Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Reprint from 2012
Linked this 2012 item in previous. It's worth a full reprint.
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Uncommon Descent makes a neat comparison between the experts of yesteryear and the Experts of today.
Quotes several of those famous dismissals of new ideas, like IBM declining to use the invention of xerography because a machine that makes copies of documents "couldn't be a feasible business."
Then this:
One difference between this year’s feted expert and yesteryear’s is that this year’s model is demanding belief for bizarre stuff, either without evidence or contrary to evidence. He’s not saying that there couldn’t be a giant hologram, but that we in fact are ourselves giant holograms.Exactly. Parallels this point that Polistra has made at least 26,715,189 times with the following quote from the 1938 WPA Guide to Kansas:
Recent years of almost unprecedented drought have led to the often expressed belief that the climate of Kansas is changing. Geologists and meteorologists, however, point out that weather runs in cycles, the most pronounced being about a third of a century in length. Conditions during a cycle are easily mistaken by laymen for permanent changes. Despite year by year fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, recorded evidence shows that general climatic conditions remain unchanged.1938 experts were cautious and scientific. They understood that Nature runs in cycles, and they understood homeostasis and feedback. Modern experts are superstitious, psychedelically psychopathic, and locked into linear extrapolation, while modern common folks are more likely to be cautious and sane, more likely to have a feel for cycles and feedback. Because the 1938 experts had their eyes open to cycles, they could pick up the "third of a century" cycle in climate. A few of today's climate realists are finally starting to re-discover this cycle, which WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN MOTHERFUCKING NECESSARY IF WE HADN'T MOTHERFUCKING CENSORED AND INQUISITED EVERY MOTHERFUCKING FACT WE EVER MOTHERFUCKING KNEW. = = = = = Sidenote: I wonder how the Arab scholars of 800 AD felt when they were trying to preserve and build on the vast stock of knowledge that the Greeks and Romans had abandoned? Were they fiercely pissed at the waste of human culture, sad about the tragedy, or satisfied to be the sole carriers and creators of learning? = = = = = END REPRINT. The incidental note about those old Arabs has grown into something of a mission. ¶ 11:35 PM
