Gloria Indica

Hi! Welcome to the 25^th edition of Gloria Indica. If you’re reading this for the first time, then welcome. Time and time again the feeling is to do nothing, sit back and brazenly, passively consume things, rather than create them, a fight against one’s own mind so to speak. As always, we renew the fight against bad logic and emotional, nonsensical hysteria.

Let’s start blazing. 

Pro-crasti-nation 

A piece from MIT Technology Review moved us so much, that our heads started lighting up in unison, all across our body within minutes, as if a spear of fire had been lit deep, deep inside our minds, goading us to stop procrastinating, start moving and use our physical body and brain more productively. While on one hand, it seems as if satisfaction and contentment would serve us well enough to lie back, on the other hand there are also stories of untold riches, productive enterprises and smart hobbies, that we ought to be investing our time in, and this fight against the lackadaisical nature of our mind bothers us to no end. 

While the exact point is about progress and satisfaction, a larger point is this: we’re convinced that human beings by nature are good people, with sets of circumstances turning them into the kind of men and women, all of us have many choice adjectives for. Yet, everyone can agree on a few certain things. Like believing in the sciences and economics rather than drumming up emotional hyperbole. For at the top of the human pyramid, where decisions affecting millions and billions are made, it is all about understanding who wants what, who controls what, who invents what and lastly, who finances what. 

Let’s keep blazing. 

Weapons

Primal, deep, entrenched within us – violence or thoughts about violence, spares none. We’re animals after all. Sometimes rational, sometimes sensible, sometimes calm. But animals. Streaks of it flares up when things get out of hand. Things getting out of hand is a natural consequence of our technological capabilities of communicating over long distances, watching each other over long distances and killing each other over long distances. 

That’s why humans, as a collective species are having the best of times and the worst of times at the same time. A proverbial, eternity lasting, never ending loop so to speak. Idealists tend to ignore their own violent selves and imagine as if sometime in the distant future, progress via technology would result in falling costs of healthcare, education and a basic standard of living for everybody, the result being the end of all conflicts, because they think, if everyone has more than enough to survive (food and ‘comfort’), violence and killing would end. This is naïve thinking. 

The United States army is here. 

“In the near future, the U.S. Army plans to deploy packs of semi-autonomous robot tanks armed to the brim with chainguns, missiles, and other fearsome weaponry. Two classes of these Robotic Combat Vehicles (RCVs) are already under development, Breaking Defense reports, with a third on the way. As they make their way to future battlefields, Major Corey Wallace explained at a conference last week, they’ll be used to lead the charge in both conventional and electronic warfare in the years to come.”

We aren’t going to say that countries all over the world ought to suspend and disarm all weapons of destruction and death. We know that’s not possible. Not possible because fundamentally, humans want to trust each other. Trust is the necessary precursor for productive personal and professional relationships. And if one set of people cannot trust the other side with regards to their lives and material prosperity, weapons can never be eliminated. 

Since we’re living in the best of times and the worst of times, weapons can never be eliminated. But their use can be reduced. How? Dialogue.

Let’s keep blazing. 

California raising the bar as always

Progressive legislation needs two key ingredients: a productive population and a productive state. For it is the duty of the state to mirror the expectations of its population. Here’s from California: 

“California may be the next state to relax laws outlawing possession of psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca, MDMA, and other psychedelic drugs, as the U.S.’s decades-old drug war continues to lose support among both lawmakers and the public. On Election Day last week, voters in Oregon and Washington, D.C. decisively approved ballot measures to decriminalize all drugs and increase access to psilocybin. Impressed with these successes, State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation that would decriminalize psychedelics after the state Legislature reconvenes next month.”

Before emotional hysteria, the sober public needs to be educated about two key things: biology (to understand medicine, cell structure and systems; body anatomy and its processes) and economics (human behaviour and incentives; state finances; employment numbers). While human rights and social justice are one part of it, it is to be mentioned that the primary purpose of any law and regulation is to harness the best of human intellect and the earth’s resources, while reducing the harms of excesses. 

Dialogue is the only way. 

Let’s keep blazing. 

Have a great day 🙂