Posts on Angelo Canepa

Nihilism & Crisis

Sun, 10 Dec 2023 15:35:21 +0000

Carl Sagan’s pale blue dot “tale” usually reminds us how small and pointless our world problems are compared to the scale of the universe. The earth photographed by the Voyager 1 from billions of kilometres away renders an image of a tranquil and fragile place.
The analogy is a framework to help us think beyond our problems and soften our differences.
The same applies when we think about a meaning and a purpose related to the human experience. Not having a shared experience around those topics doesn’t make it less valuable. When religion was universally adopted, we felt spiritually interconnected having sociological ramifications.

Stoicism

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 09:09:00 +0000

I have been avoiding the idea of Stoicism for a while, but the concept keeps reappearing over and over again.

As a part of a series of philosophies from Hellenistic times, stoicism could be group together with skepticism and hedonism, the last two inspired in line with Socrates thought.

In Forbes, an entrepreneur tells the story of a US veteran who was held prisoner by Vietnamese forces in the 60’s. He used stoicism to overcome pain, memorizing the teachings from Epictetus’s book The Enchiridion – translated means The Handbook.

Sense and Morality

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 17:30:02 +0000

Every known science has started as open philosophy pursuit for the truth and the sportiveness of asking questions and wonder the what ifs. Eventually, those pursuits became establish sciences with more deepness and understanding in the studied subjects.

The lack of science in current philosophy dilemmas make me wonder if science would fill those gaps in a short and medium-term future and how it would look like.

The time in between where scientists will enter the scenes of today no sense – maybe they will never do – would generate loneliness and tremendous void among citizens of western society where development has changed or lives tremendously.

Debates: Are they leading to something?

Sat, 04 Nov 2017 16:10:04 +0000

Does not matter if you are interested in more rights to women or you prefer digital or analogue music players, debates are always a good way of getting our best arguments afloat and giving a second opinion to the counterpart. Also, means a battle of ideas – in a good way – where two parts of a particular society or mainstream collide with to two or more positions that are unchangeable over time. Let’s take for example a controversial topic, Palestina & Israel.

UBI: Idealism & Populism

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:33:41 +0000

UBI as a mainstream concept has been around for a few years from now and is qualified as a brilliant public policy because is a mechanism of instant transmission of income to all socio-economical classes without strings attached in how beneficiaries spend that money. Supporters of the concept, use the example of Harper Lee, an American writer who received a salary for one year from friends to dedicate entirely to write the novel How to Kill a Mockingbird, a tremendous success with 40 millions of book sold, and a Pulitzer Prize. Other intellectuals as Rutger Bregman (Historian) said that “UBI is a venture capital for the poor”. [1]

Christianity & Morality

Fri, 05 May 2017 07:16:18 +0000

Who remembers the following phrase?

Woman taken in Adultery (1524-27) – Ortolano

‘Let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone’.

The painting at the right shows the exact moment when Jesus wrote in the ground those words. It is imperative to know what the Bible says about this event

John 7:53–8:11

Then each of them went home, while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

Free Will

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 15:21:11 +0000

How free are we? Taking notice of different levels of free will, some scholars could argue we haven’t any.

The different levels of free will are referred to the different social constructs we live in. As a starting point, we have basic laws and morals, you can argue with that as a “constant” we could elaborate our own free will taking for granted the ethics & morals, for example, you can’t murder or steal from a store, taking one degree of freedom out. Let’s say we accept this level of freedom, we will encounter another level, where we have personal and social constructs regarding our own identity and behavior, from here there are things that are completely legal but we don’t feel to make them because is not part of us. Another degree is diminished into the real freedom. But still, in terms of this constructs, we can decide right?.

E-Democracy

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 00:10:26 +0000

A deep look into our contemporaneous world tells us that the breakthroughs make our lives better, from health up to technology. But one aspect remains the same, politics. Pia Mancini – founder DemocracyOs – have an interesting quote about this (also interesting ted talk here)

We are 21st century citizens doing our best to interact with 19th century designed institutions that are based on an information technology of the 15th century.

Individual freedom against Society well-being

Sun, 20 Nov 2016 19:42:01 +0000

Utopian ideals were always present among social imaginary. It’s human nature to try to reach those “higher” levels, but this ideas – even with strong values and a genuine worry about the society as a whole – allow their leaders generate atrocities against the people they want to help, becoming in big fallacies. Leaders of this ideas seem to embody the quote of Maquiavelo: “the ends justify the means”.

The ideas are battling each other, as a box ring, where depending on recent events and mass opinion, it will determine what ideas are winning, but even if that is happening, it’s more harmful that are fixed ideas rather than dynamically changing ideas. For example, analyzing cultural behavior in the beginnings of 1900, it was accepted to women couldn’t vote because the were different from men, they were considered as inferior. Richard D Atlkins, a literature professor states in his book Victorians People and Ideas

Democracies XXI: Politics new paradigm

Mon, 14 Nov 2016 00:08:20 +0000

Modern politics nowadays seems more dangerous than a few years ago, being a clear example, the election as President of Donald Trump, but I’m not interested in dig in this personality, rather I’m more worried in what democracies have become.

I can’t deny that democracies are the best way to rule societies, but the outcomes still aren’t desirable. Whatever is the country you live, political parties are becoming more demagogues and convincing the populations with short term proposals, also the presence of hidden powers like company lobbyist, corrupt the real concept of democracy. The damage politicians can made, it’s completely related with how malleable are citizens minds. Political science tell us politicians are a representation of the whole population, so theoretically they have a role to serve society, but funnily enough, we end to serve them.

Demagogism and populism

Sat, 05 Nov 2016 19:45:07 +0000

In modern politics those concepts have arisen without doubt. The different variations are similar concepts from a historical point of view, but my question is more technical than practical.

Could there be a confusion between the terms demagogism and populism?, this is a question raised from my own ignorance and not from academic questionings.

Why can I assure such sentence or affirmation?

Well we need to review the meanings of each word: