Facticity

Considered as a whole, the world today is far from ideal for human, animal, or plant life as currently constituted. The earth has its own cycles that are more or less conducive to life, depending on your perspective and definition of life, but it is a natural, amoral entity and as such can be considered as a fact. Humans, being moral agents, are the only moral actors in the world and thus the only ones capable of defining life, judging what is for and against life, and acting to bring the world in conformance with their desires. Taken as a whole, humanity is a relatively immature and short-sighted group, choosing to act amorally for maximization of immediate desires with little thought for longer-term effects. The result of this short-sighted thinking is that we are creating (and living in) a world unsuitable for our own well-being.

There are a number of elements in the world that are very harmful to humanity. I will detail some of these here.

The elevation of physical over inner beauty

Henry Thoreau said that “The perception of beauty is a moral test.” We will explore that truth here.

Cars

Cars, or more generally motorized vehicles made to transport small numbers of people and goods conveniently and rapidly, are very harmful to human and non-human life. Our dependence on cars makes this situation particularly grave but these vehicles have properties that are harmful in themselves. The best we can do is to make these vehicles slightly less harmful. Our long-term goal should be to completely replace these vehicles with more alternatives more conducive to life.

Patents and Copyrights

This will take some explaining unless you’re a techie into open source, in which case you’re probably familiar with the argument.

Fossil fuels

Religion

Religion, especially the regressive monotheistic variety