No, the author is very well able to differentiate happiness and pleasure. The brain is clearly wired for pleasure, it has an extensive reward system that can even be tricked into working overtime (leading to addiction).

His point is that our brains have a natural bias towards storing and recalling negative experiences over positive experiences. We have evolved to immediately learn from physical and emotional pain because learning to avoid pain is a better survival strategy than learning to seek pleasure.

I don' t think the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches are going to be happy with your definition.

Why wouldn't a malevolent tyranny nuke its own population? Hitler condemning the German population to death in 1945 because he deemed them traitors to the German cause, and the Khmer Rouge's killing fields seem to indicate that real tyrannies have no qualms about slaughtering their own citizens.

The problem with nukes is that there won't be a 'true civil war' because it will be over too soon. The military splitting up in opposing factions with nuclear capabilities during will only hasten the deployment of tactical nukes.

The girl I met in Eridu
Was kind beyond belief;
The hours that I spent with her
Were hours far too brief.

Where willows shade the river bank,
She urged that I recline.
She fed me figs and poured me full
Of pomegranate wine.

I told of force and time and space,
I told of hence and yonder;
I asked if she would come with me
To know my worlds of wonder.

She clasped her knees; her voice was soft;
"It dazes me to ponder
The blazing stars and tintamars,
The whirling ways you wander!

"You are you and I am I,
And best that you return.
And I will stay in Eridu
With all this yet to learn."

- Navarth

R.I.P. mad poet, you will be missed dearly

He's not a moron (in spite of his eyebrows), he just plays one. This guy earns a ton by providing services to well known spammers and other criminal organisations, but every time he makes the headlines and gets interviewed he either plays the naïve internet activist or the village idiot, depending on his public.

The fundamental cause of the problem is our unsustainable energy consumption so that's where the prudent moderation should take place, instead of moderating our concern of energy companies ravaging the earth. History shows that these concerns are very, very valid.