I used to listen to public radio years ago, but mainly for Car Talk. Now I can see (hear?) that the prime function on NPR is to make fun of the ignorant bastards in Fly Over Land and reassure themselves that The Big City is the where the smartest, most wonderful people live. "Today we're talking to Jedediah Miller about why he doesn't seem to understand that his dairy farm is ruining the planet."
What is the 'government' to your way of thinking? To me, it's people organizing themselves to achieve goals that are neither strictly private nor strictly commercial.
If government doesn't exist to provide 'assistance' its hard to see why anyone would give it any loyalty.
I was speaking of financial assistance however, they, like other govt funded entities, particularly media today, have become propaganda machines for an illegal, WEAPONIZED govt. And yes, ideally, your definition of govt is the ideal which does not exist at this point in time.
The fact that we allowed the instrument of state to be taken over by our political enemies is not the fault of the instrument of state itself. This is why I find 'conservative' takes so nihilistic. You want to destroy, not build. We failed, not the instrument of state.
In my defense I was a child.. lol, and in their defense...well, it's Boston. lol. I'd love an SL now, but we already have five vehicles... 4 German and a Toyota pickup. The German cars are the best, obvious;y. Or at least they were -- they seem to be going a bit crazy over there...
'If “science worship” is misguided, as anti-vaxxers claim, then “science denial” is misguided, too.'
Why? Remember when 'science guys' supported their claims instead of just making unsupported assertions? 'If hitting yourself in the face with a hammer is misguided, as anti-bludgeoners claim, then not hitting yourself with a hammer is misguided too.' I mean they are on a 'continuum' so if one end is bad then the other must be the same thing right? I guess, I don't know, he doesn't even give us that.
I was gonna attack them more but I am distracted by the transcriber putting a comma after 'misguided' and attacking the transcriber seems offtopic. Seriously though, that is nearly the worst comma usage I have ever seen.
Good observation. It is deeper than progressivism though. This is the Hegelian dialectic at its roots-the idea that introduced 'movement' into the search for truth and created the modern age. Since about 1800 almost all European and somewhat later American thought has been built on the idea of thesis and antithesis in a power struggle to determine how much each contributes to the resulting synthesis which shall become the new default position. Once this is accepted it becomes inevitable that society is lashed to this berserk beast and Left and Right emerge. Left is simply the idea that the beast's rampage can be used to perform work and Right is the position that the movement of the beast is too violent and it should be calmed and subdued to prevent carnage. But unless the beast, the idea of moving truth, movement in science and philosophy, is killed the movement will always be Left never Right. The Left is Fred Flintstone using the brontosaurus to move rocks. The Right is Barney trying to placate the dinosaur. The Left will obviously get more done but the main result will be the dinosaur tears stuff up. What is needed is someone willing and able to slay the beast.
Jul 11, 2023·edited Jul 11, 2023Liked by William M Briggs
It's a construction designed to present itself as a 'balanced and objective view' but really just amounts to thought-short-circuiting gibberish with the veneer of plausibility.
Whenever I hear something like "However, there is a continuum between ..." I instantly discount the writer, particularly when the topic is one of science. I am tired of continuums, this love of gray space.
Seeing through the obvious lies about the COVID "vaccine" led me step by step to perceive and identify similar deceptions and fraud surrounding the justification for all other vaccines.
I'll never understand how anyone who studies philosophy can become a New Left Managerialist. I think most of these modern academics really just learn their subjects not out of genuine interest and desire to engage in whatever their field of study is, but more for the social capital they feel being a professor of whatever gives them.
Jul 11, 2023·edited Jul 11, 2023Liked by William M Briggs
Goes back a long way, though. Surprisingly enough, Engels was into scientism of this type. In his early works he wrote about a future state run by a scientific elite where problems of economics, distribution, morality faded away... I don't know enough about the history of communism and socialism to comment on how those views influenced communist revolutionary movements, but this type of view of the managerial state was already in socialist movements in the 18th-19th centuries.
As for your comment, yes... a lot of professors focus on publish or perish, so they push out whatever is palatable to editors, etc.
Jul 16, 2023·edited Jul 16, 2023Liked by William M Briggs
The deepest dive into scientism can be found in F. A. Hayek's "The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason" (amazon link: https://a.co/d/jez51F1).
Hayek popularized the term and defined it as consisting in the slavish imitation of the methods and language of Science to the study of phenomena for which those methods are not well suited or applicable. He argued how the methods of science were ill-suited for understanding various aspects of spontaneous orders such as market processes, social and cultural institutions, values, morals, ethics, historical phenomena (see: Popper's "The Poverty of Historicism"), and tacit knowledge which cannot be codified.
"" Science is best at what science does best, which is trying to find causes of measurable things ""... Hardly! Science (when done properly, which is a rarity these days) can give you some sets of correlative and supervenient relations which then the Philosopher and/or Theologian can use to speak intelligently about cause-effect chains. Science as a "standalone" can do nothing more than generate said correlative + supervenience relations. It cannot (contrary to public dogma, faith, etc) REDUCE the explanatory regimes down to more simple atomics.
Jul 12, 2023·edited Jul 12, 2023Liked by William M Briggs
Your final paragraph sums it all up. The fact that these ivory-tower aparatchiks have the gall to fall back to a semantic argument is hardly unexpected, but it really shows how out of touch they are, and I suspect willfully so. It's a real life "Ackshually" meme.
This type of "intellectual" has nothing but disdain for people who don't use the right Word Magic incantations. That a person instinctively or intuitively recoils from a fat "health expert" telling them to do things that range *far* beyond mere knowledge of causes or good explanations is ordinary and healthy. But they didn't say the right words according to the standard of a literal professional hair-splitter, so they're wrong.
I was sick of the academics before 2019. This behavior from them since 2020 is beyond recovery.
Award Fauci a Madison Avenue prize for the Advancement of Advertising!
I just saw a TV commercial for a hair gel purported to straighten out Afro-curls. The ad says the hair gel is "based on science."
While (out of modesty, no doubt) they don't make the claim, one must suppose that Cheerios, Scott Toilet Paper, Preparation H, and Mr. Clean are also "based on science."
Good discussion of the success they have had in muddying the waters. When the "pandemic" was on I was struck by how people were suddenly scientific experts, throwing around terms they clearly knew little or nothing about, and worse, invoking the names of big-pharma companies like holy talismans.
The destruction of what is and replacing it with nothing is nihilism. It's just that anti-government 'conservatives' are so used to be nihilists they cannot even see their nihilism anymore.
In America, the 'government' of the United States is *the people of the United States*. The fact that we've consistently failed to insist upon the *state instrument* abiding by this relation doesn't change the fact that the Founding is based upon this relation.
'Government assistance' is simply the people using the instrument of state to help each other.
There's nothing wrong with that and much that is good.
The simple fact is that anti-government types simply cannot figure out how to do any good using the instrument of state does not justify the rest of us embracing the idea that 'government is the problem'.
Scidolaters would be a good band name. They’d have to dress like scientists though, lab coats, nerd glasses, kinda like Devo and Thomas Dolby mashed up from the 80s.
Jul 11, 2023·edited Jul 11, 2023Liked by William M Briggs
🗨 Scientism is thus a dread and growing disease and a word which identifies its holders and devotees while simultaneously highlighting the malady from which they suffer was badly needed. Scidolator is that word.
Just did a Duck Duck Go (DDG) search on "scidolaters". While it started with "Not many results contain scidolaters", the first result was a Wikipedia entry:
I used to listen to public radio years ago, but mainly for Car Talk. Now I can see (hear?) that the prime function on NPR is to make fun of the ignorant bastards in Fly Over Land and reassure themselves that The Big City is the where the smartest, most wonderful people live. "Today we're talking to Jedediah Miller about why he doesn't seem to understand that his dairy farm is ruining the planet."
DEFUND NPR.
Nihilism is not a solution.
Remove government assistance. That's not nihilism. Should not be govt funded.
What is the 'government' to your way of thinking? To me, it's people organizing themselves to achieve goals that are neither strictly private nor strictly commercial.
If government doesn't exist to provide 'assistance' its hard to see why anyone would give it any loyalty.
I was speaking of financial assistance however, they, like other govt funded entities, particularly media today, have become propaganda machines for an illegal, WEAPONIZED govt. And yes, ideally, your definition of govt is the ideal which does not exist at this point in time.
The fact that we allowed the instrument of state to be taken over by our political enemies is not the fault of the instrument of state itself. This is why I find 'conservative' takes so nihilistic. You want to destroy, not build. We failed, not the instrument of state.
No meaning is meaningless.
In my defense I was a child.. lol, and in their defense...well, it's Boston. lol. I'd love an SL now, but we already have five vehicles... 4 German and a Toyota pickup. The German cars are the best, obvious;y. Or at least they were -- they seem to be going a bit crazy over there...
'If “science worship” is misguided, as anti-vaxxers claim, then “science denial” is misguided, too.'
Why? Remember when 'science guys' supported their claims instead of just making unsupported assertions? 'If hitting yourself in the face with a hammer is misguided, as anti-bludgeoners claim, then not hitting yourself with a hammer is misguided too.' I mean they are on a 'continuum' so if one end is bad then the other must be the same thing right? I guess, I don't know, he doesn't even give us that.
I was gonna attack them more but I am distracted by the transcriber putting a comma after 'misguided' and attacking the transcriber seems offtopic. Seriously though, that is nearly the worst comma usage I have ever seen.
The Continuum Gambit is a staple of Progressivism.
1. Aim to gain 50 yards of territory beyond normality, stability.
2. Push 100 yards.
3. Receive pushback.
4. 'Concede' that 0 and 100 are both problematic as you are a 'reasonable person'.
5. Reach a 'compromise' with spineless idiots at 50 yards.
Repeat, forever.
Good observation. It is deeper than progressivism though. This is the Hegelian dialectic at its roots-the idea that introduced 'movement' into the search for truth and created the modern age. Since about 1800 almost all European and somewhat later American thought has been built on the idea of thesis and antithesis in a power struggle to determine how much each contributes to the resulting synthesis which shall become the new default position. Once this is accepted it becomes inevitable that society is lashed to this berserk beast and Left and Right emerge. Left is simply the idea that the beast's rampage can be used to perform work and Right is the position that the movement of the beast is too violent and it should be calmed and subdued to prevent carnage. But unless the beast, the idea of moving truth, movement in science and philosophy, is killed the movement will always be Left never Right. The Left is Fred Flintstone using the brontosaurus to move rocks. The Right is Barney trying to placate the dinosaur. The Left will obviously get more done but the main result will be the dinosaur tears stuff up. What is needed is someone willing and able to slay the beast.
Indeed, and I enjoy your framing.
It's a construction designed to present itself as a 'balanced and objective view' but really just amounts to thought-short-circuiting gibberish with the veneer of plausibility.
Whenever I hear something like "However, there is a continuum between ..." I instantly discount the writer, particularly when the topic is one of science. I am tired of continuums, this love of gray space.
"Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it.
Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held.
Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books.
Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin.
Believe nothing just because someone else believes it.
Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true"
Buddha - Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta
The motto of England’s Royal Society, founded in 1660, is “Nullius in verba”: “Take nobody’s word for it.”
“Opinions are like orgasms… mine matters most and I really don’t care if you have one.”
— Sylvia Plath
Seeing through the obvious lies about the COVID "vaccine" led me step by step to perceive and identify similar deceptions and fraud surrounding the justification for all other vaccines.
"A public radio station hosts what they call 'The Academic Minute', a name which signals you are in for sixty seconds of pain."
As opposed to every other minute of NPR?
I'll never understand how anyone who studies philosophy can become a New Left Managerialist. I think most of these modern academics really just learn their subjects not out of genuine interest and desire to engage in whatever their field of study is, but more for the social capital they feel being a professor of whatever gives them.
Goes back a long way, though. Surprisingly enough, Engels was into scientism of this type. In his early works he wrote about a future state run by a scientific elite where problems of economics, distribution, morality faded away... I don't know enough about the history of communism and socialism to comment on how those views influenced communist revolutionary movements, but this type of view of the managerial state was already in socialist movements in the 18th-19th centuries.
As for your comment, yes... a lot of professors focus on publish or perish, so they push out whatever is palatable to editors, etc.
The deepest dive into scientism can be found in F. A. Hayek's "The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason" (amazon link: https://a.co/d/jez51F1).
Hayek popularized the term and defined it as consisting in the slavish imitation of the methods and language of Science to the study of phenomena for which those methods are not well suited or applicable. He argued how the methods of science were ill-suited for understanding various aspects of spontaneous orders such as market processes, social and cultural institutions, values, morals, ethics, historical phenomena (see: Popper's "The Poverty of Historicism"), and tacit knowledge which cannot be codified.
He also alluded to scientism in his essay "Individualism: True and False" (https://fee.org/articles/individualism-true-and-false/#calibre_link-422) and his Nobel Lecture "The Pretense of Knowledge" (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hayek/lecture/). I highly recommend all of these.
"" Science is best at what science does best, which is trying to find causes of measurable things ""... Hardly! Science (when done properly, which is a rarity these days) can give you some sets of correlative and supervenient relations which then the Philosopher and/or Theologian can use to speak intelligently about cause-effect chains. Science as a "standalone" can do nothing more than generate said correlative + supervenience relations. It cannot (contrary to public dogma, faith, etc) REDUCE the explanatory regimes down to more simple atomics.
Your final paragraph sums it all up. The fact that these ivory-tower aparatchiks have the gall to fall back to a semantic argument is hardly unexpected, but it really shows how out of touch they are, and I suspect willfully so. It's a real life "Ackshually" meme.
This type of "intellectual" has nothing but disdain for people who don't use the right Word Magic incantations. That a person instinctively or intuitively recoils from a fat "health expert" telling them to do things that range *far* beyond mere knowledge of causes or good explanations is ordinary and healthy. But they didn't say the right words according to the standard of a literal professional hair-splitter, so they're wrong.
I was sick of the academics before 2019. This behavior from them since 2020 is beyond recovery.
Award Fauci a Madison Avenue prize for the Advancement of Advertising!
I just saw a TV commercial for a hair gel purported to straighten out Afro-curls. The ad says the hair gel is "based on science."
While (out of modesty, no doubt) they don't make the claim, one must suppose that Cheerios, Scott Toilet Paper, Preparation H, and Mr. Clean are also "based on science."
Good discussion of the success they have had in muddying the waters. When the "pandemic" was on I was struck by how people were suddenly scientific experts, throwing around terms they clearly knew little or nothing about, and worse, invoking the names of big-pharma companies like holy talismans.
The destruction of what is and replacing it with nothing is nihilism. It's just that anti-government 'conservatives' are so used to be nihilists they cannot even see their nihilism anymore.
In America, the 'government' of the United States is *the people of the United States*. The fact that we've consistently failed to insist upon the *state instrument* abiding by this relation doesn't change the fact that the Founding is based upon this relation.
'Government assistance' is simply the people using the instrument of state to help each other.
There's nothing wrong with that and much that is good.
The simple fact is that anti-government types simply cannot figure out how to do any good using the instrument of state does not justify the rest of us embracing the idea that 'government is the problem'.
Lack of imagination is the problem.
NPR is proof that not just in Red China is the public compelled to pay for media that harms it.
I'm for a new natural right: government can force us to accept what is bad for us but it can't force us to pay for it.
Scidolaters would be a good band name. They’d have to dress like scientists though, lab coats, nerd glasses, kinda like Devo and Thomas Dolby mashed up from the 80s.
One of my readers from many years ago thought it up.
🗨 Scientism is thus a dread and growing disease and a word which identifies its holders and devotees while simultaneously highlighting the malady from which they suffer was badly needed. Scidolator is that word.
Timestamped Nov 26, 2013
(see wmbriggs.com/post/10145 for a rich depository of bespoke band-name ideas 😉)
Just did a Duck Duck Go (DDG) search on "scidolaters". While it started with "Not many results contain scidolaters", the first result was a Wikipedia entry:
"Idolatry - Wikipedia"
That's the second part of clever portmanteau 🙂
As you wish.