More misc stuff to get rid of!
First and most important... one of the core concepts of modernism is skepticism in the sense of watching out for the worst human trait (and sometimes its best) that has been responsible for most bad governance... and some great art... our relentless subjective willingness to be fooled. As Richard Feynman said, “the easiest person to fool is yourself.”
This matter will come up here, time and again, so let me just cite a couple of interesting items. (Isn’t this the underlying notion behind CITOKATE?)
One of the great flamboyant impresarios of skepticism, “The Great Randi,” will be holding a grand festival of skepticism and magic (yeah you heard that right!) along with my pals Penn & Teller and the MythBusters and many others, in Las Vegas in January. I hereby forgive them for not inviting me. And I urge you all to drop by http://www.tam4.com/
And there are few things you can do to help that will come easier, cheaper, and better than subscribing to Skeptic Magazine. http://www.skeptic.com/
Also, buy my novel EARTH and look on the back pages. There’s a list of other organizations you can join in order to help save the world, without doing anything more than writing a check for subscription to a cool magazine, once a year. It’s called “proxy power” and if you are not doing at least THAT much - joining half a dozen groups who will use your dues to go save the world FOR you -- well, then, then you are simply part of the problem, not part of the solution.
---
Now to miscellany. Any of you out there Huxley aficionados? A friend recently discovered a very direct debate in the 1940s between Aldous & Julian Huxley on the possibility of progress. Dour old Aldous called it another "idol" while Julian (co-founder of UNESCO and the World Health Organization) was all for it. JH makes his case for progress with the caveat that progress is not inevitable as some millenarians had thought. But, since we're in charge of the planet now, it is absolutely necessary.
Ah, but if you go back to my initial modernism articles, you can see that the Huxleys were arguing during in the can-do period of 1945-1969, when nothing seemed out of reach, the social diamond was at its flattest, and modernism seemed unstoppable. The unbelievable irony? We have accomplished vastly more than anybody then could have expected.
No, we don’t have unmetered/free nuclear power & nuke cars. But we have better race and gender justice than even a utopian would have imagined, then! And many wonders like this one I am using now. And after all of those accomplishments? A civilization with plummeting confidence! Aw, man.
---
Among our purposes online is to help each other find useful sites. Here is one. The Progressive Policy Institute examines mostly trade matters but with an eye to policy. http://www.ppionline.org/ Here’s a recent excerpt:
”The Numbers:
U.S. "edible ice" imports, 1996: 1,024 tons
U.S. "edible ice" exports, 2000: 6,800 tons
U.S. "edible ice" exports, 2004: 16,300 tons
What They Mean:
“Ingenious attempts to cool off are not at all new. In the 16th chapter of Walden, for example, Henry David Thoreau notes the arrival of a hundred Irish workmen at Walden Pond, who spent the winter of 1846-47 cutting blocks of ice from the pond's frozen surface. By March they had built an ice tower weighing 10,000 tons, which stood by the pond, insulated under a pile of hay, until it was dismantled and shipped off to India by ice king Frederick Turner the following autumn. The ice boats left in September and reached Bengal in May. New England at the time was exporting 5,000 tons of ice a year -- a figure which reached 12,000 a year in the 1870s -- to Singapore, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Brazil, Cuba, and Central America, as well as India. Turner was also the first man to sell ice cream in Cuba, the Virgin Islands, and St. Kitts. Thoreau smugly comments: "the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta drink at my well ."
“America's modern ice trade, though growing fast, is still pretty small. The "edible ice" totals last year were $3 million in exports, mainly to Mexico, and $28 million in imports. U.S. trade in ice cream is considerably bigger, at $50 million to $100 million a year in exports and $10 million in imports. Hong Kong and Singapore are still on the ice cream export map, but India is not. Trade in air conditioners and refrigerators of course is bigger still...” “... Probably more interesting, China's first major industrial manufacturing venture in the United States is in refrigeration. Appliance giant Hai'er opened a plant in Camden, South Carolina, in 2003, which now employs 225 people and has the capacity to produce half a million refrigerators a year...
Fascinating! Now more snippets. Mostly about science persevering amid and despite the new barbarians...
'Strange Things' Along Pacific Coast Waters -- (Associated Press -- August 2, 2005)
Marine biologists are seeing mysterious and disturbing things along the Pacific Coast this year: higher water temperatures, plummeting catches of fish, lots of dead birds on the beaches, and perhaps most worrisome, very little plankton - the tiny organisms that are a vital link in the ocean food chain. "The bottom has fallen out of the coastal food chain, and there's just not enough food out there," said Julia Parrish, a seabird ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Siberia's Rapid Thaw Causes Alarm -- (BBC -- August 11, 2005)
The huge expanse of western Siberia is thawing for the first time since its formation, 11,000 years ago. The area, which is the size of France and Germany combined, could release billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This could potentially act as a tipping point, causing global warming to snowball, scientists fear.
Scientists Sound Alarm on Arctic Ice Cap -- (CBC News -- July 29, 2005)
Satellite data for the month of June show Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a record low, raising concerns about climate change, coastal erosion, and changes to wildlife patterns. The National Snow and Ice Data Center in the United States uses remote sensing imagery to survey ice cover at both poles. The center says 2002 was a record low year for sea ice cover in the Arctic, since satellite observations began in 1979. There's evidence that may have been the lowest coverage in a century. Now scientists fear this year could be worse
How Earth-scale Engineering Can Save the Planet -- (Popular Science -- August 1, 2005)
As scientists stretch to find a solution to global warming, an array of innovative and imaginative ideas have emerged that constitute tinkering on a global scale. We already are inadvertently changing the climate, so why not advertently try to counterbalance it? asks a community of forward thinking scientists and designers. Here are some of the proposals.
-
And a FINAL QUOTE... which could be almost a modernists motto or manifesto...
“We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.” --- Richard Feynman
(I met Feynman several times and attended lectures while I was a student at Caltech. In fact, at a party he once borrowed my date to dance, not realizing the song was Inna Gaddadavita! After 20 mins he (sweating/panting) returned her saying “You...you must take my place.”
(Like an idiot, I misunderstood and switched my major to physics. Agh! ;-)
27 comments:
Hey David! How neat that you also have a blog. I discovered yours because you tapped into mine today...aggravated.blogspot.com :))
Did you know that a bunch of the Writers Haven Writers are still gathering on Tues eves on the patio of La Pinata in Old Town? Come join us if you get the chance! Hugs...Betty
Siberia's Rapid Thaw Causes Alarm...
How Earth-scale Engineering Can Save the Planet...
Gotta point out Cascio's article on using genetically engineered methanogens to breathe in the new ambience bubbling out of Siberia's peat bogs!
...and the folk messing about with their hybrid vehicles to boost effiencies (Who's for a solar powered Prius?).
Which leads to the silly thought for today:
Tinker, tinker, clever monkey!
Sprung from brow? Yer gunna flunkee!'
The strange goings-on off of Oregon's coast reminded me of something from long ago . . .
In the early 70s, Harry Harrison's novel Make Room, Make Room about an overcrowded future NYC was adapted for the big screen. Harrison, or a screenwriter, added some environmental warnings that -- thanks to another added twist -- have been almost entirely forgotten.
Near the beginning of the film, the cop-hero's elderly room mate bitches about how hot it is due to the greenhouse effect. Yeah, scientists knew what this was, but this was almost certainly the first time the notion was broached in popular culture. Thirteen years before NASA scientists warned that it was actually happening.
Later, the cop gathers evidence at the scene of a murder; a big hardbound research report put together for the board of the victim's employer, a big food processing outfit.
The cop's roommate reads the report. The krill that form the basis of the food chain, and are the main ingredient of the corporation's signature food product, have died off. In a scene cut from the edited-for-TV version, the old guy and his researcher cronies discuss the news with ashen faces.
At the end of the film the cop character, mortally wounded, cries out "The oceans are dying!" Bad news. Really bad news.
But, damnit, that other twist they added, and the other thing that Thorn cries out, THAT is the one that people remember:
"Soylent Green is people!"
People eating each other is nothing compared to ocean currents changing enough to f%^# up ecosystems.
Stefan
According to Dr. Brin,
And there are few things you can do to help that will come easier, cheaper, and better than subscribing to Skeptic Magazine. http://www.skeptic.com/
Sorry but the Skeptic Magazine doesn't work for me. It trots out the usual tired old farts like Dennett, Dawkins etc. I guess I'm too much of a newage scientist and while I'm glad that something like the Skeptic Magazine exists - in order to keep in line the astrology, crystals and bogus alternative medicine wackjobs - I'm too much into consciousness research and spirituality for something like this to be appealing.
Blogs Pose Liability Issues for Employers
When Hurricane Bonnie roared toward the Carolinas in August 1998, the Knight Ridder-owned ... Julin, a media lawyer and partner at Hunton & Williams in Miami, said blogs pose liability risks because they "are likely to attract some of the most extreme forms of speech.
Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!
I have a swimming pool chemicals site/blog. It pretty much covers
swimming pool chemicals related stuff.
Come and check it out if you get time :-)
Wow, Anonymous, your posts vary SO much in quality. One moment you're a screecher and the next moment so cogent. Almost as if more than one person is using your name!
;-)
Stefan, I agree Skeptic has its own view. But the trick of Proxy Power is that you are not trying to find one group that perfecty overlaps your views. What Proxy Power is all about is finding a dozen or so activist magazines or groups or NGOS who you feel are on target 66% of the time in different areas, ADDING UP to some overlap of your passionate cares.
Hey, you aren't giving them million dollar grants. It's 35$ a year for a membership and a magazine and a little boost to efforts that you *generally* think help boost the civilization you want.
I am writing a book review (I'll share it soon) on Mooney's "The Republican War on Science". Though of course I generally agree, In my review I also skewer Greenpeace as an example of an organization that has used shady science to oversimplify issues from a leftist perspective.
Still, I send them money every year! I want Greenpeace to be out there, yelling and howling about danger... so that the Sierra Club can look really moderate and have more negotiating leverage. See how it works?
Again, it's up to you which of these orgs you join... and how many memberships your income/enthusiasm/passion can support. (Shall we start listing favorite activist groups? Start with Witness.org!)
You may also choose to do genuine activism, such as I do in supporting efforts to get good science fiction stories & novels into schools. (A frontline memic weapon in favor of modernism/enlightenment! Any volunteers?)
But I won't preach specifics. What matters is that at SOME level this is the absolute minimum thing any real citizen should be doing right now... especially since gerrymandering has rendered most of our votes worthless. If you are member-supporting half a dozen orgs, they will at least fight to save the world FOR you. The lazy guy's activism.
If you aren't doing this much, you are part of the problem.
.
PS...Oh... one more thing about SKEPTIC. Anyone who subsidizes Randi has got to be on our side!
Note that it wasn't me who dissed the Skeptic. I don't subscribe, but read it now and then.
I feel, to some extent, that they're fighting a rearguard action. For every Randi and Penn, there are a dozen shameless hucksters and ten thousand lazy-minded suckers eager to enrich them.
Orgs I contribute to:
FICA: A micro-loan outfit.
The Heifer Project: Buys livestock for poor people.
The Southern Poverty Law Center: Because there are still a lot of bastards out there.
The local food bank and Second Harvest.
The ACLU.
Stefan
Your...snippets...are all so alarming, I almost wish I hadn't noticed you were posting again. Except for the last one, which suggested some genuine hope. Kinda reminded me of some of the odder ideas I had about ozone depletion and large electrical discharges back in high school....it's a shame I didn't understand lasers better at the time (my ideas were way off).
Don't worry that you'll put me off continuing to read, of course. My real problem is the dismal state of my financial and personal affairs--it's all too easy to project my individual troubles onto the state of the world. Fortunately, it appears not to be in my nature to quit; I just repeatedly say that I will.
Earlier, you questioned the size of your readership here. I should probably mention that some of us may be a little intimidated about posting here, either because of your...ahem...exalted status as an author or because we question our own credentials as authentic modernists. So if you don't plan to add a counter, by all means keep that in mind as a source of error in your estimates!
I have to ask, what was your major before physics?
Jon (who is still trying to figure out what his whould be, grumble)
"It isn't that they lost sight of the future, they weren't looking in that direction to begin with."
-- Blog commentor using the handle "mayorbob," describing the administration's Iraq planning but that fits their view of the environment, too.
Excellent post, Wintermute. (And fellow W Gibson fan.)
I am on the road at an exobiology conference so I must be brief.
I believe it is important to note that for every insatiable neo-aristo out there, who is reflexively trying to re-establish a pyramidal social order, there is probably another, smarter, satiable who is loyal to the diamond, whose teeth grate over what the frat boys are doing.
A few, like Warren Buffett, have been expressing this dismay. I believe a big part of our counter attack must be to shake a bunch of the satiables out of their torpor and sullen unhappiness and make them militant for the social diamond. They have money and power, and must realize that this is NOT the time to be "loyal to other conservatives".
Smart conservatives must do what the AFL CIO did in 1945.
Realize that it's your "side's" turn to have gone mad. Do something about it. If the AFL could declare war on left-mad communism, the satiables can do the same with Right-mad neocons.
They must.
db
I want to suggest a blogger called The Enlightened Caveman, who just posted a pointed description of the philosophical roots of postmodernism and the horrifying assumption at its heart. You and he are fighting the same battle against the same enemies.
Pat
Wow, even spam robots enjoy DB's blog!
RE what Mark Johnson woders:
i) I think the neocons and oil men and fundamentalists (religious and free market) are totally clueless and so in denial about environmental problems that the thought of long-term preparations for trouble wouldn't even occur to them, but you never know.
ii) One of Patrick Farley's comcs (www.e-sheep.com) concerns this scenario . . . alas, it doesn't seem to be on his site any more.
Stefan
Wintermute said:
This is especially true of philosophy and sociology, where postmodern memes have penetrated and neutralized our most socially critical disciplines.
Whoa, hold on there. As a philosophy grad student, I can't let this stand. Postmodernism has never been popular in the dominant "analytic" school of philosophy that's existed in the US and Britain during the 20th Century. Such things are only associated with the (aptly named) "Continental" school of thought that has dominated continental Europe.
This is a bit of an over-simplification, but generally speaking there are no postmodernists in the average American philosophy department. American and British philosophy is largely concerned with justifying and interpreting the successes of Western science.
Hm, I don't know if I can address all of your points without getting technical. As you say, this is one of the problems with doing philosophy...
But why is this their main activity? Could it be because the postmodernist/continentalist/romantic camp has criticized science to the point where the analytics are constantly trying to fight them off?
I don't think so at all. It's not the challenge of the continentals we're trying to answer. Broadly speaking, it's the challenge of skepticism. There are a trillion unsolved problems about inductive thinking and the scientific method. Without good answers to these, the philosopher is compelled to say, we know that science works but we don't know how or why.
Set aside theories of truth, which I agree are pretty needless. I still don't think Popper has solved the most interesting problems about experimental learning and science. He claims to have solved Hume's problem (basic inductive skepticism), but I don't think so -- an un-falsified theory is not the same as a confirmed theory. He is as vulnerable as anyone to Hempel's paradox -- why doesn't my seeing a non-black non-raven confirm the theory that all ravens are black? Then there's the New Riddle of Induction. Now there's a problem I can't even conceive of how to solve.
And what about all the issues besides experimental results that can lead us to believe one theory over another? There's no good explanation in Popper for why Special Relativity superseded the empirically equivalent Lorentz ether theory.
Suffice it to say, I don't think the problems we're trying to solve in philosophy of science were posed to us by the continentals. Most of us don't even read continental philosophy. The problems we're trying to solve are problems that we've posed ourselves, out of intellectual honesty, because it's a genuine mystery how and why we know anything.
As to the Modernism vs. Romanticism question, I think we shy away from that because (i) most of us don't want to spend our careers arguing about politics and (ii) it's not a very hard question! The answer (Modernism) is obvious.
Pastafarianism -- the belief that the unfathomably complex world about us was created by a flying spaghetti monster -- is really getting legs.
The editors of the net culture blog bOING-bOING are all converts and are putting their money where there marinara sauce is. They are offering a prize of $250,000 to anyone who can prove, with empirical evidence, that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti monster:
Pastafarian Challenge
Stefan
===
Dave Baker, you may be right that US philosophy depts are engaged with pragmatic-enlightenment-science related issues. (Certainly not all of them are! I’ve met some platonists in philosophy depts!) But the same cannot be said of English, literature and communications and similar departments, which are often rife with ex- or crypto Marxists, faux-Euro postmodernists and the like.
If you are right, perhaps the PHILOSOPHY departments are where science fiction should seek refuge from the relentless purge by narrowminded deconstructionalists. Is it possible that the very nature of SF as a relentless exercise in gedankenexperimentation might be highly relevant to modern and modernist philosophical inquiry? After all, doesn’t the tentative and conjectural come before falsifiable theorization, which then comes before experimentation and then contingent verification?
Just a thought.
sayeth wintermute: “An effort to justify the successes of science is, in my mind, a completed task. Popper solved most of these problems a long time ago, but they still come up because as soon as analytic philosophers of science say that science reliably produces true theories someone will invariably ask "what do you mean by true"”
I agree up to a point. Science still faces serious philosophical issues where it comes to its relationship with the future, with policy, with notions like human and social improvability, with agenda setting, with science management, and so on.
“You can then argue, along these lines, that his way of thinking perpetuates power inequalities more than a modernist outlook does. “
Of course, that is what the diamond vs pyramid metaphor is FOR. To provide a weapon to knock these jerks on their arses. They are pyramidalists who differ from capitalist aristocrats only over WHICH elite should rule for the ultimate good of the benighted masses. They are still platonists who year for philosopher kings. And proof of this is in their habit of scholasticism... proving things by citation of past masters, rather than proposing testable falsifiable hypotheses.
Not their fault. Romantics CANNOT get it. You can grasp what they are saying. They are inherently incapable of understanding you. And because of that they must attribute their confusion to your immorality.
The pragmatism question is simple. Those with a look-forward mentality simply assume that our grandchildren will be better than us. Therefore, any attempt to have the last word on any issue, even philosophy, is asinine and ridiculous. Our brainer descendants will know what’s what, far better than we do.
That is NOT to say that deep issues aren’t fair territory to explore. But it should be with a sense of contingency and awareness THAT we will not have the last word.
Still, if you accept the one core premise of modernism.... that children can and should be better than their parents... then there is only one central and first priority task.
To make that outcome happen.
I'd like to know if anyone else find this article relevant to the "enemies of modernism" debate:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7539869
It's a look at how congress is (not) working these days.
Also, I realize that David Brin is super busy, but I'd like to read his opinions on Penn and Teller's Bullshit! Helpful debunking or High-outrage smug screaming that alienates people? I'm still trying to decide myself.
Jon
I agree with much you say. And yet, I do find it hopeless to try and budge the postmodernists and the crypto-Marxists in most university English and sociology departments. They are drenched in romantic/dogmatic sanctimony of the sort that I describe in my "Open Letter on Addiction"...
... indeed, they are the left wing counterparts of the neocons and apocalypts, with the saving grace that they currently are impotent to harm anything more than a few impressionable minds.
I am intrigued by the notion of slipping science fiction in through philosophy departments. Huh. Let us ponder. I'd be willing to talk at some department, some time.
As to my seemingly outrageous comment about romantics being unable even to perceive what modernists and scientists are saying... I am coming to really believe this is the root of their anger.
I think they really cannot perceive THAT the Enlightenment worldview is different in the ways we describe. They try endlessly to cram us into platonist or other romantic/traditional motive sets. If we deny all that, then we must be hiding something. The more confused they get, the more they suspect science must be fundamentally about power and theft... in other words, immoral.
But another time...
Maybe silly but...
Accountability
(social) Mobility
Positive-sum
A.M.P.? AMP up the diamond! :)
Wintermute,
Agree to disagree, I suppose. And disagree we do, quite profoundly. I don't see it as much of a stretch to say there are still unsolved problems in the epistemology of science.
Nor should our lack of a solution be a problem for practicing scientists! Even if you're right that Popper solved everything, Newton was doing great science centuries before Popper.
I will check out the Deutsch book (so far the only Deutsch stuff I've read is his paper on many-worlds quantum mechanics). If it changes my mind I'll let you know.
Dave Baker, you may be right that US philosophy depts are engaged with pragmatic-enlightenment-science related issues. (Certainly not all of them are! I’ve met some platonists in philosophy depts!)
One can be a Platonist and still serve the true Good. Roger Penrose calls himself a Platonist.
There aren't many philosophers who'll call themselves pragmatists, but that's because pragmatism (as Wintermute has alluded to) has a specific technical meaning in philosophy. It's a theory of truth, in which the truth of a statement is determined by its usefulness to the person asserting it.
I am intrigued by the notion of slipping science fiction in through philosophy departments. Huh. Let us ponder. I'd be willing to talk at some department, some time.
I may hold you to that. But be warned, you might have to curb your tendency toward real-world problem solving and get down and dirty with some abstraction. :-)
By the way, David, the theory of the mind as a union of many sub-selves that you mention in Earth always struck me as something of great philosophical interest.
Dave Baker said:
One can be a Platonist and still serve the true Good. Roger Penrose calls himself a Platonist.
I think it's important to underscore this, especially considering you thought it a matter of contrast to point out a Platonist who wasn't an enemy of empirical science (at least, that's how I read your post).
Platonism and its descendent, Augustianism, have done a lot to harm any kind of modernist movement in the Western church, especially the Catholic Church. It's hard to say how the world would be different if Aristotelian Thomism had prevailed, but I’d like to think at least we wouldn't have to explain why the scientific method is a good idea.
You know, Thomists are a perfect ally for a moderate, modernist movement...
I see why you might think I'm an instrumentalist from the above, but really I'm not. I'm probably a scientific realist. And I do think that explanation is an important virtue of theories. When I say that the open questions about scientific methodology shouldn't be a problem for working scientists, I just mean that we haven't found the answers yet but there are answers out there. Scientists can go about their business and leave the justifying to us philosophers.
Now some might say this attitude is dangerous, it gives Romantics a foot in the door by admitting we don't have a rock-solid account of why science works. First of all, even if that's true, this sort of objection is dishonest -- we're good Modernists, which means we don't ignore problems just because they conflict with our ideology. Second, we still have good grounds for criticizing the Romantics: they're being inconsistent.
They benefit from science's success every day, and even if they deny that, Hume showed us that we all use inductive, experimental reasoning every time we get out of bed or have something to eat. Why don't they apply the same scientific method that works with their cars and computers to their mystical mumbo-jumbo?
The response would probably be something about the mysteries of Heaven or the indeterminacy of language, at which point I usually tune out.
Basically this 'grue' theory asserts an anomoly, a color shift on Dec 31st 2000 (or whenever). But, it does not explain this anomoly.
That's sort of an unfair way of presenting the problem. It's really a problem about what makes a property like color natural. The grue theorist doesn't tell you "emeralds are going to change from green to blue all of a sudden," rather he says "emeralds have always been grue, and that's how they'll stay."
Now, you could bring in this stuff about light wavelengths, but there could also be a grue-like definition of wavelength that he could use as an alternative to yours. And he would have an explanation of the grueness of emeralds that's exactly parallel to your explanation of their green-ness.
Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory
I have found the “grue” discussion both fascinating and gruesome!
“Also, I realize that David Brin is super busy, but I'd like to read his opinions on Penn and Teller's Bullshit! Helpful debunking or High-outrage smug screaming that alienates people? I'm still trying to decide myself.”
Penn is a pal. Great guy. Rants a lot like Bruce Sterling. Confrontation has its place and he’s good at it. I am better at engagement and argumentation. Not the same thing.
“What happens when we start brushing aside good ideas because they are produced by "crypto-marxists" or postmodernists? Isn't it a popperian maxim to argue in your opponents terms?”
Just wait till I post my religion article. You’ll see that I am willing to play on the other guy’s cricket pitch. But the spectrum of religious folk include many who might be won over. I’ve never seen a Marxist or sanctimonious deconstructionalist who could be cure by wnything other than time... and then they usually become fervid right-wingers.
AMP? cool
Dave Baker s”By the way, David, the theory of the mind as a union of many sub-selves that you mention in Earth always struck me as something of great philosophical interest.”
Yeah, I gotta get back to novels some time ;-(
"Penn is a pal. Great guy. Rants a lot like Bruce Sterling. Confrontation has its place and he’s good at it. I am better at engagement and argumentation. Not the same thing."
I go back and forth of my view on his show. Calling people motherfuckers and screaming "Shut the Fuck up!" at the end of his show makes him sound like one of the outrage junkies you've warend against in "The Transparant Society" and elsewhere on this site.
On the other hand, he puts up links to his oppoenents agruments on his webistes and invites them on his show. When I read some of his statements in interveiws, he shows self doubt and a willingness to question himself.
Then I watch him making fun of and completely dismissing his opponents on his show and he sometimes comes across as near Rush Limbaugh or Micheal Savage levels of scorn. I may be an atheist, but I don't see religous people as batshit stupid.
As I said, I'm conflicted.
Jon
Post a Comment