WAR CRY

 Elias G. Carayannis et al explain that the “impact of our pursuit of prosperity at any cost on the environment triggers displaced people floods and viral pandemics undermining the standard of living and more importantly the foundations of trust in institutions and in a better tomorrow feeding populist movements and autocratic trends in democracies as well as emboldening dictators” There are quite a few assumptions here, that there us a relationship between pursuit of prosperity and the degradation, as well as decline of the foundations that make society better (whatever that means). There is also the assumption that there is a direct relationship between happiness and natural and biological (or man-made) manifestations (e.g. pandemic). These assumptions are at the bottom of the diatribe liberals have been part of their war cry for decades. Are these assumptions sustainable, given the emotional connectedness between these issues and the ones who propagate them? There has been the concern for these things happening, but there are still questions about how they are related to facts. These so called “facts” are argued in the congress everyday and there are two or more sides to each of these issues. One has to ask, are there really any facts or does nihilism win the day. I saw something the other day that asked the question: is nihilism bad for mental health. This is about the most stupid question that one could ask; we live in a world where many find nothingness as disturbing and there is no distress tolerance. Much like the policy arguments that seem to drone on with so much emotion, one must realize that facts do not have feelings. This is not discrediting emotions as somehow a lesser way to measure value, but rather a statement about the value of facts. A statement of fact is about facts. I will investigate further what Carayannis and co-writers have to say in their continued discussion of policy making given the “known unknowns.”