Ten Potentially Catastrophic Threats To Human Survival

"The risks emerging now are varied, global and complex. Each one poses a 'significant' risk to human civilisation, a "catastrophic risk", or could actually extinguish the human species and is therefore an 'existential risk'.The risks are interconnected. They originate from the same basic causes and must be solved in ways that make no individual threat worse.

"This means many existing systems we take for granted, including our economic, food, energy, production and waste, community life and governance systems – along with our relationship with Earth's natural systems – must undergo searching examination and reform."

Will COVID-19 be a wake-up call to abandon magical thinking and universally adopt science-based thinking? Consider that 

• "more than 99 percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species,^[1] that ever lived on Earth are estimated to have died out^[2][3][4] (link)"

Click on the link below:

10 Catastrophic Threats Are Facing Humans Right Now, And Coronavirus Is Only One of Them

Why Magical Thinkers Need More Humility

The irony of science is that, although it is the best method to understand objective reality, it is humble enough to realize that, as it discovers more and more, it shows us how much more there is to know and how counter-intuitive reality is at its basic sub-atomic/quantum level.

Compare this thinking to religious/magical thinking that is "certain" about reality based on thousands of years of superstitious/pre-science influence. It is more than past time to stop the "God of the Gaps"-type arguments when hitting a barrier to our objective knowledge and admit that, at that point, "We just don't know."

Click on the link below, as it is emblematic of the knowns and unknowns of our reality:

Anti-Matter and Quantum Relativity

Non-Medical Vaccination Exemptions

The evidence is clear: vaccines are safe and effective. For a variety of reasons, however, many people reject vaccinations for themselves and for their children. Under political pressure from these people, government entities have instituted dangerous policies called "Non-medical Vaccination Exemptions." This link shows that government policies removing nonmedical exemptions can be effective at increasing vaccination coverage. It's over-time for all government entities to abandon this practice of non-medical vaccination exemptions.

Another Serious Pandemic

Presently the world is experiencing one of its periodic viral pandemics. While all of them are serious health crises, there is arguably a greater pandemic that has permeated humanity essentially since its beginning: magical thinking. While there was an excuse for such superstitious and dogmatic thinking prior to science and its methods, presently there is no reason for it to be so ubiquitous. Especially with the internet, there is ready access to information falsifying all religions, alternatives to medicine, and other pseudosciences. Oh, if you think, "What's the harm?", the links below are for you:

• Harm from religion

• Harm from alternatives to medicine

• Harm from other pseudoscience

The antidote for this pandemic is science-based thinking!

The Worst Disease

"Official government lying from the top has gone viral. It kills democracy as surely as the Spanish flu, which in 1918 claimed 50 million lives and afflicted 10 times that number. False, weaponized and dysfunctional information will wreak even more havoc, literally affecting everyone on the planet."

"Weak watchdogs and lax social media bred a pandemic of dishonesty. We need new laws."
- - -

The only ultimate cure is a society that has mainstreamed science-based thinking and marginalized magical thinking:

Lying Politicians Are Killing Our Democracies

Televangelist Evil

"Who's the most powerful televangelist? The richest televangelist? The most popular? Here, I examine the world of televangelism in order to rank the world's top televangelists. Most manipulate vulnerable people into making them rich, some strive to gain political power, and sometimes, they actually try to preach the gospel in order to save souls. I cover Kenneth Copeland's private jets, Joel Osteen's best selling books, Benny Hinn's faith healing, and much more."

With all that is now known through science, why do we allow this to exist? All of this religious rip-off would not occur if magical thinking was marginalized by science-based thinking.

The Televangelist Tier List

Agnosticism

The stark difference between magical/faith-based thinkers and science-based thinkers:

Magical/faith-based thinkers:

"I am certain that the answer to all of the mysteries of the universe is God did it."

Science-based thinkers:

"We don't know enough about those questions to even ask them, let alone answer them."

The essence of agnosticism

(it is about knowledge, theism or atheism are about belief. These are different categories)

Magical vs Scientific Thinking

I am going back and forth with a Catholic who is having difficulty following me on the difference between magical vs. scientific thinking. This link clarifies it pretty well.

Religion Is A Mind Disease

"Growing up in church impairs your ability to ask better questions and detect logical inconsistencies in the answers you get, and on a large enough scale that has far-reaching consequences for the fate of a nation, and maybe even the world. You are taught from birth to accept so many incompatible ideas that eventually it breaks your irony meter."

How Faith Breaks Your Thinker

The Psychology of Religion

Yes, It IS Binary

Simple: you are either a magical or science-based thinker.

The former is ALWAYS morally wrong.

 

Free Will, Original Sin, And Education

Proponents of the Abrahamic religions like to talk about the sinful nature of humanity due to Original Sin.  They also promote the concept of Free Will and push for overcoming our weaknesses with such.  All of this is magical thinking and is counter to reality and harmful.  This article is a good example of science-based thinkers promoting something that works.

Students need trauma-informed care

Shame

The word, "shame", has negative connotations. It is painful, humiliating, disgraceful, causes regret, and can lead to censure by others.  Since humans are imperfect, we all have experienced it in some form.  That said, can there be positive results from it? I think that it can be an effective tool for changing poor behavior, as well as in changing one from being a magical thinker to being a science-based thinker, if used in a loving, caring manner. Some psychological research seems to support it also.

Following are other links supporting shame:

Social Media Shaming Is Good (in Moderation)

Why Shame and Guilt Are Functional For Mental Health

(Emirates 24/7)

Science-Based Thinking

Will science-based thinking ever replace, or at least marginalize, magical thinking?

The Virtues of Science-Based Thinking.