Pay As You Murder

I don't feel like writing too much about the image you see below. The scene, captured last August, is from a store that belongs to one of the largest supermarket chains in Turkey.

It may be true that nationalism has always had its place in recent history as the basis of a niche market. However, current affairs of the last decade have been used as an excellent opportunity on which such ideas have thrived exceptionally, hence a field day for some people. Turkey, showing a similar "progress" along the same lines with most countries in the world, has been the setting to a race among institutions to see who could erect the largest flag. The demand for the national symbol grew exponentially during the course of a series of national rallies. Someone spotted the trend and worked accordingly: A section for Turkish flags; the mass consumption of nationalism.

In the wake of the recent events in Turkey, I believe today it is more meaningful to reconsider what everyday scenes like this one really tell us. I'm not knowledgeable on what kind of deals are available from this store, but I'm quite sure we can all pay as we murder.

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Extension of Life or Extension of Business-as-usual?

While I am pro-technology, in the sense that I keep an optimism towards its potential contribution to the planet's well-being, I have recently come across a perspective that I could not avoid to contradict.


I have to note that I fully respect the scientific developments and believe that they should be used in order to enrich the quality of human life—which will eventually cause its extension on average. The fact that, in the last 5 or 6 decades, space technology has adopted the mission of leading all those scientific developments, makes that particular field a very important one.

Besides all this, I am a true believer in the inspirationality of that significant moment in the history of humankind when a member of our species set foot on the moon, and named, for the first time,—not his city, country or continent but instead;—the whole Earth as 'home'. I was first introduced to this fact while reading The Revenge of Gaia, by James Lovelock, who acknowledges that this dramatic change in the perception of 'home' has contributed dearly to the green cause on a subconscious level.

However, while I was carrying out a little research about these two topics of enormous importance, I came across the video below, which is a live recording of Peter Diamandis' speech. His perception of space missions, extension of life, affluence of the mankind, and especially, "the things we hold value on this planet" were not a match with those of mine. Please watch the video and see for yourself.

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