Education v. Moronism

[JosephH]

It's funny just how terrified most folks are of questions without answers. It's equally amazing at what they will invent to fill that void. Add a lack of education and healthy dose of fear and they will believe almost any claptrap from Jove to Jesus. Has all that much changed from the days of the Roman Empire?

[CollinWoods]

The Bible. Why bother?

 

Unless you buy the bull, of course.

 

Because Jon begot Joe who begot Jeff who begot Jane who begot Fred who begot Jesus (with the J pronunced with a H) who begot Ella who begot Brian who begot Thad who begot Kanye West who begot Taylor Swift who begot Beyonce who begot Jay-Z who begot GOD!

 

... I think it went something like that, you get the Idea.

Edited September 23, 2009 by CollinWoods

[tvashtarkatena]

Creationism should be mocked, as should any thoroughly stupid idea foisted upon the public by idiots.

 

Ideas like 'first there was nothing then it exploded'?

 

or

 

'first there was a little piggy, then its baby grew huge fucking ears and became really big and there were elephants?

 

It's not the idea itself...it's the specious campaign to pass the idea off as science, first as creationism, then, when that got shot down, as ID, and ram it down the public's throats via the school system in direct violation of the 1st amendment.

[marc_leclerc]

Creationism should be mocked, as should any thoroughly stupid idea foisted upon the public by idiots.

 

Ideas like 'first there was nothing then it exploded'?

 

or

 

'first there was a little piggy, then its baby grew huge fucking ears and became really big and there were elephants?

 

It's not the idea itself...it's the specious campaign to pass the idea off as science

 

In that case you agree that Evolution should not be passed off as science?

[tvashtarkatena]

We're done here.

[kevbone]

It's funny just how terrified most folks are of questions without answers. It's equally amazing at what they will invent to fill that void.

 

Like religion?

[ashw_justin]

first as creationism, then, when that got shot down, as ID

See! Evolution. He's everywhere

[bstach]

We're done here.

 

Nice, Mark. Its not often Tvash runs away with his tail between his legs.

[ivan]

 

The teaching of creationism has no place in public schools. It is based on faith, not science. But neither should it be mocked, or its practitioners ridiculed, IMO. Why bother "teaching" that which is based entirely on faith? It's dangerous ground.

i disagree that it has no place (though i of course don't believe in it) - it belongs in social studies as part of the history of the struggle between science/religion in us history (and as such must be explianed as a "theory" in enough detail to be made comprehensible) - it also must be discussed frequently in current event conversations, since, for better or worse, it is part of common public discourse

 

religion should be taught in school, but in an equal opportunity, non-evangelical fashion - how on earth can we understand folks of different faiths if we don't understand their basic belief systems? the class i took on islam long before 9/11 has been immensely useful to me in comprehending the modern world.

[tvashtarkatena]

We're done here.

 

Nice, Mark. Its not often Tvash runs away with his tail between his legs.

 

Yeah, not quite what happened there. More like not wanting to enter into the same non-discussion, this time with a 12 year old, for the 17th time.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

We're done here.

 

Nice, Mark. Its not often Tvash runs away with his tail between his legs.

 

Yeah, not quite what happened there. More like not wanting to enter into the same non-discussion, this time with a 12 year old, for the 17th time.

 

He climbs better than you too.

[ivan]

We're done here.

 

Nice, Mark. Its not often Tvash runs away with his tail between his legs.

 

Yeah, not quite what happened there. More like not wanting to enter into the same non-discussion, this time with a 12 year old, for the 17th time.

 

He climbs better than you too.

ah, but does he know more about sean connery?

[tvashtarkatena]

99% of the peeps here climb better than me, so that's not exactly a badge of honor.

 

What I bring to the table here is

 

1) total indiscrimination when it comes to choosing climbing partners and

2) the ability to publish a Liberty Bell Sandwich: 2 TRs of the most over-climbed route on the mountain with a juicy Thin Red Line flail in between, and pull it off.

 

Plus, it seems that I've now been designated as the resident entomologist/naturalist

Edited September 23, 2009 by tvashtarkatena

[archenemy]

Yeah, well I can spit a watermelon seed up to six feet with incredible accuracy.

[ivan]

Yeah, well I can spit a watermelon seed up to six feet with incredible accuracy.

watermelons come w/ seeds still?

[Off_White]

Careful Arch, if they find out you're saving seeds, Monsanto's strike force is likely to come visit you.

[archenemy]

That company scares me. Truly.

[ivan]

Yeah, well I can spit a watermelon seed up to six feet with incredible accuracy.

i hate spitters

 

p.s. how the hell did i not think of that one to start?

[Choada_Boy]

Too many opinions here. Just the facts.

 

Here's a few to explain the current opposition to Obama's Healthcare Agenda:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ivan]

hey, the aussies eat plenty of beef and watch plenty of tv but they're okay smart!

[Choada_Boy]

Yes, but FACT: They watch half as much TV.

 

 

[ivan]

Yes, but FACT: They watch half as much TV.

 

duh - have you SEEN what they pass off as quality tv?

[Bug]

I can clear a gymnasium with one fart.

[JayB]

While that may be a good book on the abuses of science, in practice Hayek was even more blatant than Friedman in his support of the dictatorships that neo-liberal fundamentalism rode on, i.e. not only did he couch his unscientific approach to the economy as dogma (I assume the object of Prole’s laughter) but he condoned authoritarian rule to impose it on people. Friedman, at least, verbally denied condoning dictatorships even if in practice he didn’t mind the opportunity they represented to market his snake oil.

 

I'm not sure that we're talking about the same Hayek here. I've read a few hundred pages of his works, and have never encountered anything but impassioned, profound, and deep arguments for political and economic freedom.

 

It'd certainly be strange if the same guy who spent several decades arguing on behalf of these causes from at least the early 1920's onwards, against the prevailing sentiments of his day, and who is best remembered for "The Road to Serfdom" was a closet authoritarian.

 

What works of his have you actually read, and in what specific essays or passages in those works did he weigh in on the side of authoritarianism?

 

My post made the difference between discourse and practice because libertarians/neo-liberals claim to be for 'freedom' whereas in fact they subjugate every domain of human activity to the logic of the market, which effectively results in a loss of freedom and power for those without sufficient economic power to intervene in the market. The end result of libertarian freedom is concentration of most wealth and power in the hands of economic elites.

 

Hayek is well known for disliking representative democracy and he was openly against social justice; his model amounted to social darwinism: "Hayek visited Chile several times in the 1970s and 1980s during the reign of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Commenting on dictatorships to a Chilean interviewer, Hayek stated: "Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government."[34][35] Hayek's words and actions concerning Chile under the Pinochet regime have drawn criticism from historian of modern Latin America Greg Grandin, who claims that "Hayek glimpsed in Pinochet an avatar of true freedom, who would rule as a dictator only for a 'transitional period'", while also noting that "in a letter to the London Times he defended the junta, reporting that he had 'not been able to find a single person in much-maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende.' "of course," writes Grandin, "the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured by Pinochet's regime weren't talking."[36] Hayek recommended reforms similar to Chile's under Pinochet for the Keynesian economy in the United Kingdom to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher said "the remarkable success of the Chilean economy [was] a striking example of economic reform from which we can learn many lessons, [but] in Britain with our democratic institutions and the need for a high degree of consent, some of the measures adopted in Chile are quite unacceptable."[37]

[note that the chilean economy cratered shortly thereafter causing Pinochet to intervene massively in the economy]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

 

Note that Hayek even held meetings of his Mt Pelerin Society (an association of neo-liberal thinkers, mostly economists) in Chile while Pinochet was in power.

 

Oh good lord. Expressing a preference for Pinochet over Allende doesn't constitute a fondness for authoritarianism any more than a preference for Batista over Castro would have, Nicholas II over Lenin, etc - particularly when qualified by the correct observation that the policies that he instituted would ultimately undermine his rule in a way that Allende's, like Castro's, would not. Had he been asked, I'm fairly certain that he would have expressed a preference for the Reign of Louis XIV over of that of Robespierre for many of the same reasons. Expressing a preference for the lesser of two evils doesn't qualify as an endorsement of evil any more than saying that you'd rather have hepatitis than HIV would qualify as pro-hepatitis advocacy.

 

He also correctly observed that in the long run the structure of the institutional protections for individual rights in a given country were far more important safegaurds of life and liberty than the terms that the regime in question used to describe itself. This should hardly be shocking to anyone who lived through the previous century and compared the fate of the people in constitutional monarchies to those unfortunate enough to find themselves in one of the various "People's Republics" that blighted the globe.

 

The overall impression I get from reading your analysis of his works that you haven't read and specific arguments that you can't articulate, much less refute, makes me think of Wolfgang Pauli's famous assessment of a paper that we was asked to review. "That's not right...it's not even wrong."

[JayB]

It's funny just how terrified most folks are of questions without answers. It's equally amazing at what they will invent to fill that void. Add a lack of education and healthy dose of fear and they will believe almost any claptrap from Jove to Jesus. Has all that much changed from the days of the Roman Empire?

 

Here's a quote from Strabo (Greek contemporary - at least chronologically - of Christ and the Romans) that has some bearing on the question:

 

"For in dealing with a crowd of women, at least, or with any promiscuous mob, a philosopher cannot influence them by reason or exhort them to reverence, piety, and faith; nay, there is need of religious fear also, and this cannot be arouse without myths and marvels. For thunderbolt, aegis, trident, torches, snakes, thyrsulances - arms of the gods - are myths, and so is the entire ancient theology. But the founders of states gave sanction to these things as bugbears wherewith the scare the simple-minded. Now, since this is the nature of mythology, and since it has come to have its place in the social and civil scheme of life as well in the history of actual facts, the ancients clung to their system of education for children and applied it up to the age of maturity, and by means of poetry they believed that they could satisfactorily discipline every period of life. But now, after a long time, the writing of history and the present-day philosophy have come to the front. Philosophy, however, is for the few, whereas poetry is more useful to the people at large"