Talk:Gaian

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differentiated new age Gaians from "thesis Gaians" or "political Gaians" who are less flaky.

I've heard "terrist" used to distinguish political Gaians who take direct action, to distinguish from "cosmist" or "cosmic" Gaians with the new age approach. But I can't find this usage on the web, so I'll leave it for now.

The terminology is evolving. 9/11 made some people shy away from "terrist" and others embrace it.

As opposed to the secretive groups/factions which are hard to document because they stay out of the news and shift names a lot, with "Gaians" there's the opposite problem. There are so many strange points of view calling themselves this that it's hard to differentiate the flakes from the ones who have a serious peer-reviewed thesis.

Buckminster Fuller and Lynn Margulis and Donella Meadows seem to be the most solid scientists of this group - James Lovelock and Arthur C. Clarke might be counted as almost as solid - but you could include L. Ron Hubbard as well... people who believe in a spiritual and ethical integration tend to be seen as flakes by everyone else, even if they think they have "proved" their thesis, or observed thsi integration in nature.

Messy. Maybe someone else should take the next crack at this entry...?


who is disputing the neutrality of this page ? Anthere

user:The Anome, 25 Mar 2002, from wikipedia:pages needing attention, because of the author. Martin
It's no longer listed on that page, so lacking any other basis for the header I'm going to remove it now. Bryan 02:01, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"a view of humanity that any non-Gaian would be likely to see as quite limited"

I don't quite understand the point of this commentary. Certainly any non-gaian reader can judge this for themselves more accurately than the author of this passage? Furthermore, I'm not sure if it is even accurate. Does viewing humanity as metaphorically related to an immune system entail that this is the limit of humanity, or just that it is one of their possible roles? I figure the view is neutral, it could be seen as a limit or as yet another possibility. Kev 04:37, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)