Nature is not a machine. Nor does humanity stand apart from nature entitled by evolutionary right to lord it over the earth. In consequence, the modern way of life and politics based on the mechanical worldview is rendered obsolete, both philosophically and practically.
Professional surfers, mixed martial arts fighters, and Navy SEALs use Tummo-style breathing to get into the zone before a competition or black ops mission. It’s also especially useful for middle-aged people who suffer from lower-grade stress, aches and pains, and slowing metabolisms.
In the case of nonrenewable resources, the economic optimists seem to be right, at least going by the evidence of the last one or two centuries. Modern economies appear to adjust easily to scarcities of these resources.
Institutions are grounded in culture, and culture generally changes very slowly. If both institutions and culture must change for a society to adapt to new circumstances, a society may not be able to migrate across its fitness landscape quickly enough to avoid disaster.
Everything that we call specifically human is due to man’s power of thinking hard. Mere increase of effort, intellectual or any other, does little to increase its effectiveness unless the increased effort is well directed. Without such direction the additional effort is always in great part, and sometimes completely, wasted. High-grade thinking, therefore, depends on two things: increase of mental effort, and skill in the direction of that effort.
This could be said of many other endeavors as well, couldn't it? Cf. with the idea of "focused practice" of musical or athletic skill.
