H.narrator Update 43
Recent On Topic Posts:
Past Lives of Humans 10: Mycenaean Greece to Late Bronze Age collapse
Of Possible Interest to Modern Humans
From H.narrator Home Page
Would You Die for Your Country?
Current Drafts of MS sections
[overview MS/Information package]:
Vol. I
0. Cover, Front/Back
1. Preface/Introduction to MS for Posterity
2. Human Significance in Time and Space
3. Life On Earth
4. The Evolution of Life on Earth
5. Our Biological Inheritance and the Biology of Slime Mold
6. Myopic Observers of Ourselves in a Linguistic Mirror
7. The Great Simplification Started About 75k Years Ago
8. What Is ‘Long Term’?
9. Marching on to Glory
10. The Trappings of Modernity
11. Simple Solutions That Ain’t
12. TEACHING METASTATIC SUPREMACY
13. Modern Human Expansionists
14. Metastatic Modernity
15. Really? And Then What?
16. In Review
17. Who Are We, Anyway?
18. So, What Can I Do?
19 The Last Fewer Words: A prescription
20 Epilogue
Vol. II
(elements of info/ideas in the online version (links/videos/parentheticals) will be removed in print version)
Quotes from the Dead Intro
Quotes From the Dead to 1800 CE
Quotes From the Dead 1800–1898 CE
Quotes From the Dead 1899—1941 CE
Quotes From the Dead 1942–Present
How Many Species Will Earth Lose to Climate Change?
Hominina Species
The Worldview of Zero-order Humanism
Ecolate Defined
Carrying Capacity
The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race Is Our Inability to Understand the Exponential Function
Carrying Capacity and Overshoot
Ruben Nelson Meta Challenge of the 21st Century
Music As Information Package
Food FYI
Agricultural Land and Human Carrying Capacity FYI
Environment, Power, and Society
Modern Human Expansion
Past Lives of Humans 1: An intro overview
Past Lives of Humans 2: Descent into Empire-Building
Past Lives of Humans 3: Wadi Kubbaniya to Natufian culture
Past Lives of Humans 4: Clovis expansion to Ubaid period
Past Lives of Humans 5: Starčevo-Körös-Criş culture to Malta
Past Lives of Humans 6: Solnitsata to Dene (Athabaskan) expansion
Past Lives of Humans 7: Yangshao culture to Uruk period
Past Lives of Humans 8: Sannai Maruyama to Paleo-Eskimo expansion
Past Lives of Humans 9: Stonehenge to Old Babylon Empire
Added:
“….man’s place in the universe is somewhere between the beasts and the angels [or superior to mere angels as it turns out], but, because of the divine image planted in him, there are no limits to what man can accomplish… [there are limits to what angels can accomplish].” ― Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 1463–1494 CE, nobleman and philosopher, from On the Dignity of Man 1486 CE, viewed as the “Manifesto of the Renaissance" which makes it foundational to the Enlightenment and Modernity, with Pico as first humanist proto-Protestant, or perhaps view it as modernity’s first manifesto of zero-order humanism
“Let some holy ambition invade our souls, so that, dissatisfied with mediocrity, we shall eagerly desire the highest things and shall toil with all our strength to obtain them, since we may if we wish.” ―Giovanni Pico
“A sacred pride should grip us of not being satisfied with the mediocre but to strive (for we can do it, if we want to) with the exertion of all our strength to attain the highest. Let us scorn what is of this earth, let us ignore what is of heaven, let us leave absolutely everything worldly behind us in order to hasten to the abode out of this world, in the proximity of the sublime deity. We do not need to think of stepping back. Of being satisfied with second rank, let us strive for dignity and glory. To attain the highest.” ― Giovanni Pico
“You can lower yourselves to the level of the beast, but you can also be reborn as a divine creature by the free will of your spirit. Man can become what he likes — subhuman or superhuman, as he wishes.” ― Giovanni Pico
“To [man] it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills.” ― Giovanni Pico
“You [Mankind] have been given no particular function. You may give your life whatever form you choose, do whatever you wish … you have no limitations, and can act in accord with your own free will. You alone can choose the limits of your nature.” ― Giovanni Pico
“Considering that we are born with this condition, that is, that we can become whatever we choose to become, we need to understand that we must take earnest care about this, so that it will never be said to our disadvantage that we were born to a privileged position but failed to realize it and became animals and senseless beasts…. Above all, we should not make that freedom of choice God gave us into something harmful, for it was intended to be to our advantage. Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.
Let us disdain earthly things, and despise the things of heaven, and, judging little of what is in the world, fly to the court beyond the world and next to God. In that court, as the mystic writings tell us, are the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones in the foremost places; let us not even yield place to them, the highest of the angelic orders, and not be content with a lower place, imitate them in all their glory and dignity. If we choose to, we will not be second to them in anything.” ― Giovanni Pico“We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, Neither mortal or immortal, So that with freedom of choice and with honor, As thought the maker and molder of thyself, Thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power out of thy soul’s judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine.” ― Giovanni Pico
“Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he will be like a plant. If sensitive, he will become brutish. If rational, he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, happy in the lot of no created thing, he withdraws into the center of his own unity, his spirit, made one with God, in the solitary darkness of God, who is set above all things, shall surpass them all.” ― Giovanni Pico
“…There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing.” ― Giovanni Pico
“Magia est pars practica scientiae naturalis (Magic is the practical part of natural science)” ― Giovanni Pico
“Neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal have we created thee, so that thou mightest be free according to thy own will and honor, to be thy own creator and builder. To thee alone we gave growth and development depending on they own free will. Thou bearest in thee the germs of a universal life.” ― Giovanni Pico
“We have given to thee, Adam, no fixed seat, no form of thy own, no gift peculiarly thine, that thou mayest feel as thine own, have as thine own, possess as thine own, the seat, the form, the gifts which thou thyself shalt desire. A limited nature in other creatures is confined within the laws written down by Us. In conformity with thy free judgment, in whose hands I have placed thee, thou art confined by no bounds; and thou will fix the limits of nature for thyself. I have placed thee at the centre of the world, that from there thou mayest more conveniently look around and see whatsoever is in the world. Neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal have We made thee. Thou, like a judge appointed for being honourable, art the molder and maker of thyself.” ― Giovanni Pico
See all
The global cosmetics market size was estimated at USD $295.95 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.1% from 2024 to 2030. With enough degrowth, the market will be USD $0 again in the non-monetary gifting economy of enough.