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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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Tuesday February 21 2017, @07:33PM
In his essay on "Ur-Fascism", Umberto Eco wrote:
which, to me, spells out that science can be depicted as an occupation for "the weak", whereas "the strong" already know all what they have to know,
except maybe for a good quality shoe polish to wipe the blood from their military boots.
I can't give a good link for the essay, however if you google "new york review of books" "Umberto Eco" "Ur-fascism" you'll probably stumble over it somewhere on the Internet.
I couldn't find it anymore at the original new york review of books website.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday February 21 2017, @10:22PM
Yeah I've read that too. I'm reminded of the old saying about generals and admirals preparing for the last war. I'm not sure its relevant anymore in the current year although aspects are interesting.
#2 is weird in 2010s with the embrace of identity politics by the left. Anti-white and anti-western civilization and anti-capitalism and anti-science (other than climate change and a few others) as a goal that is seen as its own reward in itself. In that way the only way for enlightenment and age of reason to continue is as a component of the right, like it or not, however poorly it fits. The left is going to turn Europe into a Caliphate and the USA into a white-free South America, and neither the Aztecs nor the Caliphate could pull off The Enlightenment or the industrial revolution or any number of western civ achievements. Like it or not, fans of those ideas can ally with the right or wait for the left to finish annihilating them. The whites in Zimbabwe are gone, going in south africa and Sweden and France. Germany soon enough. The left doesn't seem to understand the "goose that laid the golden egg" concept of once western civilization is finally annihilated, leftist values are doomed in the subsequent anarchy. Neither Saudi Arabia nor Somali are great places to be gay or women or trans, for example. Looking at all the raping in Sweden that's not a very nice place to be a woman anymore either. Well, they'll be a lot more of it unless they revolt, which they don't seem capable of.
#3 relates to the invention of the "nerd" by hollywood in the 1970s, professional sports culture in the TV era, the welfare state, to a lesser extent immigration policy to keep out higher IQ people while importing unlimited numbers of laborers, all of which happened with the left in charge not the right as would seem to be implied. The frequent expressions section misses the rise of the meme on the right and mass media sloganeering against anything to the right (every politician who isn't far left is literally Hitler for as long as I've been alive, so maybe he did nothing wrong, which is probably not the intended message of calling 50% of all politicians "Hitler")
#4 is now completely a left wing political correctness thing. There is no such thing as academic political speech freedom for anyone on the right. One party one rule one doctrine and that is far left ... That isn't even starting to change, not now, so far. We'll see how that survives the student loan collapse.
Eco may or may not have gotten into some Overton window commentary. Surely any engineer can see that a window that only exclusively and eternally moves far left will reach culturally unsurvivable levels of degeneracy eventually... extremes are never survivable, yet threatening to slow the move left, or worse, results in Soros funded riots in the streets. So given a claimed binary choice of intentional methodical self destruction of western culture or let others kill it in the streets and rural areas hurry up and die... Some will chose a third option, fight.
The main mistake I see on the left is Weimar Germany can't last forever, it has a certain baked into the cake next chapter. The left needs a better large scale plan than "we hate white people and their culture, and the more degeneracy unwillingly shoved into their culture the better" or the next chapter seems predictable. I mean its hard to feign surprise.
There are interesting analogies to the current world order and the fall of the Roman Empire. Eventually a couple guys have all the money while the general population sees the civilization has having nothing good for them, only bad for them, at which point its every man for himself...