The goal of the book is to solve the three big problems plaguing our world: poverty, war, and environment deterioration from pollutions. The "big three," besides making lives unbearable for billions, also have increasingly threatened to destroy us. Many, including the wisest and the most learned the human race has to offer, have tried and only to fail. The reason is simple: they just don’t know what the reasons behind the problems are. This book, The Quest of an Unlikely Fixer, has through biophysics, clearly identified that the selfish nature of living organisms is the only reason. Selfishness always leads to hurtful behaviors; that is one of the reasons. The other reason is our godlike power. But we sadly don’t have the right morality to guide this power. The solution to human selfishness and our godlike power is by a correct, new golden-rule-based morality, which allows us to come up with two moral principles to deal with selfishness. The book introduces moral selfishness as the tool to heal our sick planet. Following moral selfishness will promote intelligence and cooperation among the people of the world. It will bring a paradise to our planet. The book is full of original ideas.
The Quest of an Unlikely Fixer
Introducing Moral Selfishness, the Only Way to Heal Our Sick Planet
By Stephen Y. CheungTrafford Publishing
Copyright © 2017 Stephen Y. Cheung, Ph.D.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4907-8526-4Contents
INTRODUCTION, v,
PART I DEFINING THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEMS: RAVAGING HUMAN, THE CANCER OF THE PLANET,
Chapter 1: A Planet Inflicted by Cancer, 3,
Chapter 2: Life, a Very Troublesome Thing, 10,
Chapter 3: The Cruel Game of Survival, 23,
Chapter 4: Life Is Full of Suffering and You Have No Choice, 50,
Chapter 5: Self and Selfishness, the Beginning, 65,
Chapter 6: The Same Selfishness, Two Drastically Different Outcomes, 75,
PART II THE RISE OF THE CRUEL GODS, THE UNLIKELY ROUTE OF EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN HUMAN,
Chapter 7: The Godlike Species, the Beginning, 83,
Chapter 8: The Role of Intelligence in Survival, 116,
Chapter 9: The Evolution of Intelligence in Early Humans, 128,
Chapter 10: The Price Tag of Higher Intelligence, 163,
Chapter 11: Self, Bond, and Cooperation, 177,
Chapter 12: Noble Lovers or Sex Junkies?, 190,
Chapter 13: The Modern Humans, Masters of Reshaping Nature, 236,
Chapter 14: The Domestication of Humans, 275,
Chapter 15: Putting Things into Perspective, 283,
PART III THE CURE, INTRODUCING THE NEW MORALITY BASED ON THE GOLDEN RULE, THE TOOL TO FIX THE PROBLEMS,
Chapter 16: A New Morality, 297,
Chapter 17: The Morality of Sex, 352,
Chapter 18: The Molarity of some Life-and-Death Issues, 431,
Chapter 19: The Morality of Union Tactics and War, 455,
Chapter 20: Moral Selfishness, the One and Only Tool to Build a Happy Planet, 473,
CHAPTER 1
A Planet Inflicted by Cancer
Some people treat our planet as a living organism — the Greeks named her Gaia, and many of us fondly call her Mother Nature. Then, the Mother is suffering from a grave and painful disease. The disease is a cancer. The cancer agent is none other than one of her children among the countless species she has nurtured and sustained. The species is Homo sapiens, us, the wise man and the human race, one of her latest children and the most intelligent of all living organisms. There have been many far more powerful species and organisms during the planet's three-billion-year-plus history, none — not even among the most powerful or the mightiest, including the dinosaurs and the African elephants — have caused so much hurt and damage to her. It makes us wonder what kind of animal humans are to be able to do what the powerful and the mighty can't do.
Our species began about seven to eight million years ago from a greatly disadvantaged position, from a common chimp that somehow was forced to walk on two feet. It was certainly one of nature's weirdest creations. The creature was so ill-fitted to survive that it should be destined to join many weaker species that has ended up in nature's recycle bin. Our ancestor was supposed to die within several sunrises and sunsets, or several seasons at the very most. But he did not; he miraculously managed to survive and gave rise to a number of children. They also survived, continued to evolve, made it through several transitional species, and eventually gave rise to us, the modern human.
For the most parts of our lineage's relatively short existence, our species did not show any sign of malignance. Like all Mother Nature's children, our species has lived in compliance to her rules and has been obedient still. Then, things began to change. The cancer began to develop. There are three distinct stages, starting from a seemingly harmless period, to increasingly alarming, and then extremely dangerous.
Stage I: After the Discovery of Farming
If Mother Nature had been more observant, she could have noticed that our species, from the very beginning, the first chimp that began — or more correctly was forced — to walk on two feet, was bound to be a troublemaker. But she was too busy, and she had seen stranger things among the creatures she looked after. It took almost the entire 8 million years of our species' evolution to develop any symptoms. The event that has started it all was the discovery of farming by us. After farming had been fully established, our species began to grow in greater numbers. As our population grew, we needed more lands to grow food and to build houses. We began to take more and more acreage of land from indigenous species, either chasing them away or eliminating them altogether.
The lives of humans also became more complex; not everyone needed to be directly involved in producing food. Many people began to make their living by trading items. As a result, many more items besides food and shelter became necessary and were created accordingly. Farming could support far more people than hunting/gathering, a lifestyle that was gradually replaced. As always, more humans create more waste and garbage. The landscape began to deteriorate and symptoms surfaced, though hardly noticeable or any cause for concern.
Stage II: After the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution began in the eighteenth century. Like the discovery of farming, it has forever changed the way our species conducts business and lives our daily lives. We have since increasingly employed machines to do our work. With machines, we can produce much more food, clothing, and everything that we need for daily life, and in much shorter time and with much less cost and human labor. Like the discovery of farming, it appeared to be a blessing and had no ill side effects. As a result, the planet could support many more millions of people. And as a result, we needed more land to build houses, schools, factories, recreational facilities, networks of roads, and many, many more items. At this stage, our species has, without the slightest shred of doubt, become, pound for pound, the most polluting, as well as the most destructive, species that has ever lived.
Exponential number of acreages was appropriated from more and more indigenous species that were unfortunate enough to share the planet with us or lived too close. Environmental deterioration and pollution became increasingly worrisome among the highly industrialized countries. Global mass extinctions became a constant scene as we grew and expanded. If that was not bad enough, war in higher frequency and bigger scales became the norm. War not only kills us, both soldiers and innocent people, it destroys habitats and the lives that dwell in them. Within several decades after the beginning of the twentieth century, Mother Nature has seen two world wars. The symptoms of the cancer have then become full blown. Many caring people feel we need to do something to stop the cancer, yet nothing has been done or can be done because we did not know the root of the problem. And the cancer continued to develop unchecked.
Stage III: The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age)
Even after the invention of cars and airplanes, thereby making traveling much faster for us, the planet has remained a vast place. It usually took days or weeks to get from the shore of one continent to the other. It led us to happily believe that the planet had an infinite capacity to absorb our garbage and to fully regenerate itself despite the abuses. Any biologist would tell you that our planet has an enviable system to self-cleanse, in which the wastes and pollutants from one group of organisms are happily...
