On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 Telmo Menezes <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>wrote:
>>
Subjectivity, especially my subjectivity, is the most
important thing in the universe; or at least it is in my
opinion.
>
I am not disagreeing, it is just surprising to read this from you
considering your consistent refusal to engage with arguments that
rely on first person / third person distinctions.
Not true at all, all I ask is that it's clear who the first person is
who the third person is and who the referent of personal pronouns is;
in everyday life this is easy but not in a world with people
duplicating machines.
>
Perhaps you are right that native Hawaiians live in our culture --
perhaps not, as you yourself posit below when you claim to possess
knowledge that they do not.
The
native Hawaiians
have access to the exact same information as I do but they prefer not
to access it, and you prefer to make lame excuses for this
intellectual laziness
and patronize it.
>
Perhaps you are right that building scientific instruments at all
costs
At all costs? We're not talking about building a concentration camp
or a toxic waste dump, we're talking about a making a telescope.
>
is the way to enrich the entire human race -- perhaps not, and
things are more complicated than that.
No, I don't think things are one bit
more complicated than that
. Most issues are not black and white there is a grey area, but not
this time, this time it couldn't be clearer, this is a dispute between
knowledge and ignorance between darkness and light.
>
I agree with you that ignorance is probably the biggest problem of
our times.
Do you also agree that making excuses for a problem will not solve a
problem?
>
What I am claiming (from the beginning) is that insulting the
ignorant,
I said the ignorant are ignoramuses and I said barbarians behave
barbarically; is telling the truth an insult? Even if it is sometimes
telling a insult is the right thing to do and this is one of those times.
>
or forcing their hand does not solve that problem.
If we force their hand they'd still be ignorant barbarians but we'd
have the Thirty Meter Telescope and the entire human race would be
enriched because of it.
>
Insulting the ignorant makes you feel good about yourself and
gives you a dopamine shot,
Yes, and it clears my sinuses too. Very refreshing!
>
but it accomplishes nothing.
But of course patronizing contemptible ignoramuses and making excuses
for them so they feel comfortable in continuing to wallow in ignorance
accomplishes wonders.
>
Forcing other people to conform to the world view
Like forcing other people to take the mother earth father sky world
view seriously.
>
and way of life of the dominant power does not produce good results
But forcing the majority to conform to the minority world view always
produces good results?
Telmo, s
ometimes in life it is impossible for everybody to be happy
;
t
he knowledge tribe will be unhappy if the telescope is not build and
the ignorance tribe will be unhappy if it is. I am unhappy because I
am a member of the knowledge tribe and we lost.
You are a member of a different tribe. A
re you happy?
>
Let me ask you something: how many research grants and scientific
resources could be created with the money that has been spent on
unnecessary wars?
42.
>
On the TSA? On spying on everyone? Shouldn't we solve these things
before claiming moral superiority?
Do you think we shouldn't try to solve any problem until we can solve
every problem? I do not feel the slightest bit embarrassed to say in
a loud clear voice the I John K Clark feel that I am morally superior
to the ignorant Hawaiian barbarians who destroyed the glorious Thirty
Meter Telescope! I think they're scum.
>
What about the fact that we not only tolerate but make allies out
of one of the most brutal, anti-science, anti-knowledge,
anti-freedom regimes in existence (Saudi Arabia)?
I don't know who "we" is
nor do I know what you mean by "tolerate"
. You're starting to sound like George W Bush,
are you suggesting "we" go to war with Saudi Arabia
?
I do know that the old saying "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"
makes some logical sense
in our imperfect world.
Saudi Arabia
and Iran are both complete bastards but they hate each other's guts
and Iran won't deal with the USA but Saudi Arabia will, so siding with
Saudi Arabia
may be the least bad decision. B
ut I don't know what
any of
that has to do with the Thirty Meter Telescope.
>>
T
he International Space Station
is by far the most expensive "scientific" instrument ever
made and is also close to useless and a
particle accelerator has't found anything surprising in nearly
half a century
but telescopes certainly have and
the thirty meter telescope
could
have
seen
t
hings 156 times dimmer
than what the Hubble can see
and WHY DO YOU DEFEND THESE PEOPLE? I don't get it.
>
I defend these people because they have done nothing to me
Well they have certainly done something to me! Religious numskulls
in Hawaii have deprived me of knowledge about the universe I would
otherwise have had and they did so for a *IDIOTIC* reason. I can never
forgive them for that. Never.
>
and I don't remember being offered their land.
And I don't remember them ever owning that land. And I don't give a
damn who their great great great great great grandfather was.
>
I did not know that this was a core "liberal" belief,
Along with "loud minorities that constantly whine about injustices
that happened centuries
b
efore they were born
are always the good guys" liberals have several other core beliefs
:
greenhouse gasses are bad and nuclear power that doesn't produce any
are bad too, insecticides and artificial fertilizer are bad but so are
plants that don't need them, genital mutilation is bad but allowing
Muslims to
perform it on helpless children even in western nations is good
because of cultural heritage,
starvation is bad and so are plants that produce more food, ignorance
is bad but the Prime Directive which says don't change anything is good.
>
but surely it is contradictory
Yes indeed.
>
The ethical question we are investigating is: "what makes
something yours".
It's
a bit
more than that. The Hawaiian supreme court already decided that a
certain gaggle of pea-brains has the legal right to destroy the telescope
because of who their ancestors were
, they did not say it was the right thing to do. Even if Donald Trump
had a clear uncontested legal deed to the land if he refused to let it
be used for the telescope because he
w
anted to build a casino or anything else there I would not hesitate to
call
Donald Trump
ignorant scum. And religious Hawaiians of native descent are no better
than Donald Trump
even if they have better hair.
>
I like labels because coherent thought would be
impossible without them.
>
You are making a logical mistake. The fact that coherent thought
is not possible without categories does not imply that all
categories are valid or useful.
Obviously all generalization all always false, every single one of
them, absolutely no exceptions. But putting a ignorant and barbaric
label on somebody who is
ignorant and barbaric
is valid and useful.
>
Some categories are just a subtle form of name calling / ad hominem,
I'm sorry if I was subtle, it was certainly not my intention to be
subtle. I'll try to make amends: religious Hawaiians of native descent
who destroyed the Thirty Meter Telescope are *ASSHOLES!*
>
"liberal" diverged so much from its original meaning
That's true, the words
"liberal" and "conservative" had almost exactly opposite meaning
in the 19th century than they have
today.
Back then
a liberal was somebody
who was
eager to try new ideas and was in
favor of more personal freedom, a conservative believed in the divine
right
of kings.
Today a self described liberal is someone who opposes any f
orm
of nuclear energy, opposes any form of genetic engineering, opposes
free speech on college campuses, and says that it was good that
ignorant barbarians destroyed a vital scientific instrument because
the ignorant barbarians
are a minority that likes to talk about an injustice that happened a
century before their great grandparents were born.
