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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 21 2017, @12:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-ignoring-ignorance dept.

From the I've-heard-enough-and-won't-take-it-anymore department, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39024648

The BBC reports that former Congressman Rush Holt, now part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is the spokesman for a movement "standing up for science".

His remarks reflect growing concern among researchers that science is disregarded by President Trump.

Scientists across the US plan to march in DC on 22 April.

[...] "To see young scientists, older scientists, the general public speaking up for the idea of science. We are going to work with our members and affiliated organisations to see that this march for science is a success."

Mr Holt made his comments at the AAAS annual meting in Boston as President Trump appointed a fierce critic of the Environmental Protection Agency as its head. Scott Pruitt has spent years fighting the role and reach of the EPA.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:42PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @06:42PM (#469813) Journal

    I can somewhat agree with your assertions. Though, it's still based on the black and white left vs right politics which I think is a disservice to academia, its sciences, and the country as a whole. Science itself isn't political. It's just a word for "knowledge of how the physical world works". Same for academia, which includes the sciences. It's just a collection of knowledge to be passed on and built upon. But there is a problem.

    The problem (to me at least) is one that is eons old. Academia (well use this word to include sciences) has traditionally been the domain of people who are free thinkers. They ignored the structure of society which allowed them to dive into the inner workings of the world around them including philosophy, economics, politics, government and the physical sciences. This is a typical left or "liberal" way of thinking: open minded, freedom to share information, diversity, and the freedom to criticize all aspects society including government and religion.

    This has been contrary to the ruling structure of society that is based on primal instincts of "only the strong survive", independent survival, and alpha dominance. This is the mindset of the right: structured, authoritarian, and conformity. This gave us the power hungry who desire to control people using law, punishment/violence, religion, class, money/economics, culture and nationalism. The goal: conformity through social conservatism. Change and outside influences are abhorred. Information can be seen as harmful and may be restricted. The truth isn't relevant, only control.

    Though, this is a very natural way in which society has organized itself. Many other animals have social structures as well. Humans are not much different. At home when growing up we have structure through our superiors, aka our parents who we are expected to be obey. This becomes an issue during adolescence when we begin to yearn for freedom from those bonds. Many are full of angst and become rebellious. It's a natural reaction for humans who desire to be independent. And right about that time is when people become curious and explore the world either on their own or through academia. And that is where the so called leftist liberals, the free thinkers, have found their common ground and have gathered.

    And this brings me to my point:
    The liberalism of academia is natural. The conservatism of rule (government/religion) is also natural. They are the yin and yang of a healthy society. If you go full liberal, you have anarchy. If you go full conservatism, you have tyranny. What this country needs is a little more liberalism. After all, liberalism is responsible for the constitution, the foundation of the USA, and the liberties granted to us within. Full conservatism (aka authoritarianism) seeks to destroy this. Liberalism is the patriots friend.

    The problem you describe is what happens when you keep politicizing and attacking a group of people, they become more zealous. The more you accuse academia of being too left the more left they move and the conservatives of academia are rejected. The same goes for the conservative right which has pushed out the liberal thinkers and desire more conformity. We have weaponized thinking and it's at the point where it has reached absurd levels on both sides. This is why we have a new resurgence of white nationalism, racism, sexism, and bat shit christian conservatism on the right and absurd lunacy of extreme political correctness of the left such as you cant say mean things, censorship, safe spaces, white guilt, and extreme femnazism (not to be confused with actual feminists). We have pushed each side to the extreme which has made them almost indiscernible. It is incredibly unhealthy for society and can even lead to the end of it.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @08:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @08:01PM (#469856)

    You seem to be combining the liberal/conservative axis with the authoritarian/anti-authoritarian axis. Although using two axises is still simplifying political views, it is much better to characterize perspectives with two axises than one.

    There are big differences between libertarianism (right and anti-authoritarian) and fascism (right and authoritarian); anarchist (left and anti-authoritarian) and socialism (left and authoritarian).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum#Other_multi-axis_models [wikipedia.org]
    https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 [politicalcompass.org]

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:23PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:23PM (#469926) Journal

      A 1D line is plenty explanatory. It's a mix of liberty and rule. Liberty is individual freedom and rule is restraint. Social conservatism is just another part of rule as it demands conformity. To me, I don't see how you can be anti-authoritarian yet promote social conservatism as is the case with libertarianism. You can't desire individual liberty while simultaneously rejecting social liberalism, social justice and ultimately, change. You either have liberty and evolve or you don't and you die. A libertarian is simply a conservative who wishes they could be more openly liberal (sorry libertarians). Though in reality, the few people I have met who claim to be libertarians are democrats who don't want to admit they are democrats among conservatives. As for the left-anarchist, anarchy is the definition of selfish extremism which includes lawlessness and eschews the altruistic goals of the left. An anarchist follows no laws and therefor respects no other man but himself. Again, that can't exist. I haven't met any true anarchists because everyone believes in some form of cooperation which implies some rule is necessary to keep the peace. Even the drifter punk I met who doesn't pay taxes and lived on peoples couches or park benches respected the law to an extent that he was not completely lawless (e.g. he didn't steal and worked for his money).

      I look at it like this: a single axis with a person on each end. To the extreme left is an individual devoid of rule, an anarchist. To the extreme right is an individual who is the rule, a tyrant. Both only care for themselves. The middle is a person who has both liberty and is ruled evenly. Moving left from center the individual is granted more liberty and distributes rule among more people until you have anarchism where each individual is their own rule. To the right the individual is granted less liberty and rule is concentrated to fewer people until we reach the individual ruler, the tyrant. More ideally, you want to be just left of center and have more liberty and distributed rule, aka a democracy. This benefits the people and ensures that the rule will favor the people. Of course it also establishes boundaries such as basic law and a justice system. It is also a compromise between more extreme liberties (bordering lawlessness) and rule where there has to be some sort of control and organization.

      The USA was founded left of center in contrast to the far right rule of the monarchy. This is free thinking liberalism in action. But it wasn't perfect. We had to make amendments and modify our laws and constitution as the liberal thinkers fought to fix the ills of society. We freed the slaves, gave women the right to vote, equal rights for all peoples, and marriage for the gays (to name a few). And we still have a long way to go as rule and its tools have sought to subvert liberty in favor of rule.

      The problem is both the dems and the reps have both gone over the middle line to the right. Both seek more rule thanks to the corruption of capitalism which itself is a far right concept (rule through money and economics). This is why corporations have more power then the people and lobby for favorable laws. This is why we have corruption. This is why we have widespread surveillance. This is why we fight wars for oil. This is why our social programs are under attack. This is also why we have insane arguments over gun laws and conspiracies. This is why we have people pushing christian agendas into law. This is why women are denied the right to abortions. The ruling peoples have sought to subvert the people for decades in order to gain more control over them. They have unfortunately done a great job by demonizing liberalism, the very foundation of this country and its freedoms. It's time we recognized that liberalism is the true salvation of America. And not the demonized mess it has become but true free thinkers who made America great by advocating for change from the revolutionary war right up to today's fight for social justice and against the true establishment, the greedy, power hungry peoples of America.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:44AM (#469950)

        To the extreme left is an individual devoid of rule, an anarchist

        First, Anarchy is not "without rules"; it's "without RULERS".
        Anarchy is moving the making of rules as close as possible to those most affected by those rules.
        Anarchy is NOT synonymous with "chaos"--as so many have been led to believe.

        Next, your rotation of the political palate by 90 degrees from the standard notation [politicalcompass.org] isn't doing anyone any favors in understanding things.

        The USA was founded left of center

        In your twisted model, that would be "without rule".
        That's nonsense.
        USA was set up with a wealthy ruling class writing the rulebook (the founding documents).
        You don't have to look very hard in those to see the celebration of Plantation Capitalism where a tiny few benefit and everyone else is subordinate; in some cases, people are even property of the landed gentry.

        both the dems and the reps have both gone over the [here, had you used standard nomenclature, you would have said the horizontal center line].

        I don't think that the majority of either of those parties was EVER on the other side of that line.
        ...well, maybe The Party of Lincoln when they got the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments passed.
        ...though there are exception in those that give me pause e.g. no slave labor except in prisons--which Jim Crow took advantage of bigtime.

        Both seek more rule thanks to the corruption of capitalism which itself is a far right concept (rule through money and economics)

        No. According to your twisted model that would make Capitalism a **governmental** form instead of an economic form.

        While those who embrace Capitalism often are -also- Authoritarian, your attempt to turn the political palate into a 1-dimension thing is a horrible, confusing notion.

        Lamestream Media pulls this crap continually and some folks buy into their bogus 1-dimensional Left/Right terminology.
        It appears that you are repeating their swill.
        I suggest that you view Corporate Media with a jaundiced eye.
        They are all too often trying to confuse you.
        In this case, it appears that they have succeeded.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:19PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:19PM (#470140)

        The political scale is relative so, in the public's mind, the Democrats are "left" and the Republicans are "right". Simplifying things in this way enables both parties to become more authoritarian without the public really noticing as there is still their team "left" or "right" to vote for. Saying there is no difference between Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Mitt Romney or Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, and Barack Obama just perpetuates more problems and allows the political spectrum to keep drifting to the upper right.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:29PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:29PM (#469891)

    Well, there's at least two parts, both where we mostly agree yet somehow find a way to disagree.

    WRT

    Science itself isn't political.

    we are having this conversation in an article where the rabble rouser's strategy is explicitly to enforce or gaslight that "science" is in fact 100% unified as an anti-trump force. What he means is academia of course.

    WRT liberal values, that's pretty well written although the drift has been so extreme that the left is no longer Liberal in your classical definition and after having power for so many decades has become the conservative force. Anti-white policy as a side effect of identity politics on the left results in the right not being anti-white which results in not being anti-white redefined as being racist while once everyone's racist then the actual 14/88 folks have free reign.

    This is kind of a shake up period. My guess is in the '20s the left will be identified as the conservative baby boomer hippie ideal, and the right will settle out as a mixture of radicals. It'll be interesting to see how identity politics issue works out. Trump seems to be accumulating all the white people including the union members, and the left seems to be getting rid of the last of its white boomer and pre-boomer folks, it'll be interesting to see them cooperate (or not) and see how they can be worked against each other.

    Aside from your stated liberal/conservative model and identity politics there are are patriarchal vs matriarchal attitudes and other stuff.

    Future's gonna be interesting to watch.

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:24AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:24AM (#469971)

    Another way to see the same basic idea you are using is anonymousconservative's r/K selection applied to human society theory. It also pops up in "the fourth turning" and several other places. The idea seems popular but only the r/K theory puts real evolutionary biology, i.e. Science, behind it.

    The book is occasionally offered up for free at the blog but it isn't expensive on Amazon anyway. Anyway, basically imagine four phases and we just keep spinning through them on about an eighty year cycle for a full revolution.

    When things turn K they are at maximum suck. Hard times make for hard men. Real manly men, real feminine women. Harsh ingrouping, monogomy, high investment parenting in a low number of offspring. Highly structured government, usually tribal then monarchy. These things bring stability and after much struggle, relative peace. This leads to plenty.

    That puts us in "K into r" where the K types are still firmly in charge but r people are now somewhat valued again for their, as you put it, "open minded, freedom to share information, diversity, and the freedom to criticize all aspects society including government and religion" since it produces scientific advancement. This leads to wealth, enough wealth to allow things like universities where people can spend their whole lives thinking. More wealth, more resources. But trouble is brewing as the r types thing so differently. Preference for outgroups, sexual promiscuity, large numbers of offspring with low parental investment.

    Finally we hit r. Full retard time. Resources are so plentiful the r types act as if they were free. Unlimited immigration? Why not! Here the men are pajamaboy or outright gay, the women are fighting in MMA... and probably gay. In previous times the population boom was quickly unsustainable but with birth control and abortion now, we are actually in decline. The women become manly because the girly men don't bond into families so they have to be big and strong enough to raise children alone. This phase has lasted longer than normal but we are nearing the breaking point.

    Which will lead us to "r into K" which is the descent into pure chaos. The horsemen ride, plagues break out, wars start, famine due to overpopulation and maximum stupid.

    Essentially large numbers of humans are hard wired to think in terms of r or K behavior and morality but most can, if the environmental pressure (hyperabundance or chaos) is strong enough can flip as needed. Which is why some people just do not fit their time.