On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jouni Valkonen <jounivalko...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Yes you did say. You said that hot fusion researchers are trying to >> 'suppress' it and indeed hot fusion research is operating with extremely >> big money. >> > ... > I suppose plasma fusion funding is "big money." It is far bigger than most > academic funding. But I take the expression "big money" to mean businesses, > Wall Street, the DoD or political parties. Academic funding is microscopic > in comparison. > This is a perfect case-in-point for the situation described in "Institutional Incompetence, "Conspiracy Theories" and Pol Pot<http://jimbowery.blogspot.com/2011/07/institutional-incompetence-conspiracy.html> ": Part of the problem is that almost all institutional incompetence derives from faulty incentive structures, so it is easy to impute to the critic the claim that such incompetence is not incompetence at all but, rather, is self-interest. The critic is hard-pressed to deny this (except insofar as such self-interest is unenlightened hence incompetent in that meta-sense) and is thence imputed to "theorize" a "conspiracy" of self-interested individuals as the basis for the maintenance of the institutionalized incompetence. Again, the critic may not have put forth nor even have thought of such a theory but he is hard-pressed to disprove that a "conspiracy" -- in some sense -- is at work so he cannot very well vigorously deny such a theory. This vulnerability of the critic is then viciously attacked. This all goes on within a subtext of the conversation so it is a rare critic that recognizes how the burden of proof has been shifted from the institutionally incompetent needing to prove that the critic has theorized a "conspiracy" (which, of course, would require defining "conspiracy") to the critic needing to prove that such a "conspiracy" (the definition of which is, after all, in the mind of the institutionally incompetent) is clearly out of the question despite the vagueness of the term multiplied by the lack of information with which to support or deny even a clear definition. So, the institution of "Critics are crazy people." successfully defends all institutional incompetence.
