Reddit mentions: The best animal rights books

When it comes to the abolitionist vs. reductionist "debate", there are a massive number of misconceptions on both sides. The thing is both "sides" want the same thing: minimizing harm done to animals. Everyone agrees that a world in which fewer nonhumans were harmed would be better than a one in which more nonhumans were harmed. So then where does the divide come from?

Well, as it turns out, there are multiple stages of behavioral change.

>Stage 1: Pre-contemplation: The individual does not recognize that their behavior needs changing. In the context of animal advocacy, the individual may proudly consume animal "products" and state that they have no intention of ever changing.

>Stage 2 — Contemplation: The person first begins to consider the merits of changing the behavior. They may ask for information about vegan nutrition or recipes, or ask about videos that show the cruelty of the animal agriculture industry.

>Stage 3 — Preparation: The individual perceives a need to change and is getting ready to do so. They may indicate that it's time for them to go vegan and that they are ready to take that final step.

>Stage 4 — Action: The individual is actively working on changing the behavior. Here, the individual is in the early stages of their transition to veganism and is changing their routines.

>Stage 5 — Maintenance: The behavioral change has been made and the individual is working to prevent relapsing to their old ways. This phase is critical because a relapse is a very real concern, though the more one resonates with ethical arguments of veganism related to minimizing our harm to animals, the less likely they are to revert to non-veganism.

Misconception #1: Abolitionism condemns people who take baby steps.

So this is where a lot of the confusion arises. Abolitionism isn't against encouraging baby steps, it's against advocating for baby steps as an end goal. One can still be assertive with the idea that animals "are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way" (i.e., Stage 1) while encouraging those who are making changes (Stage 4), and in fact this sweet spot leads to the best activism possible: it means animal rights advocates never advocate for any kind of animal abuse yet still encourage change along the way to the end goal of veganism.

Misconception #2: Abolitionism is about being morally pure in our advocacy, reductionism is about being effective.

This is a common way to sterotype abolitionists and reductionists, but in fact abolitionism is precisely about valuing what is the most effective form of activism over what what merely feels good. This leads to the next misconception:

Misconception #3: Advocating for less-than-veganism is the most effective way to get people to start making changes in the right direction. (Alternatively, advocating for veganism scares people away from making small changes.)

To some, this seems intuitive; if people are angry at us for advocating such "extreme" ideals, won't that make them more likely to ignore us or even harm more animals? Well, the core of clinical behavioral change science does not agree.

To quote Casey Taft, one of the vegan community's leading experts on this topic:

>Our goal should be to work on motivating people to go vegan; then, once they have made the commitment to do so, we can help them take the steps necessary to get there. That is a true behavioral change strategy.

>Many individual animal advocates and organizations fear promoting veganism as an end goal because they feel that if they're too "pushy" they will lose people altogether. This is likely a leading factor in why a larger cultural shift towards veganism has not occurred. It is in fact possible—and optimal—to clearly state a goal of ending violence towards animals and work with non- vegans in a productive, non-aggressive manner to produce behavioral change.

>Many of us (myself included) took many years to go vegan, and progressed from reducing animal consumption to transitioning to a plant-based diet and then veganism. Some argue that since they took a gradual approach, this is what we should be advocating for others. What they are missing, though, is that if they received clear vegan messaging to end all animal use, they may have gone vegan much sooner and prevented the deaths of many more animals. When we advocate for veganism as an end goal, people will naturally reduce their animal consumption, but will likely do so at a faster pace and will ultimately go vegan. Some will literally go vegan overnight.

>Some animal advocates may also argue that it is simply more effective to ask people to cut down on animal use rather than asking them to go vegan. It is important to keep in mind that there is absolutely no scientific evidence for such claims, [...] and this perspective is not based on any sound theoretical rationale for long-term behavioral change. In fact, such notions disregard a wealth of data showing that it is important to set clear long-term goals that involve a true discrepancy between that goal and current behavior. In other words, it is counterproductive to "settle" for an easy-to-attain goal that the individual is likely to change without our intervention when we could be helping to set more challenging long-term goals to strive for, and that would represent truly internal behavioral change.

>You might still be asking yourself, "That all sounds good, but what if the person I'm communicating with refuses to commit to going vegan?" My response is that I would expect the other person not to make that commitment when you first begin discussing veganism with them in particular. However, their resistance to committing to veganism does not mean that they are a lost cause by any means. Your communication with them may have helped stimulate some thoughts on the issue, and perhaps it will open the door to them having a follow-up discussion or conducting some research on their own. Few people go vegan after any one particular interaction, and we must not place too much pressure on ourselves to make others go vegan after any interaction. Making such a commitment is best thought of as a process. [...] All that we can do is to help move them closer to choosing veganism, but we cannot force them to change, and we should not engage in desperate tactics such as asking them to reduce their animal use rather than promoting veganism because it is less conducive to long-term change.

>We should also be mindful of our larger end goal at the societal level in our advocacy efforts. If our goal is to ultimately convince the world population that we must end all animal use, we should be treating veganism as an issue of social justice and should not encourage others to continue to think of animals as "products" for which we can continue to consume in moderation. We must be careful that our animal advocacy does not perpetuate oppressive views of nonhuman animals, which would ultimately be to their detriment.

Misconception #4: It is permissible for abolitionists to be agressive in their advocacy.

Often times online you will encounter vegans who, in an "argument" against a nonvegan, will degrade themselves to name calling, personal attacks, and bad form. Remember, abolitionism is about what is most effective, not what feels right, and such behaviours are clearly detrimental to the movement.

Such behaviours are often pinned on abilitionism, however, because of a confusion between aggressiveness and assertiveness. The thing is, both aggressiveness and assertiveness may lead to anger, but these are very different types of anger. One leads to increased hatred, while the other leads to true social change, as clearly demonstrated by the civil rights movement and every other social justice movement before and afterwards.

>“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

>Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Further reading and listening:

1. Casey Taft's Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective, from which most of the quotes in this post originate
   
   
2. Amazing Vegan Outreach's Why Vegans Need to be More Annoying, a presentation on the principles of Kingian nonviolence
   
   ^^Since ^^this ^^topic ^^came ^^up ^^frequently ^^in ^^this ^^thread, ^^rather ^^than ^^commenting ^^multiple ^^times, ^^I ^^will ^^merge ^^the ^^threads ^^here.
   ^^/u/autoswamp ^^/u/MikeVegan ^^/u/Serrahfina ^^/u/sonnywoj ^^/u/AxilyaOryl ^^/u/I-_-II ^^/u/liberalindianguy ^^/u/Sanious ^^/u/klmoviat ^^/u/georgebshaw ^^/u/meatspin27 ^^/u/burtshort ^^/u/Frog-Eater ^^/u/thrwpllw ^^/u/BBMathlvr ^^/u/botania ^^/u/refined_compete_reg
   
   
   

you're thoroughly welcome. equipping yourself with facts for all these 'how do you get your protein' and 'but plants have feelings' questions is so incredibly important to get taken seriously, so watching the street videos is worthwhile. i also recommend earthling ed's street videos which are also found on youtube. books exist in order to aid you in these debates also such as this one, which i (perhaps not as subtly as i'd like) leave on the coffee table. people see the book, naturally pick it up (not noticing it's a book about veganism) to move conversation along, and trap themselves into a conversation about veganism, lmao.

one more tip: when people ask you why you're vegan, simply say 'why not?'. it's very effective once you've learnt a sufficient amount.

glad i could help, and good luck.

I understand I was a level 10 meat fanatic before I went vegan. Since you've seen Earthlings you already know there's no way the fleeting taste sensation from eating animals is worth it. Farmed animals have just a strong a desire to stay alive as you and I and I'm glad you've decided to make the switch!

The FAQ has a bunch of tips and since it's still January this Veganuary website has loads of tips and info for people starting out.

You may be interested in reading just to build on that desire to avoid animal products. Eating Animals is a well written and easy read from a more investigative, curious perspective. Also, Eat Like You Care is a very simple and short but very clear explanation on the morality of consuming animals.

But the biggest tip is that although right now it seems like a huge switch once you stop eating animals for a few days and start getting the hang of it you'll be amazed at easy it gets.

Shorter encapsulations of his work in animal ethics.






"The Animal Rights Debate




Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights" serves as a pretty good intro to him and animal ethics in general:


The Case for Animal Rights. Most important work. Written in 1983; I think it's still the most rigorous argument in animal ethics.


And The Moral Rights of Animals. From the description: "The attitudes of philosophers on our obligations to other animals and the view that other animals possess certain moral rights have shifted considerably in the last 40 years and a great deal of credit for this shift is owed to Tom Regan's The Case for Animal Rights and subsequent work. This excellent anthology grew out of a 2011 workshop held in Regan's honor and is dedicated to him. It features fourteen essays all of which intersect with Regan's views in some way."

Dunno, Lilly is pretty much the only person I know of who's studies are 'widely' known, trying to communicate with dolphins has been attempted often, but research has always been secretive and not very open.

Lilly's studies were very promising, his wife literally lived with a dolphin in a semi submerged sort of living space and the dolphin was starting to mimic her language (in regards to grammar, rather than specific human sounds) it knew words and could in a koko the gorilla sort of sense communicate its wants and needs. It was obvious it had more to say but couldn't really articulate it though.

Only problem was was the dolphin was extremely sexually active, and really wanted johns wife, lol :)

It sort of stopped the experiment from working correctly, sure there was a tv documentary about it I'll see if I can find it.

The dolphin to dolphin communication studies I've seen are few and far in between also, but they talk naturally without 'words' in a traditional lingual sense, and the signal that is sent/received is more like a cymatic pattern on a plate, variations of it convey a different meaning or emotion.

EDIT: I remembered another pair (syblings) that also tried to study dolphins but were shut down in a more men in black style encounter, 'the perfect pair' they did a few more too, that was the first book.

Hey - glad you're interested in the philosophy behind Veganism. The literature is truly thought-provoking, and to answer one of your later questions, it was precisely what spurred my decision to go vegan. After reading Paola Cavalieri's 'The Animal Question' (which is informed by Singer's work) I realized that what morality required was veganism and an end to the exploitation of animals. I personally have not read much Francione, however I am much more familiar with other authors, such as the aforementioned Cavalieri, as well as Garner, Donaldson & Kymlicka, and have a passing grasp on Singer, Ragan, and Nussbaum. So here are my two cents, you may or may not find this helpful!

Veganism is radical. Meat consumption and use of animal products in every aspect of our daily life is ubiquitous; so much of human culture incorporates animal exploitation in some way or another. Viewed in this light going vegan is an extremely radical departure from human history and the status quo - it is understandable to be intimidated by this fact. With that being said, once you make the change, it really stops becoming so difficult. Learning to cook new recipes and incorporating new items into your repertoire is exciting and will make you a better cook, not mention that you'll feel amazing. I've been vegan for about a year now, and avoiding animal products, in food or in commercial products, is becoming more and more unconscious as time passes. I rarely feel like I am abstaining from anything or depriving myself of anything. Also this subreddit is great if you ever get in a rut with motivation or commitement, or you just want a new recipe to try out.

Regarding your question about the right to life of sentient beings and our obligations to them - I'm not sure precisely what Francione's view is, but the abolitionist argument is somewhere along the lines of: provided you accept the inviolability of human rights (right to life, right to not suffer, etc), and provided you can't find any morally relevant distinctions between humans and non-human animals, then there is no justification for the differential treatment of humans and non-human animals when it comes to said rights. Abolitionists claim there are no morally relevant distinctions; they reject species membership (imagine that membership to a specific race or gender was enough to justify differential treatment b/w individuals), rationality (we accord rights to non-rational humans e.g. infants, cognitively impaired humans; in the literature this is referred to as The Argument From Marginal Cases), and intrinsic value or natural right (these are metaphysical claims w/ arbitrary justification) as possible justifications. I would like to note this is a painfully brief survey of the abolitionist position, and I assure you in the animal rights literature the examples and arguments I have mentioned are infinitely more fleshed out.

Peter Singer is a utilitarian/consequentialist - which means that whether an act is deemed morally good or bad depends solely on the consequences. So therefore no act is intrinsically bad - on Singer's view, anything can theoretically be permissible provided the ends justify the means. This allows that non-human animals, or even humans, can be used instrumentally provided the consequences justify it.

Regarding whether we have an obligation to protect the right to life of animals - this question is only somewhat addressed in traditional accounts of animal rights theory. They acknowledge we have a duty protect animals within our care and not to harm animals generally, but don't really progress any further. If you're interested in this topic, I would direct you to Donaldson & Kymlicka's Zoopolis, which is an endlessly insightful and novel approach to the animal rights question, and it moves forward where a lot of animal rights theory falls short. The arguments in the book are couched in a moral and political philosophy framework, whereas often animal rights theories stay within the boundary of moral philosophy and applied ethics.

I just realized I wrote a WALL of text, sorry! What can I say, I'm procrastinating on writing a paper, and I guess this isn't the least productive thing I could be doing. Hope this was somewhat helpful :)

Edit 1: missing words and typos.

The Oxen at the Intersection: A Collision (or, Bill and Lou Must Die: A Real-Life Murder Mystery from the Green Mountains of Vermont)

I love this book because it is short but very thoughtfully written. It discusses a pretty recent conflict between localvores and animal rights activists, and it covers how the attitudes and politics toward food and animals have been shaped over many generations. Here's a review of the book and a bit more about the situation.

Modern Savage: Our Unthinking Decision to Eat Animals is being released in a few days. I pre-ordered it because I know he concerns himself with the environmental as well as ethical problems with eating animals. He has a pretty active blog: www.james-mcwilliams.com

Also, the Food Empowerment Project is an amazing organization with lots of material on their site. They are concerned with animal exploitation, access to healthy food, and the marginalization and mistreatment of workers in the global food industries, especially women and POC. Their latest victory is getting Clif to disclose the countries of origin for their chocolate, which is frequently sourced with slave and child labor.

Sounds like you might find these four books useful:

Change of Heart: What Psychology Can Teach Us About Spreading Social Change
by Nick Cooney

How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach by Tobias Leenaert


Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters
by Melanie Joy PhD

Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective
by Casey T. Taft

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer might interest you. Almost seven years old now, but still interesting.

Maybe you would like something written by the animal rights philosopher Tom Regan. His Empty Cages are a great read, and he has written a very readable introduction to moral philosophy on ~150 pages: Animal Rights, Human Wrongs

Zoos yes and quite obviously. “Pets” are more difficult. Obviously breeding and trading dogs, cats and hamsters, etc. would be off the table. But what about the dogs cats and hamsters that are still here? Shouldn’t we care for them?

Two main options: (1) Care for the ones that are here as well as possible, but don’t let them reproduce. Let them cease to exist as a species. (2) Incorporate them in the political community. Take guidance from theories addressing the case how the interests of humans who have limited abilities to communicate and organize themselves can be fairly incorporated into the institutions of our societies.

Under both approaches there are numerous complexities: Assuming the view of “animals as persons”, one would probably reconsider the kind of responsibilities carers would have towards their animal companions. Having a dog killed for minor reasons other than self defense, like because he craps on your furniture, because you don’t want (or can’t) afford medical care or because a new romantic partner doesn’t like her would be off the table. Probably we should have public institutions who support people who struggle with or fail at their role as a caregiver.

One additional complexity are carnivore animals. Dogs can usually thrive on a plant based diet. Cats only sometimes. Assuming a vegan diet is infeasible for some cat, this raises a dilemma: Is raising and killing some animals to feed others O.K.? The hardness of this dilemma is part of what makes option (1) above so attractive to many vegans.

An influential vision of option (2) was written down by Donaldson and Kymlicka, while Francione wrote influentially on abolishing “pets” as a special case of abolishing animal exploitatoin in general. Torres and Benton influentially wrote on animal rights and the critique of the political economy.

> consumption = murder which I find incredibly flimsy for the reasons you outline above

I agree, this is regrettable, mostly wrong, or at least misleading and often elitist. I mentioned above, that I’d say though that it’s an idea with a rich cultural history that extends way beyond veganism. To make matters worse, I think this interpretation of veganism is mainstream and increasing in popularity. It is interesting though to compare the earliest definition and the current official one with this distinction in mind. While I think both are unfortunately ambiguous on the point “consumption vs politics”, I’d say the current is more suggestive towards the consumerist interpretation.

A case that I also find quite interesting is the historical movement of “ethical shoppers against (human) slavery”.

I attended a lecture on the rise of fundamentalism about six years ago, but I don't have any references to hand I'm afraid.

If these topics are of interest to anyone, I'd recommend reading Straw Dogs, by John Gray. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1862075964/202-4818677-1343821?v=glance&n=266239

I recently made a post here if you're interested in the subject.

>This article does a good job giving an overview of the links between toxic masculinity and eating meat/domination over animals. This is a concept that's been explored for a long time and is gaining more prevalence. See for example Carol J. Adams' "The Sexual Politics of Meat". Even just googling "meat masculinity" will show you tons of discussion like this and this.

>I don't see carnism linked to toxic masculinity very often in this sub. Given how deeply this affects all of us, our cultural, societal, and gender roles, our health, our environment, and multiple systems of oppression (speciesism, racism, sexism, classism, etc.), I think this difficult topic ought to be more well-known and discussed outside of vegan circles.

Gray is great. In philosophical terms, he's a "hedgehog" not a "fox". He has knows one big thing, not lots of little things (it seems to me that he gets a lot of the little things wrong) - so if you read one of his books, you've read them all. I'd recommend Straw Dogs - in my opinion his best.

Straw Dogs solved all my existential problems.

I hope it can also help you. Good luck.

I think Mr Ranters misandry is ubiqutious, not racial ... It's from John Gray's book, Straw Dogs I think :) and is a reference to sapiens and monkeys evolving from the same linege. The irony of course being the teaching of Evolution being phased out in the great state of Texas :)

• Eternal Treblinka
  
  
• Bleating Hearts
  
  
• Eat Like You Care
  
  
• Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows
  

It can and has gone both ways. We need public support, but change can also occur through legislation, and often public support will follow once legislation has been passed. Tobias Leenaert writes in How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach:

>When a democratic government implements a new law, it's usually the case that enough public support exists for it to pass. However, there will always be people (sometimes a large number of them) who don't support the law. Yet, by definition, if the law applies to them, they have to obey it or risk being penalized. This forced behavioral change, however, may be followed by a change in attitude later, so that people who were initially opposed to the law eventually come to accept it.

>A classic example is the law on buckling your seat belt. Polls show that many of those who initially opposed wearing seat belts later supported mandatory use (Fhaner and Hane). I can imagine the same switch with the prohibition of smoking in public places. Initially, the ban caused opposition and outrage in many countries. Today, many people can hardly believe or even remember that smoking used to be acceptable in universities or hospitals, or that teachers could smoke at school. Many of those same resisters find it obvious and good that the law was changed.

• Effective Altruism: How Can We Best Help Others? by Magnus Vinding (available for free and on Amazon)
  
• Effective Altruism online course with Peter Singer
  
• [More advanced] Resources at EA Hub

I would recommend this. I am a layman, but it was really well written and addressed things that I've wondered about as well as things I hadn't thought of, in terms of the philosophical reasons why we should not treat animals in ways that we currently do.

This probably might be somewhat completely unhelpful towards your cause, but it is a good read anyways.

I started a debate thread on r/vegan a while back in order to get their perspective on one of my favorite pastimes; hunting. The discussion was very one sided as I was the only hunter participating, and it was not exactly philosophically rigorous. But here is a short example of how I would justify hunting and the consumption of meat in general. For further reading check out Carl Cohen and Tom Regan's debate on animal rights. Also here is another fairly un-philosophical, colloquial defense of hunting I posted in a thread on r/documentaries.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Beardude-Story-Data-Dogma/dp/1508540675

I feel this will be an amazing Christmas present

I would recommend reading Animal Rights, Human Wrongs: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy by retired philosophy professor Tom Regan. This clarified the moral dimension of the issue for me. For instance, if you still have persistent moral justifications for exploiting non-human animals, this book makes everything theoretically clear.

Philosopher-turned-crumudgeon John Gray has entered the point of his career where he sees the flaws in just about to everything, and writes a book about it. His attack on humanism is called [Straw Dogs] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0374270937?qid=1425697191&sr=8-1&vs=1) .

People being critical of our ideas is never fun, but it can be valuable. He's not everyone's cup of tea, but it fits the bill of what you're asking for.

I have written a reccomendation for Mind if I Order the Cheeseburger before. I also recommend 'Bleating Hearts for a well sourced account of how animals are treated in industry. For a rebuttal against 'humane' meat I recommend 'The Ultimate Betrayal'

The go-to document as a starting point when discussing environmental impact is the United Nations Food and Agriculture report 'Livestock's Long Shadow'. Stronger claims have been made since it was published, but it's a thorough review from a source that's hard to argue with.

The go-to article to re-assure someone that veganism does not jeopardise health is the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) position paper on vegetarianism.

Apologists.

And I agree. You were being assertive, not aggressive. The book Motivational Methods for Vegan Advocacy: A Clinical Psychology Perspective argues that there is no evidence that compromising your message will be helpful in advocating on behalf of animals.

You should check out Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals by John Gray

>A radical work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From the Enlightenment to Nietzsche and Marx, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world.

>Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism think of humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the Earth. Even in the present day, despite Darwin's discoveries, nearly all schools of thought take as their starting point the belief that humans are radically different from other animals.

Non-mobile: Straw Dogs

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

Straw Dogs

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals blew my mind when I was 15, although it seems to have very mixed reviews.

I think you'd like this book.

There doesn't seem to be a Dutch version of Amazon, but alas.

I wrote my thesis on this. Here are a few of my sources and some new works:

The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery

Eternal Treblinka

The Sexual Politics of Meat

Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters

Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation

It could be lost surprisingly fast. Think of the Dark ages. If the world fell under a dark, oppressive cloud of Islam for example. Obviously Muslims are not a race but the races that hold on to Islam are breeding very fast and invading Europe at the same time. They will raise their children as Muslims who will then go on to have children themselves and raise them as Muslims. All the while white European birth rates plummet (and places like Japan). Don't think they won't literally burn down all the libraries of "infidel blasphemy", destroy technological infrastructure etc. while yelling Allahu Akbar! if they get the chance. Things could change very quickly if all the defences were dropped. As much as you want this great world where everyone is united and working together to explore space it just isn't reality not totally anyway. People are still just tribal, pack animals at heart. There are people out there that hate you and your way of life and they want to destroy it. They are training, they are armed and they are fuelled by a powerful, delusional belief.

Here's a (kind of related) interesting book suggestion I think you might like:

Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

>In a work of thoroughgoing iconoclasm, British philosopher Gray attacks the belief that humans are different from and superior to animals. Invoking pure Darwinism, he savages every perspective from which humans appear as anything more than a genetic accident that has produced a highly destructive species (homo rapiens)--a species that exterminates other species at a phenomenal rate as our swelling numbers despoil the global environment. Gray explains the human refusal to confront the darker realities of our nature largely as the result of how we have consoled ourselves with the myths of Christianity and its secular offspring, humanism and utopianism. Human vanity, he complains, has even converted science (which should teach us of our insignificant place in nature) into an ideology of progress. But neither hope for progress nor confidence in human morality passes muster with Gray, who envisions a future in which the human population finally contracts as a world politics that grows ever more predatory and brutal shatters all such illusions. As a work of ruthless rigor, this provocative book will force readers to re-examine their own convictions.

It's good to talk about this stuff and I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

1. Strongly disagree with Fukuyama and Pinker. History is cyclical. Free market is good, but neoliberalism sucks. Neoliberalism is just bureaucracy that removes big players from skin in the game. See Nassim Taleb and John Gray.
   
   
2. No, because our desires for technology and science themselves still stem from our biologies. See Straw Dogs by John Gray. Even transhumanism ultimately is an integration with biology and still driven by irrational biological impulses. Humans can do whatever they want, but that doesn't mean that there aren't black swan risks and hidden consequences.
   
   
3. Vague question. Individualism vs. collectivism is an illusion. Everyone is connected in networks.
   
   
4. How do you define unions? Many 20th century structures will be replaced by smart contracts.
   
   
5. Political correctness = fear/denial of skin in the game. No, Christian fundamentalists were trying to ban violent video games, prostitution, etc.
   
   
6. Political correctness has always existed... it's just it used to be local, now it's universal. Universalist morality, first introduced by Kant, is the greatest crime against humanity. Kant is worse than Marx. Kant and Unitarian Universalism led to Progressivism, denying the world of Tradition.