There’s a disparity in understanding that isn’t easy to resolve between the “experts” (for want of a better term) and the public. The issue is how to create a pact between people who arrived at conclusions through years of training, specialty, and rigourous inquiry, and those whose understanding is limited by a lack of those things, by design or accident.
I take as a given that, as a general rule, those who traffic in knowledge would find it beneficial to syndicate as much of it as possible (save instances of sociopathy, which are comparatively rare). However, specialty in knowledge from a purely altruistic standpoint is still rare relative to those who want to abominate for personal gain - the snake-oil merchants and con artists.
What makes it worse now - by possibly an exponential function - is the combination of the almost universal access to means of communication, the almost free avail of this access, and the ability to do it under cover of anonymity. Given a receptive and relatively naive population, you have the oxygen-fuel-ignition trifecta of a conflagration that is very difficult to stifle.
I can see this frustration among the scientists and scholars who rightfully find this to be a gross injustice, some of which might contend that standing up for knowledge is an exercise in futility or simply not their business. I can’t blame anyone in that camp, but it won’t change the situation. I find it frustrating myself. It was bad enough being a skeptic when the internet was still specialized to dedicated conspiracy theorists; smartphones and wi-fi have created a swath of even casual conspiracy theorists.
All is not lost, however. In a practical sense, much of it is still just bluster, even when media introduce simplistic, reductive narratives that all but blatantly indicate that the intent is to indoctrinate and not inform. Most of those who buy into unscientific ideas that fly in the face of empirical fact - numerous though they may be - are verbal hypocrites with next to no influence (save spreading rumours). As sordid as that may seem, these characteristics means they’re not acting on their ideals; they’re just a positional “club good” that maintains the air of approbation among their peers.
Granted, this doesn’t mean scientists and public intellectuals should throw up a white flag; quite the contrary. But it does mean it may be prudent to jettison the ideal for a highly-informed populace for fear it could lead to rout and chaos. I doubt it will for two reasons: one, chaos and conflict are tiresome, and people will only put up with it to a point. And two, as Steven Pinker has amply demonstrated, all metrics of standard of living show a steady global increase on average. I would also add that much of the more pernicious forms of pseudoscience - bloodletting, trepanation, pressings for witchcraft, executions for heresy, carpetbagging, race-based phrenology - are, in general, things of the distant past. Many of the ones we deal with now that persist like religion and astrology are, if you take it globally, of comparatively little consequence (even if you account for terrorism), and the ones that are widely pervasive - conspiracy theories like 9/11 Truth, for instance - are often flash-in-the-pan.
I don’t think scientists should fret too awful much about the influence of knowledge, because if you take any single slice of history, it seems like the influence has been minimal. But the efforts are not in vain. Anyone can name any number of scientists whose influence was sufficient to make them prominent names, like Galileo or Einstein, and if we’ve gone in one century from the germ theory of disease to simulating human intelligence through automation, putting humans on the Moon, cracking the genome, syndicating the internet, and ensuring that some 95% of the population is basically literate, I’ll call that a victory.
Yes, the movie Don't Look Up was brilliant, and very creative, I've watched it a number of times. It keeps getting better with each viewing, imho.
I do have one serious complaint however. Everyone says the movie is a commentary on our relationship with climate change. Ok, that sounds reasonable, and if true the movie does a good job. But...
Climate change is not the existential threat that we are ignoring in a Don't Look Up manner. Nothing compares to the threat presented by nuclear weapons, and it seems no where is denial disease stronger than on that subject. If Don't Look Up is about climate change, and the producers forgot about nuclear weapons, the irony is just too painful.
Here's the first thing I did on Substack. There is zero interest.
I read your article about red flags. It was good. But then you reply with "probably....in the next 100 years" and "myriad ways" . That's not very scientific Eric. And existential means threatening to our very existence. I won't exist in 100 years and I have enormous faith (and a lot of precedent) that says humans can easily adapt to such a slow change. And yes, climate change is real. No argument from me there.
Using "probably" here in this context is actually *very* scientific because it acknowledges variance and uncertainty. Are we talking the Maldives? Bahamas? Low-lying coastal areas of larger countries? What is the elevation of each of those? If one is at 5 ft above sea level and another is at 7 ft, and sea levels rise six feet, obviously one of those will be underwater and the other won't. If it happens in 101 years, the prediction is literally wrong, but directionally right.
The dictionary definition of myriad is "a countless or great number," and I used it as shorthand to keep a brief comment from being a long-form article. Here are just a few things we know will happen with rising global temperatures:
* Increased death and injury from heat stroke
* Increased wild fires, damage to property, smoke inhalation that worsens respiratory disease
* Increased severity (and likely frequency) of hurricanes
* Increased flooding
* Increased drought
* Food shortages from the above 2 items
* Increased rates of tropical diseases, vector-borne diseases, and novel mutations in bacteria and fungi
* Extinction of some number of currently extant flora and fauna
You could keep fractal-ing out those above points and providing sources to beat the dead horse. The take home point is a lot of bad stuff will happen and it won't be great. Some people will die, possibly lots. Will the entire human race end? Probably not, but it very well might! "Existential threat" means risk, not 100% certainty of extinction. Ergo, why some people use the phrase "existential": https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-do-some-people-call-climate-change-existential-threat
Finally, if your whole argument is "I'll be dead so I don't care," OK I guess, but that is less an argument about whether something is an existential threat than whether you choose to be concerned about it.
It's real, man. Some low lying islands will probably be underwater and no longer exist in the next 100 years. It will change life for the rest of us in myriad ways. If that isn't existential, I don't know what is.
The problem with "follow the science" was that the people saying it did not follow anything. They put out a message as stuck to it regardless of changing circumstances.
That’s a fair critique. The phrase “trust the experts” was meant to be like “don’t listen to the weirdos on Reddit telling you to eat horse paste” but it quickly became a catechism for deference to authority
There’s a disparity in understanding that isn’t easy to resolve between the “experts” (for want of a better term) and the public. The issue is how to create a pact between people who arrived at conclusions through years of training, specialty, and rigourous inquiry, and those whose understanding is limited by a lack of those things, by design or accident.
I take as a given that, as a general rule, those who traffic in knowledge would find it beneficial to syndicate as much of it as possible (save instances of sociopathy, which are comparatively rare). However, specialty in knowledge from a purely altruistic standpoint is still rare relative to those who want to abominate for personal gain - the snake-oil merchants and con artists.
What makes it worse now - by possibly an exponential function - is the combination of the almost universal access to means of communication, the almost free avail of this access, and the ability to do it under cover of anonymity. Given a receptive and relatively naive population, you have the oxygen-fuel-ignition trifecta of a conflagration that is very difficult to stifle.
I can see this frustration among the scientists and scholars who rightfully find this to be a gross injustice, some of which might contend that standing up for knowledge is an exercise in futility or simply not their business. I can’t blame anyone in that camp, but it won’t change the situation. I find it frustrating myself. It was bad enough being a skeptic when the internet was still specialized to dedicated conspiracy theorists; smartphones and wi-fi have created a swath of even casual conspiracy theorists.
All is not lost, however. In a practical sense, much of it is still just bluster, even when media introduce simplistic, reductive narratives that all but blatantly indicate that the intent is to indoctrinate and not inform. Most of those who buy into unscientific ideas that fly in the face of empirical fact - numerous though they may be - are verbal hypocrites with next to no influence (save spreading rumours). As sordid as that may seem, these characteristics means they’re not acting on their ideals; they’re just a positional “club good” that maintains the air of approbation among their peers.
Granted, this doesn’t mean scientists and public intellectuals should throw up a white flag; quite the contrary. But it does mean it may be prudent to jettison the ideal for a highly-informed populace for fear it could lead to rout and chaos. I doubt it will for two reasons: one, chaos and conflict are tiresome, and people will only put up with it to a point. And two, as Steven Pinker has amply demonstrated, all metrics of standard of living show a steady global increase on average. I would also add that much of the more pernicious forms of pseudoscience - bloodletting, trepanation, pressings for witchcraft, executions for heresy, carpetbagging, race-based phrenology - are, in general, things of the distant past. Many of the ones we deal with now that persist like religion and astrology are, if you take it globally, of comparatively little consequence (even if you account for terrorism), and the ones that are widely pervasive - conspiracy theories like 9/11 Truth, for instance - are often flash-in-the-pan.
I don’t think scientists should fret too awful much about the influence of knowledge, because if you take any single slice of history, it seems like the influence has been minimal. But the efforts are not in vain. Anyone can name any number of scientists whose influence was sufficient to make them prominent names, like Galileo or Einstein, and if we’ve gone in one century from the germ theory of disease to simulating human intelligence through automation, putting humans on the Moon, cracking the genome, syndicating the internet, and ensuring that some 95% of the population is basically literate, I’ll call that a victory.
Yes, the movie Don't Look Up was brilliant, and very creative, I've watched it a number of times. It keeps getting better with each viewing, imho.
I do have one serious complaint however. Everyone says the movie is a commentary on our relationship with climate change. Ok, that sounds reasonable, and if true the movie does a good job. But...
Climate change is not the existential threat that we are ignoring in a Don't Look Up manner. Nothing compares to the threat presented by nuclear weapons, and it seems no where is denial disease stronger than on that subject. If Don't Look Up is about climate change, and the producers forgot about nuclear weapons, the irony is just too painful.
Here's the first thing I did on Substack. There is zero interest.
https://www.tannytalk.com/s/nukes
I read your article about red flags. It was good. But then you reply with "probably....in the next 100 years" and "myriad ways" . That's not very scientific Eric. And existential means threatening to our very existence. I won't exist in 100 years and I have enormous faith (and a lot of precedent) that says humans can easily adapt to such a slow change. And yes, climate change is real. No argument from me there.
Using "probably" here in this context is actually *very* scientific because it acknowledges variance and uncertainty. Are we talking the Maldives? Bahamas? Low-lying coastal areas of larger countries? What is the elevation of each of those? If one is at 5 ft above sea level and another is at 7 ft, and sea levels rise six feet, obviously one of those will be underwater and the other won't. If it happens in 101 years, the prediction is literally wrong, but directionally right.
The dictionary definition of myriad is "a countless or great number," and I used it as shorthand to keep a brief comment from being a long-form article. Here are just a few things we know will happen with rising global temperatures:
* Increased death and injury from heat stroke
* Increased wild fires, damage to property, smoke inhalation that worsens respiratory disease
* Increased severity (and likely frequency) of hurricanes
* Increased flooding
* Increased drought
* Food shortages from the above 2 items
* Increased rates of tropical diseases, vector-borne diseases, and novel mutations in bacteria and fungi
* Extinction of some number of currently extant flora and fauna
You could keep fractal-ing out those above points and providing sources to beat the dead horse. The take home point is a lot of bad stuff will happen and it won't be great. Some people will die, possibly lots. Will the entire human race end? Probably not, but it very well might! "Existential threat" means risk, not 100% certainty of extinction. Ergo, why some people use the phrase "existential": https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-do-some-people-call-climate-change-existential-threat
Finally, if your whole argument is "I'll be dead so I don't care," OK I guess, but that is less an argument about whether something is an existential threat than whether you choose to be concerned about it.
lol, dude blocked me
"Existential threats like climate change" . You lost me there.
It's real, man. Some low lying islands will probably be underwater and no longer exist in the next 100 years. It will change life for the rest of us in myriad ways. If that isn't existential, I don't know what is.
The problem with "follow the science" was that the people saying it did not follow anything. They put out a message as stuck to it regardless of changing circumstances.
That’s a fair critique. The phrase “trust the experts” was meant to be like “don’t listen to the weirdos on Reddit telling you to eat horse paste” but it quickly became a catechism for deference to authority