set of DVDs of the same. My aim is to transfer resources to the movie maker. I also recommend others as I make a moral claim that one ought to buy, one ought to do B, if one has liked the movie and shares the same conditions. Now, what is it that makes an action B morally evaluable? Well, the reason for it can be two. The first is to encourage the movie maker, which is psychological and to provide resources or money to settle dues for the old movies made or to invest in a new movie that the director is making. So, material, nevertheless, both of these are natural facts. So, that is an example of an ethical naturalism foundation that well, if I am an ethical naturalist, I would like to wish, I would like to buy a DVD or a set of DVDs, even though I do not have any use for it as a matter of psychologically encouraging the movie maker and providing him resources to settle his or her dues or to invest in a new project. Now, what if I were not an ethical naturalist? Now, if I were not an ethical naturalist, I would silently say I would silently thank the maker. Now, that does not have any natural ramifications. So, other ways of looking at an ethical naturalist domain would be that well, to play the devil's advocate to argue that what, who is not an ethical naturalist could argue that well, my silently thanking the maker could turn the attention of cosmos towards the maker. So, something as unusual or which in today's parlance is as unbelievable as a good wish, which does not even serve as a psychological encouragement that for an ethical naturalist that has no value and that cannot be incorporated into an ethical domain. .. Now, let us look at a few more clarifications. Well, ethical naturalism and moral realism. Now, what is realism? We have talked about this term realism quite often. Realism in philosophy would mean that an object or an entity is real, if it exists independent of the perceiver. A very bare simple, but rigid definition of what is something, what is it for something to be real. So, realism is opposed to being the mere figment of imagination or creation of the mind. So, realism or moral realism would mean that well, there are moral facts which are independent of the perceiver. That moral facts do not are not figments of imagination or creations of mind and thereof differ from person to person, but there is something real about it. Let us take a look at what the slide reads. Now, moral realism claims that ethical claims can be classified as true or false. Now, when anything is real or claim to be under the purview of realism, any that claim can be judged as true or false. Thus, for the moral realist, there is an objective criteria of determining the truth value of moral judgments. The ethical naturalist is a moral realist as far as the ethical naturalist. As for the ethical naturalist, there are criteria to serve as the criteria for validating ethical judgments. Now, take a moment to read these bullets by yourself. Now, let us try to understand what we mean by ethical naturalism and its relation to moral realism. So, what are moral realists? Moral realists claim that there is an objective criteria for determining the value of truth value of moral judgments. How are these to be determined? Well, that depends on the parameter that you take. So, moral realist is not claiming how. It is only explaining that it should be determinable. Now, one of the answer to this how is ethical naturalism. Well, because the ethical naturalist is a moral realist. As for the ethical naturalist, there are criteria to serve as the criteria for validating ethical judgments. What are these criteria? These criteria are natural facts and properties, but there can be other answers to the same question. So, there can be moral realists who are not ethical naturalists. Now, let us take a look at them. Obviously, all moral realists are not naturalists. As there are realists who assert the objectivity of moral judgments without resorting to natural facts or properties. Cannot categorical imperative or raw ethical rules or examples of moral realism, but not ethical naturalism. Now, let us take a look at what do we mean by moral realism. Well, realism first meant that, well, entities exist independent of the perceiver. Moral realism meant that, well, there can moral claims can be true or false. Why can they be true or false? Because there is an objective criteria in determining their truth or falsity. Hence, the word realism applied to the term moral. So, moral realism is saying that, there can be objective right and wrong. How can there be objective right and wrong? Because there is a parameter. There is an answer book. There is a manual or a code or something out there with which we need to verify. What is this something with which we can verify? Here is where ethical naturalism is an answer to the index posed by moral realism. It is like this, that moral realism claims that there is an answer to moral question. How do you find out the answer is what the ethical naturalists do? That they find out the answer by going back to or analyzing it in natural terms, in the terms of nature or natural facts or properties. Are there other answers possible? Yes, there are other answers possible. One can be a deontologist or Kantian deontologist claiming that, well the categorical imperative determines right and wrong. One can be a rule follower as Ross that, well these are the set of rules and as long as you confirm with these, it is right. As long as you do not concur with these, it is wrong. So, there are also moral realists. So, naturalism is a part, is a kind of moral realism. But of course, all moral realists do not have to be ethical naturalists because, there can be other parameters for assessing moral judgments. So, as we see that well, ethical naturalism is a part of moral realism, but does not occupy the whole of the space of ethical naturalism.


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