“…good news to those of us who’ve been told ad nauseum that we should be very careful about stating our informed opinions on matters on which we are not experts.”
Very interesting. I really like Haidt. He has a lot of great observations. The Coddling of the American Mind is one. I've heard a couple interviews where he's promoting this book, but I didn't realize he was calling for government intervention. I might agree with most of what he says about TikTok and still not necessarily want the government to ban it.
Indeed, his promotion of government regulation for free (social media) speech="good" caught me off-guard. Using terribly flawed research with even "flawed'r" conclusions to support such a position...well, all I have to offer him in return is a double-eye roll and a genuinely heartfelt, 'pffft'. (Yes, Ned. I know flawed'r isn't a word. I'm only following science's lead, I too, can say what I wish, like them, without being correct.)
"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships." --Stephen Covey
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity" --George Orwell
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." --Richard Feynman
I was alarmed reading the findings of Mr.. Ioannidis, until I realized that, by his own calculations, his findings are most likely false. He’s gotten himself stuck in a bit of a catch 22 there, poor guy. Lol
In all seriousness, this is a real problem and we should be very concerned, BUT there’s more than one factor contributing to the public’s lack of trust in science.
For one, there are incredibly deep-pocketed and powerful interest groups dedicated in full to undermining the public’s trust in science. After decades and billions spent to this end, surely we can expect their efforts to bear fruit.
Second, the rise of social media has removed the ‘town square’ - the commonly accepted truths that helped us to find common understanding on all kinds of issues. We are now free to pick and choose our favorite versions of what’s true and what’s not. Well before anyone had ever heard of the little virus from Wuhan, the antivaxx movement was exploding in popularity, thanks to social media.
Frequent Viewers of Fox News Are Less Likely to Accept
Scientists' Views of Global Warming
It's amazing how often I encounter this. For a guy who literally NEVER watches Fox News (we don't even have real TV here) I always get a good chuckle when when someone who disagrees with my take assumes I'm somehow influenced by Fox News.
Having said that, you're absolutely correct about the deep pockets, though to assume they only exist on "the right" is terribly naïve. The ones on the left are largely to blame for the funding and propagation of the pseudoscience of "gender affirming care" for kids. That's only one example. Our collective aversion to nuclear power is another.
You brought up another common misconception, namely that those who are against the mandatory covid shot regime are all just "anti-vaxxers". This is view that's been popularized largely by media and government propaganda.
And you're right about the absence of the town square. That's a tragic loss, but what's interesting about that is that a lot of the values that are causing much of the pushback today are precisely those kinds of traditional values that would historically be welcome in the old town square.
Excellent observation about the catch-22 situation of this study. I'd had that thought as well. 😀
“You brought up another common misconception, namely that those who are against the mandatory covid shot regime are all just "anti-vaxxers".’
No, I explicitly referred to the anti-vax movement prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. I said the anti-vax movement had exploded in popularity along with the rise of social media, pre-covid. I was making a counterpoint to your bizarre and completely unsupported assertion that “when major institutions lose the trust of the public, there is only one reason”. No. There are all kinds of reasons, including the deliberate spread of disinformation.
Having said that, the MW Dictionary definition for antivaxxer is : “a person who opposes the use of some or all vaccines, regulations mandating vaccination, or usually both”. This makes us all antivaxxers in some way or another way. I oppose a blanket mandate on vaccinations, individuals should be allowed to make the choice. Thankfully, only a handful of governments mandated Covid vaccinations.
Yes, I'm aware of the MW definition. That's rather recent, like 2018. I was more than a little chafed when I saw that.
It seems really difficult to find info on general vaccine uptake since the word "vaccine" seems only to refer to covid now. I don't think there's really been a big issue in vaccine uptake until covid, regardless of the "misinformation" that's out there, though I agree that actual misinformation is an issue. I would also point out that much of the recent misinformation came from our own government, so that surely didn't help, and is part of what this article is about. Now, many of these real anti-vaxxers have basically had some of their theories confirmed.
Another reason that's been recognized for minorities being skeptical of the covid vaccine is a documented history of governments doing nasty things to them, especially among our native population.
I see that Statista doesn't include Canada in the "mandatory vaccine" category, which is fair now, but I'll never let anyone forget that it was mandatory here for way too long.
So, I don't think my assertion is "completely unsupported" at all.
I told you why: it's inaccurate to the intended purpose of the word, and it makes "anti-vaxxers" out of anyone who questions government policy, which was convenient during covid.
Isn’t that just like saying ‘gay’ shouldn’t mean homosexual? Because the original ‘intended’ meaning was ‘happy’? Surely a dictionary should be descriptive, not prescriptive - it defines words as they are used, not how some unnamed authority ‘intended’ them to be used.
What do you mean it was ‘convenient during covid’?
Canada never made Covid vaccines mandatory, that was my point.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy was already contributing towards the declining vaccination rates across the world. For example, declining vaccination coverage in Samoa due to misinformation propagated by anti-vaccine groups led to the 2019 measles outbreak in the country”
You may like to believe that covid vaccines weren't mandatory here, but that's exactly like saying those who were against those mandates are all anti-vaxxers. You're playing with words, and adjusting the definitions to suit your purpose. The mandates here were real. Just because they weren't holding us down with a gun to our heads, doesn't make it mean it wasn't so.
No, mandatory vaccination means mandatory vaccination.
Medical professionals and others are ‘mandated’ to do all kinds of things as part of their jobs. They’re mandated to wear shoes, for example. If they show up to work barefoot and refuse to put on shoes, they can expect to lose their jobs. Does this mean that shoes are mandatory in Canada? and Canadians are having their rights infringed? No, that’s ridiculous. Canada never had mandatory vaccination, nowhere near it. It is you who’s playing with words.
Indeed, many medical professionals, including virologists(!) were threated with loss of employment if they refused the experimental jabs. Many still refused and lost their jobs, creating shortages of qualified medical people in the hospital system that was already understaffed to crisis levels. One personal friend who happened to also be an RN at the local children's hospital did accept the jab. Two days later whe was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome. She still suffers from it today. She also caught CoVid three times after being 'fully vaccinated'. So much for, "my body-my choice", eh?
You ever heard of Robert F Kennedy? He's actually running for POTUS, and he's a rabid antivaxxer, been doing this stuff for decades and gotten A LOT of people killed. He's not alone though, there are many others out there doing the same thing, and Covid was like all their Christmases came at once.
Wouldn’t the fact that people so frequently associate your takes with Fox News cause you at least a little introspection? What is it that continually causes people to make that connection?
I can help join the dots since you’ve never watched it.
Fox News pioneered the ‘newstainment’ genre of cable news with a comical disregard for editorial neutrality. It’s like if you made a parody of a right-wing news channel, except it’s not a joke, and it’s very effective propaganda. It’s like if Mr. Burns created a cable news network (I assume you’ve watched the Simpsons?)
The Mr. Burns analogy isn’t far off though because Fox News is the brainchild of its decrepit media-tycoon owner, Rupert Murdoch - a real-life Burns. Fox News gets a lot of attention because of its influence over American politics, but Fox is just one brand in a vast global empire. It’s often joked that Australia isn’t a democracy but rather our governments are appointed by Murdoch, and the same is true in the UK.
Anyway, being entirely devoted to pro-big business, right-wing and conservative propaganda, one of their main agendas is, of course, climate change denial and undermining science in general. Fox’s editorial direction on the issue has been extreme to say the least, and Murdoch’s own son and heir recently quit the family business stating this very reason.
The dominant talking points on Fox are not exclusive to Murdoch’s outlets though, especially as most of us now get our news online, but when people read your views on a range of topics, but ‘Fox News’ is used as a kind of catch-all, synonym for conservative pro-business, right-wing nonsense.
Having said that, I never said or even insinuated that you were influenced in any way by Fox or by anything else, I was talking about the reasons why the public has lost trust in science. Obviously, a hugely influential global media empire that’s extremely hostile to science is a contributing factor.
John Wiley & Sons Inc, a publisher of academic journals has withdrawn 11,300 papers and shuttered 19 journals since a March.
"Many of these suspect papers purported to be serious medical studies, including examinations of drug resistance in newborns with pneumonia and the value of MRI scans in the diagnosis of early liver disease. The journals involved included Disease Markers, BioMed Research International and Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience."
I think you give too much credit to Fox News. Being "pro-business" and "Conservative" is only a bad thing according to those who are "anti-business" and whatever the opposite of conservative is. None of this necessarily has anything to do with Fox News, even if they happen to have similar views. If you think "the left" is totally correct and "the right" is completely wrong, then you have a very simplistic and naïve view of human nature. So it doesn't really matter to me if some people think some of my views would track well on Fox - it's irrelevant. Are you going to stop wearing shoes because Donald Trump wears shoes?
If you believe that everything that falls under the "conservative" banner is false, and racist, and bigoted, and ignorant, then fine. That doesn't leave a lot of room for nuance, though, does it? It would be just as ridiculous for me to call you a "libtard" with all the presumptions that go along with that.
Being a "climate change deniar" these days is an awful lot like being an "anti-vaxxer" - all you have to do is question the orthodoxy a little bit.
It's not the "the science" that most people question, it's the implementation of it. But apparently, it's much easier to call people names than it is to have an actual discussion.
Fox news, US Republicans, your CPC etc. are pro-business in the sense that they’re anti-worker, anti-consumer, against environmental and any other regulation. That’s what I meant by pro-business.
The opposite of conservative is a progressive. Simply put, ‘conservative’ means backwards and ‘progressive’ means forwards. A conservative believes that things were better in the past (women in the kitchen, no such things as homosexuals, church on Sundays, coloreds know their place), while a progressive believes the opposite.
I thought all this was well understood.
Of course I believe that being ‘pro-business’ in this sense and conservative are wrong. Wrong, stupid, unethical, selfish, and sometimes even evil.
Why would I take a position on political matters if I didn’t believe in it? These aren’t football teams, they’re ideologies.
Right. According to my knowledge of our conservative party, and the people I know who identify as such, NONE of them are racist, or backward, many of the women work outside the home, and many of them don't go to church. And I'm also none of the things you mentioned. So I think what you're talking about is nothing more than a caricature of a conservative. I find it difficult to believe that you actually believe this
I suppose it’s a caricature, yes. At certain times in history, the things I mentioned were normal conservative positions. If you were a conservative in the 1950s, for example, you would’ve believed that a woman’s place was in the kitchen. In the 1980s, a conservative would have been staunchly anti-gay. Nowadays, they are transphobes. Progressives have to fight against conservatism to push society forwards. This is the eternal struggle between conservatism and progressivism, one is forwards and one is backwards. I’m not making this stuff up. If you Google what’s the most progressive society on earth, you’ll probably get Norway or some other Scandinavian country, or New Zealand. If you Google what’s the most conservative society, you’ll get Yemen, or Saudi Arabia. Those are the opposite ends of the spectrum, but your conservative party does sit closer to shittier end of that spectrum, that’s why they call themselves the conservative party.
I don’t need to pretend that one ideology isn’t inherently, objectively worse than the other.
Our progressives here are hardly what they are in the Nordic countries - especially in regards to trans matters. Europe in general has been way more even-keeled than we are. The situation we find ourselves in here is not that our Conservative Party is so far right, but that our Liberal Party has drifted so far left.
I completely disagree with your statement that Canadian conservatives are "closer to the shittier end of that spectrum." That's completely delusional and shows how little you (and others) really understand.
No, Ned. "The Public" hasn't lost trust in science...but a plurality of non-left leaning people over the past 50 years have lost trust in political institutions, including central government and individuals who push government mandates by asserting, "because WE SAY the science says so." I have a challenge for you to consider:
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” --Albert Einstein
The challenge for you is to prove Einstein's words are wrong. Using only your own life experience, why is he wrong?
An odd challenge, isn’t it? There’s a lot of wisdom in Einstein’s words, and I completely agree with him. It would be difficult and nonsensical to attempt your challenge.
Here’s a more simple one. Not a challenge. I'm not asking you to defend something you don’t believe in, just a straightforward question…
If you or a family member became seriously ill. Would you consult a doctor?
Not an odd challenge at all, Ned. You clearly missed Einstein's point and the purpose of the challenge: "Unthinking respect for authority" is what you practice, but you don't see it as "the greatest enemy of truth." You have the opposite opinion in your posts...government (authority) is "truth" by simply saying, "because we say the science says so."
As for your question (and I agree it is a simple one - one I'd expect from someone who prefers to deflect a conversation elsewhere) consulting a doctor when one is seriously ill is recommended. But I would want more than one opinion, preferrably a second or possbily a third, from doctors who aren't members of the same practice with the first, so I can make a fully-informed decision on moving forward. If I disagree with any one of them I would NOT take that doctor's advice. I certainly wouldn't take the advice of any doctor who previously treated me and I didn't get better.
This isn't the same thing, in any sense, of what Einstein is talking about. Doctor's have neither the power or authority mandate I do any of their suggested treatments. If the doctor is wrong, I can sue for malpractice.
When science, or any government mandate based on it is wrong, no one can sue it, or any of it's members, for damages.
What makes you think I practice ‘unthinking respect for authority?’
So you would consult between 1 and 3 doctors, and then proceed with the majority opinion? 2 out of 3 constitute a strong enough expert consensus for you to feel confident? But actually you didn’t even say that, you said if you ‘disagree with any of them’, you ‘would NOT take that doctor’s advice’. What if you disagreed with two of them? Or ALL of them? Wait, why are we consulting doctors again? Puzzling.
Einstein certainly was not referencing mandates or government authority, he was talking about academic and scientific authority. The doctor analogy is 100% correct.
Do you think you can sue a doctor simply for being ‘wrong’? No, that’s not how malpractice works. Doctors are allowed to be wrong, just as any experts are.
And yes, you can sue the government. People do it every day.
“…good news to those of us who’ve been told ad nauseum that we should be very careful about stating our informed opinions on matters on which we are not experts.”
Excellent post! 👍🏻👍🏻
This must be Ken's sister-wife. Special folks in rural Canada 🤣
Another recent post related to this topical thread.
https://reason.com/video/2024/04/02/the-bad-science-behind-jonathan-haidts-anti-social-media-crusade/
Very interesting. I really like Haidt. He has a lot of great observations. The Coddling of the American Mind is one. I've heard a couple interviews where he's promoting this book, but I didn't realize he was calling for government intervention. I might agree with most of what he says about TikTok and still not necessarily want the government to ban it.
Indeed, his promotion of government regulation for free (social media) speech="good" caught me off-guard. Using terribly flawed research with even "flawed'r" conclusions to support such a position...well, all I have to offer him in return is a double-eye roll and a genuinely heartfelt, 'pffft'. (Yes, Ned. I know flawed'r isn't a word. I'm only following science's lead, I too, can say what I wish, like them, without being correct.)
"Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships." --Stephen Covey
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity" --George Orwell
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." --Richard Feynman
http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html
Here's the latest example of the replication crisis in Canada, and surprise, surprise - it's also related to DEI...
https://tnc.news/2024/04/04/studies-diversity-corporate-performance-flawed/
Hey Ken where's your high school diploma?
Ken do you even have a high school diploma? 😆
I was alarmed reading the findings of Mr.. Ioannidis, until I realized that, by his own calculations, his findings are most likely false. He’s gotten himself stuck in a bit of a catch 22 there, poor guy. Lol
In all seriousness, this is a real problem and we should be very concerned, BUT there’s more than one factor contributing to the public’s lack of trust in science.
For one, there are incredibly deep-pocketed and powerful interest groups dedicated in full to undermining the public’s trust in science. After decades and billions spent to this end, surely we can expect their efforts to bear fruit.
https://woodsinstitute.stanford.edu/system/files/publications/Global-Warming-Fox-News.pdf
Second, the rise of social media has removed the ‘town square’ - the commonly accepted truths that helped us to find common understanding on all kinds of issues. We are now free to pick and choose our favorite versions of what’s true and what’s not. Well before anyone had ever heard of the little virus from Wuhan, the antivaxx movement was exploding in popularity, thanks to social media.
I made it as far as the headline in that link:.
Frequent Viewers of Fox News Are Less Likely to Accept
Scientists' Views of Global Warming
It's amazing how often I encounter this. For a guy who literally NEVER watches Fox News (we don't even have real TV here) I always get a good chuckle when when someone who disagrees with my take assumes I'm somehow influenced by Fox News.
Having said that, you're absolutely correct about the deep pockets, though to assume they only exist on "the right" is terribly naïve. The ones on the left are largely to blame for the funding and propagation of the pseudoscience of "gender affirming care" for kids. That's only one example. Our collective aversion to nuclear power is another.
You brought up another common misconception, namely that those who are against the mandatory covid shot regime are all just "anti-vaxxers". This is view that's been popularized largely by media and government propaganda.
And you're right about the absence of the town square. That's a tragic loss, but what's interesting about that is that a lot of the values that are causing much of the pushback today are precisely those kinds of traditional values that would historically be welcome in the old town square.
Excellent observation about the catch-22 situation of this study. I'd had that thought as well. 😀
“You brought up another common misconception, namely that those who are against the mandatory covid shot regime are all just "anti-vaxxers".’
No, I explicitly referred to the anti-vax movement prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. I said the anti-vax movement had exploded in popularity along with the rise of social media, pre-covid. I was making a counterpoint to your bizarre and completely unsupported assertion that “when major institutions lose the trust of the public, there is only one reason”. No. There are all kinds of reasons, including the deliberate spread of disinformation.
Having said that, the MW Dictionary definition for antivaxxer is : “a person who opposes the use of some or all vaccines, regulations mandating vaccination, or usually both”. This makes us all antivaxxers in some way or another way. I oppose a blanket mandate on vaccinations, individuals should be allowed to make the choice. Thankfully, only a handful of governments mandated Covid vaccinations.
https://www.statista.com/chart/25326/obligatory-vaccination-against-covid-19/
Yes, I'm aware of the MW definition. That's rather recent, like 2018. I was more than a little chafed when I saw that.
It seems really difficult to find info on general vaccine uptake since the word "vaccine" seems only to refer to covid now. I don't think there's really been a big issue in vaccine uptake until covid, regardless of the "misinformation" that's out there, though I agree that actual misinformation is an issue. I would also point out that much of the recent misinformation came from our own government, so that surely didn't help, and is part of what this article is about. Now, many of these real anti-vaxxers have basically had some of their theories confirmed.
Another reason that's been recognized for minorities being skeptical of the covid vaccine is a documented history of governments doing nasty things to them, especially among our native population.
I see that Statista doesn't include Canada in the "mandatory vaccine" category, which is fair now, but I'll never let anyone forget that it was mandatory here for way too long.
So, I don't think my assertion is "completely unsupported" at all.
Why would you be chafed that they updated their dictionary definition in 2018? Dictionaries are updated several times a year.
I told you why: it's inaccurate to the intended purpose of the word, and it makes "anti-vaxxers" out of anyone who questions government policy, which was convenient during covid.
Isn’t that just like saying ‘gay’ shouldn’t mean homosexual? Because the original ‘intended’ meaning was ‘happy’? Surely a dictionary should be descriptive, not prescriptive - it defines words as they are used, not how some unnamed authority ‘intended’ them to be used.
What do you mean it was ‘convenient during covid’?
Canada never made Covid vaccines mandatory, that was my point.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy was already contributing towards the declining vaccination rates across the world. For example, declining vaccination coverage in Samoa due to misinformation propagated by anti-vaccine groups led to the 2019 measles outbreak in the country”
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(23)00063-3/fulltext#:~:text=Before%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic,measles%20outbreak%20in%20the%20country.
You may like to believe that covid vaccines weren't mandatory here, but that's exactly like saying those who were against those mandates are all anti-vaxxers. You're playing with words, and adjusting the definitions to suit your purpose. The mandates here were real. Just because they weren't holding us down with a gun to our heads, doesn't make it mean it wasn't so.
No, mandatory vaccination means mandatory vaccination.
Medical professionals and others are ‘mandated’ to do all kinds of things as part of their jobs. They’re mandated to wear shoes, for example. If they show up to work barefoot and refuse to put on shoes, they can expect to lose their jobs. Does this mean that shoes are mandatory in Canada? and Canadians are having their rights infringed? No, that’s ridiculous. Canada never had mandatory vaccination, nowhere near it. It is you who’s playing with words.
Indeed, many medical professionals, including virologists(!) were threated with loss of employment if they refused the experimental jabs. Many still refused and lost their jobs, creating shortages of qualified medical people in the hospital system that was already understaffed to crisis levels. One personal friend who happened to also be an RN at the local children's hospital did accept the jab. Two days later whe was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome. She still suffers from it today. She also caught CoVid three times after being 'fully vaccinated'. So much for, "my body-my choice", eh?
You ever heard of Robert F Kennedy? He's actually running for POTUS, and he's a rabid antivaxxer, been doing this stuff for decades and gotten A LOT of people killed. He's not alone though, there are many others out there doing the same thing, and Covid was like all their Christmases came at once.
https://youtu.be/-t2O3MHTRNM?si=YIODS5gXqrKRwPyA
Wouldn’t the fact that people so frequently associate your takes with Fox News cause you at least a little introspection? What is it that continually causes people to make that connection?
I can help join the dots since you’ve never watched it.
Fox News pioneered the ‘newstainment’ genre of cable news with a comical disregard for editorial neutrality. It’s like if you made a parody of a right-wing news channel, except it’s not a joke, and it’s very effective propaganda. It’s like if Mr. Burns created a cable news network (I assume you’ve watched the Simpsons?)
The Mr. Burns analogy isn’t far off though because Fox News is the brainchild of its decrepit media-tycoon owner, Rupert Murdoch - a real-life Burns. Fox News gets a lot of attention because of its influence over American politics, but Fox is just one brand in a vast global empire. It’s often joked that Australia isn’t a democracy but rather our governments are appointed by Murdoch, and the same is true in the UK.
Anyway, being entirely devoted to pro-big business, right-wing and conservative propaganda, one of their main agendas is, of course, climate change denial and undermining science in general. Fox’s editorial direction on the issue has been extreme to say the least, and Murdoch’s own son and heir recently quit the family business stating this very reason.
The dominant talking points on Fox are not exclusive to Murdoch’s outlets though, especially as most of us now get our news online, but when people read your views on a range of topics, but ‘Fox News’ is used as a kind of catch-all, synonym for conservative pro-business, right-wing nonsense.
Having said that, I never said or even insinuated that you were influenced in any way by Fox or by anything else, I was talking about the reasons why the public has lost trust in science. Obviously, a hugely influential global media empire that’s extremely hostile to science is a contributing factor.
Here's the latest in the fake science crisis:
John Wiley & Sons Inc, a publisher of academic journals has withdrawn 11,300 papers and shuttered 19 journals since a March.
"Many of these suspect papers purported to be serious medical studies, including examinations of drug resistance in newborns with pneumonia and the value of MRI scans in the diagnosis of early liver disease. The journals involved included Disease Markers, BioMed Research International and Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-21/wiley-hindawi-articles-scandal-broader-crisis-trust-universities/103868662?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I think you give too much credit to Fox News. Being "pro-business" and "Conservative" is only a bad thing according to those who are "anti-business" and whatever the opposite of conservative is. None of this necessarily has anything to do with Fox News, even if they happen to have similar views. If you think "the left" is totally correct and "the right" is completely wrong, then you have a very simplistic and naïve view of human nature. So it doesn't really matter to me if some people think some of my views would track well on Fox - it's irrelevant. Are you going to stop wearing shoes because Donald Trump wears shoes?
If you believe that everything that falls under the "conservative" banner is false, and racist, and bigoted, and ignorant, then fine. That doesn't leave a lot of room for nuance, though, does it? It would be just as ridiculous for me to call you a "libtard" with all the presumptions that go along with that.
Being a "climate change deniar" these days is an awful lot like being an "anti-vaxxer" - all you have to do is question the orthodoxy a little bit.
It's not the "the science" that most people question, it's the implementation of it. But apparently, it's much easier to call people names than it is to have an actual discussion.
Fox news, US Republicans, your CPC etc. are pro-business in the sense that they’re anti-worker, anti-consumer, against environmental and any other regulation. That’s what I meant by pro-business.
The opposite of conservative is a progressive. Simply put, ‘conservative’ means backwards and ‘progressive’ means forwards. A conservative believes that things were better in the past (women in the kitchen, no such things as homosexuals, church on Sundays, coloreds know their place), while a progressive believes the opposite.
I thought all this was well understood.
Of course I believe that being ‘pro-business’ in this sense and conservative are wrong. Wrong, stupid, unethical, selfish, and sometimes even evil.
Why would I take a position on political matters if I didn’t believe in it? These aren’t football teams, they’re ideologies.
Right. According to my knowledge of our conservative party, and the people I know who identify as such, NONE of them are racist, or backward, many of the women work outside the home, and many of them don't go to church. And I'm also none of the things you mentioned. So I think what you're talking about is nothing more than a caricature of a conservative. I find it difficult to believe that you actually believe this
I suppose it’s a caricature, yes. At certain times in history, the things I mentioned were normal conservative positions. If you were a conservative in the 1950s, for example, you would’ve believed that a woman’s place was in the kitchen. In the 1980s, a conservative would have been staunchly anti-gay. Nowadays, they are transphobes. Progressives have to fight against conservatism to push society forwards. This is the eternal struggle between conservatism and progressivism, one is forwards and one is backwards. I’m not making this stuff up. If you Google what’s the most progressive society on earth, you’ll probably get Norway or some other Scandinavian country, or New Zealand. If you Google what’s the most conservative society, you’ll get Yemen, or Saudi Arabia. Those are the opposite ends of the spectrum, but your conservative party does sit closer to shittier end of that spectrum, that’s why they call themselves the conservative party.
I don’t need to pretend that one ideology isn’t inherently, objectively worse than the other.
Our progressives here are hardly what they are in the Nordic countries - especially in regards to trans matters. Europe in general has been way more even-keeled than we are. The situation we find ourselves in here is not that our Conservative Party is so far right, but that our Liberal Party has drifted so far left.
I completely disagree with your statement that Canadian conservatives are "closer to the shittier end of that spectrum." That's completely delusional and shows how little you (and others) really understand.
No, Ned. "The Public" hasn't lost trust in science...but a plurality of non-left leaning people over the past 50 years have lost trust in political institutions, including central government and individuals who push government mandates by asserting, "because WE SAY the science says so." I have a challenge for you to consider:
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” --Albert Einstein
The challenge for you is to prove Einstein's words are wrong. Using only your own life experience, why is he wrong?
An odd challenge, isn’t it? There’s a lot of wisdom in Einstein’s words, and I completely agree with him. It would be difficult and nonsensical to attempt your challenge.
Here’s a more simple one. Not a challenge. I'm not asking you to defend something you don’t believe in, just a straightforward question…
If you or a family member became seriously ill. Would you consult a doctor?
If so, why?
Not an odd challenge at all, Ned. You clearly missed Einstein's point and the purpose of the challenge: "Unthinking respect for authority" is what you practice, but you don't see it as "the greatest enemy of truth." You have the opposite opinion in your posts...government (authority) is "truth" by simply saying, "because we say the science says so."
As for your question (and I agree it is a simple one - one I'd expect from someone who prefers to deflect a conversation elsewhere) consulting a doctor when one is seriously ill is recommended. But I would want more than one opinion, preferrably a second or possbily a third, from doctors who aren't members of the same practice with the first, so I can make a fully-informed decision on moving forward. If I disagree with any one of them I would NOT take that doctor's advice. I certainly wouldn't take the advice of any doctor who previously treated me and I didn't get better.
This isn't the same thing, in any sense, of what Einstein is talking about. Doctor's have neither the power or authority mandate I do any of their suggested treatments. If the doctor is wrong, I can sue for malpractice.
When science, or any government mandate based on it is wrong, no one can sue it, or any of it's members, for damages.
This is fascinating.
What makes you think I practice ‘unthinking respect for authority?’
So you would consult between 1 and 3 doctors, and then proceed with the majority opinion? 2 out of 3 constitute a strong enough expert consensus for you to feel confident? But actually you didn’t even say that, you said if you ‘disagree with any of them’, you ‘would NOT take that doctor’s advice’. What if you disagreed with two of them? Or ALL of them? Wait, why are we consulting doctors again? Puzzling.
Einstein certainly was not referencing mandates or government authority, he was talking about academic and scientific authority. The doctor analogy is 100% correct.
Do you think you can sue a doctor simply for being ‘wrong’? No, that’s not how malpractice works. Doctors are allowed to be wrong, just as any experts are.
And yes, you can sue the government. People do it every day.