What are some of your most unpopular, potentially controversial views and opinions? I wrote up a list of mine as a therapeutic exercise to practice giving less fucks about encountering negative judgment. My views are all subject to questioning and re-evaluation as new information presents itself. Feel free to refute them for yourself if they unintentionally push your buttons, or contribute to the list with recommendations!
- Voluntary human extinction is preferable to progeny. Choosing to be childfree is an intrinsically noble, ethical and environmentally responsible decision. The population is estimated to reach 11 billion by 2050 - if people would rather not adopt, they need to be honest with their reasons (what about creating a ‘mini me, me, me'?), rather than try to justify why overpopulation isn’t an issue. (Lisa Hymas' article for The Guardian is a fantastic read on the subject.)
- It’s still unsustainable to depend on renewable energy to sustain our current rates of consumption/way of life without downshifting and pursuing a de-growth paradigm. High tech innovations still require the mining of rare earth metals and oil. I'm not suggesting we need to adopt an extreme primitivist lifestyle, just that low tech alternatives with a gentler environmental footprint are preferable.
- Any economic system, which glorifies competition and commodifies our personhood *causes* (not merely correlates with) depression, anxiety, and a range of mental illnesses. Cooperative support networks and human wellbeing would be more in tact if our socioeconomic system worked more like a library.
- Unschooling (and progressive models such as Montessori) are the only organised forms of education with any regard for the liberty, individual gifts and democratic representation of its students.
- Culturally sanctioned monogamy enables infidelity, jealousy, possessiveness and competitiveness, while ridiculously expecting that to somehow bring out the best in people. It perpetuates unrealistic myths of “the one" for the primary goal of homogenising the nuclear family. Nothing against folks with a personal preference for monogamy - I’m just strongly against the idea that it’s somehow wrong or immoral to have multiple loving relationships as a healthy alternative.
- Hardline secular humanism creates as much of a moral and existential vacuum as religion when it alienates us from nature, spiritual meaning, and the transpersonal pursuit of wholeness.
- Suicidal thoughts can be perfectly rational, and legally assisted euthanasia is justifiable for those who experience mental illness as though it were a terminal condition. By no means am I advocating suicide, or suggesting there is no hope for even the most serious cases. I'm just not dogmatic about the absolute sanctity of life.
- Caring about climate change and the environment is incomplete without adopting a plant-based diet/lifestyle, especially when factory farming is the single largest cause of unsustainable, ecocidal destruction upon our planet. Source: Cowspiracy.
- People with strong opinions can be profoundly annoying, proud, self-righteous vibekillers (I don’t take myself seriously after all, SO THERE. Will add to this list when I think of more.. ;)
