Tim Jackson

I read his book, and I'm even more impressed about this TED Talk. What he seems to be doing, is to lay the ideological foundations for a genuine post-recession world. How does this differs from Natural Capitalism? I think what makes his ideas stand out from the rest is that he has truly put the human project at the centre of his concepts which intersects with the environment and the rest of economy. This differs markedly from Lovins in Natural Capitalism where the environment-economic nexus is primary, where human capital is only one chapter towards the tail end of the book, almost like an afterthought. I will be watching his work more, I guess. 

Overreaching of Justice, perhaps. But still, can't help thinking...

Was thinking a bit about the import of justice to the rest of academia, and I can't help but wonder if the concepts of justice actually undergirds most of social sciences or even in the humanities. I think this is in some sense, evident somewhat in some areas of sociology, where ideas of domination, exploitation and the like are explored - evidently with some relation to the issues of fairness/equitability - issue of justice, in some sense. 

Economics and Justice

I know Amartya Sen more as an economist rather than as a moral philosopher. Yet his name pops up in discussions of justice and all the other attendant questions. So... Economics is the study of who should get what and how, whereas Justice, at some level, seems to be about why anyone should get anything at all. 

If viewed from this perspective, different forms of political and economic organisation are responses to the same question, of why anyone should be getting anything at all. Why do we have rich and poor divides? Why are there laws, or money, or even codes of conduct? Why do these things arise at all? At one level, the reason for these things, are because of an economic system, but the economic system is really a means to the end for allowing people to get ... things, to fulfill needs, and perhaps, wants. 

Am reading: 

Quality of Life

http://www.amazon.com/Quality-Life-Report-meghan-daum/dp/0670032131

and

The Idea of Justice

http://www.amazon.com/Idea-Justice-Amartya-Sen/dp/0674036131

the truth is...

The truth is, I haven't been WORKING rather hard. I can imagine that I might live a *slack* life in the future, a calm peaceful life interrupted by an editor pushing me to finish up an article. And still get paid lots. Something like that. So I shrugged off defeating computer enemies n CNC 3 and rebooted my mac in mac os x and started *working* again.

Meanwhile, been struggling with the concept of justice. There are happy coincidences in life. The happy coincidence that relates to the concept of justice is that I was reading Plato's Republic AND watching Dark Knight. It then occurs to me that a lot of our entertainment are actually allegories about justice. Anything that has a good/bad-evil dichotomy can be thought of as an allegory of justice. The other dichotomy that is often explored is, the love-hate thingy.

And I was watching Dark Knight, and there was the Joker as a personification of chaos, destruction, and psychopathic evil, and there's Batman, Bruce Wayne trying to become the personification of justice itself... There was this quote that gnawed at me, about joker saying 'the unstoppable force meeting the unmoveable object' - Batman as the uncorruptible while the Joker as the irredeemable evil.

And then of course, the wonderful techno-orgasm inducing sonar handphones and that kind of power. One of the question is - having all that power, used in the pursuance of justice - is that good or bad?

Just a philosophical afterthought, I guess.