Canadian Mental Health Association: Sara Jordan
Horizon Housing Society: Martina Jileckova
Calgary Housing Company: Deborah Robb
AISH/CPP: Cameron Egler
TD Direct Investing: Paul Clark
Government of Canada: Justin Trudeau
Government of Alberta: Sonya Savage
City of Calgary: Naheed Nenshi
BMO Bank of Montreal: Rhonda Khamis
RBC Royal Bank: Brooke Ross
Mr Christopher Bek
602, 1133 Eighth Avenue SW
Calgary AB Canada T2P 1J7
Christopher.Bek@gmail.com
403 471-7440
The Theory of One
Existentialism Now
The Bernoulli Model
PhilosophyMagazine.com
RiskServices.com
14 November 2020
Dear Philanthropists,
Subject —— Philosophy Magazine Manifesto
Quotation———I sometimes wonder what future historians will say of us. It seems to me a single sentence should suffice for modern man—He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted. —Albert Camus
Spinoza described the intellectual love of God as a state of divinity for which humans may aspire. This deeply satisfying love arises from the intuitive and immediate comprehension of God. The intellectual love of God resonates with a long tradition of philosophical thinkers going back to Plato. We did not have the intellectual love of God in my house growing up. We had the not intellectual love of stepping on the gas pedal. My father started working at Imperial Oil at age 18 and stayed until 55. He then moved to the coast, bought a boat with twin V-8 engines, and has spent the last 29 years exploring the coast of British Columbia. We only had material values in our house. There was no talk of God, Christ, philosophy, science, freedom, responsibility or ethics. John Locke is the single most important influence shaping the founding of the United States. He was a 17th century English philosopher who redefined the nature of government. According to Locke, the duty of government is to protect the natural rights of the people, which include life, liberty and property. Locke said individuals have the right to the fruits of their labours only if they leave enough and as good for others. But were not leaving enough and as good for others. The sixth mass extinction is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present epoch as a result of human activity. An extinction event is a widespread and rapid decrease in biodiversity. I asked: How long until the next extinction event? Google replied: In the next 50 years, humans will drive so many mammal species to extinction that Earth’s evolutionary diversity won’t recover for some 3 million years, one study said. I asked: What is the relationship between carbon dioxide and mass extinction. Google replied: Mass extinctions due to rapidly escalating levels of carbon dioxide are recorded since as long as 580 million years ago. As our anthropogenic global emissions of carbon dioxide are rising, at a rate for which no precedence is known from the geological record with the exception of asteroid impacts, another wave of extinctions is unfolding. I asked: How much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere? Google replied: The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere in 2020 is near 413 parts per million (ppm) and rising. This represents a 47 percent increase since the beginning of the Industrial Age, when the concentration was near 280 ppm, and an 11 percent increase since 2000, when it was near 370 ppm. I asked: What are the causes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Google replied: Carbon dioxide is added to the atmosphere naturally when organisms respire or decompose, carbonate rocks are weathered, forest fires occur, and volcanoes erupt. Carbon dioxide is also added to the atmosphere through human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and forests and cement production.
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Southern Alberta is a world heritage site and is among the oldest, largest and most well-preserved buffalo jumps in the world that include the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty and the Pyramids of Egypt. Head-Smashed-In was used from 4000 BC until 1850. By comparison, the first Pyramids of Egypt were not built until 1400 years after the inception of the buffalo jump located two hours south of Calgary. The buffalo jump was an apparatus used by the Plains Indians to drive large numbers of buffalos over a precipice to their death in order to provide food, clothing, utensils, shelter and weapons that made possible a strong, enduring and spiritual culture that lasted for six millennia until the White Man and his superior ways of Western civilization came along and ended it. The Plains Indians applied sophisticated risk management practices based on a seven-year cycle—and held the superior philosophic view that we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors but that we borrow it from our children. Modern man could learn a lot from the people who occupied this land before us. I believe that every child should be taught to minimize their footprint on the planets resources and maximize their intellectual love of God. In that actuaries do the math of life, and that God is a mathematician, these two objectives can most efficiently be achieved through the practice of actuarial science. Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. Kierkegaard believed in God, but not the Church, just like Spinoza. Kierkegaard wrote seven books, ran out of money, laid down and died. Spinoza wrote love for the eternal and the infinite alone feeds the mind pleasure and frees it from all pain. He also wrote this love is much desired and should be sought with all our might. Deborah Harry wrote: Stop fucking the planet! on her apron when Blondie played in Calgary last year not 200 meters from my apartment. She did a cartwheel in a miniskirt right in front of me thirty years earlier at the Auckland Townhall in New Zealand. My older sister married an accountant for a mob of oil men who fucked the planet for a better life, just like Dad. But a better life does not await the children. When my father started working for Imperial Oil in 1954, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 313 ppm; today it is a full 100 ppm higher. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is largely responsible for the ongoing extinction event. We have crossed the tipping point of the Earth’s sixth extinction event. I am simply saying that we should save as many souls as possible. And one way we do this is by writing essays that tell the children what the adults think is of the highest importance, philosophy, the love of wisdom. Show the children philosophy and science for the Third Millennium. And show them the Titanic iceberg collision scene: https://youtu.be/Mg9VDvAQ-1k because that is what awaits them. Locke said we are compelled by reason to acknowledge the existence of natural, inalienable rights and duties independent of convention, agreement or contract. I am reasonably asking for your support in helping me put food on the table and philosophy across the sky. You can send funds to my email address (Christopher.Bek@gmail.com) at PayPal, or mail me a cheque along with a note. Sartre said when I choose I choose for all men. Choosing me is choosing for all children. 👍
Sincerely,
Christopher Bek
Wisdom begins with the definition of terms. —Socrates
I love everything lofty and beautiful. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I want to know God’s thoughts, the rest are details. —Albert Einstein
If any question why we died tell them because our fathers lied. —Rudyard Kipling