Mark Morford is wonderfully excited about the prospects for biological research, and I don’t blame him. Consider what the world was like in 1900 and how physics and engineering changed it by 2000; from horse-and-buggy and steam locomotive to interstates and jet planes, from telegraph to world-wide communication networks. We’re going to see a revolution of that magnitude in the coming century, too, and you can expect biology and medicine to be at the forefront. Well, maybe. As Morford writes, the alternative is to
…hold tight to the leaky life raft of inflexible ideology (hello, organized religion), to rules and laws and codes of conduct written by the fearful, for the fearful, to live in constant low-level dread of all the extraordinary changes and radical rethinkings of what it means to be human or animal or male or female or hetero or homo or any other swell little label you thought was solid and trustworthy but which is increasingly proven to be blurry and unpredictable and just a little dangerous.
We know which side GW Bush and the Republican party are on: with the knuckle-draggers and antique hierarchies of organized religion. Our president has vetoed a bill to support stem cell research. This is remarkable: he has only vetoed three bills in his entire presidency, and two of them have been with the intent of killing stem cell research. Just as remarkably, our representatives in congress haven’t been able to muster the numbers to override that veto. Imagine if the American government had voted to censure the Wright brothers and to outlaw the internal combustion engine at the turn of the last century, or if they’d decided to condemn the kinds of radical and dangerous physics being pursued at places like Princeton and Chicago. It wouldn’t have changed a thing about the natural world, or the discoveries that were made; it might have slowed the pace a bit, but the changes would still have come from England and France and Germany and Japan and the Soviet Union … the biggest difference would be that the United States would be an irrelevant backwater.
That’s what the Republicans are doing to this country right now: damning us to a future as a backward, corrupt mess, a big, blundering headache for the world. In 2100, will the rest of the planet see us in the same way Turkey was seen in 1900?
It’s the same side as the Democratic party – delusion and dogma.
Being a little bit better than the most corrupt and power-hungry administration in US history is an easy accomplishment, but one with little weight.
Europe is lovely this time of century. :)
India and China are contenders, if only they can get their act together and global warming and environmental damage don’t cripple them first.
I found W’s comment justifying his veto strangely ironic. He said that to use embryos that are going to be destroyed anyway for medical research, “crosses an ethical line”. Which line is that, from evil to good? By his own morality destruction of embryos is evil, saving lives is good. So W has now come down firmly on the side of evil against good and declared that his administration will not cross from that side to the other.
Well said. We are truly on the brink of some of the most exciting times in the history of technology. We have up to this point defined and become experts of the world we live in which is a singular achievement. The pursuit of researching ourselves is the beginning of a recursive pursuit.
Maybe the fundamentalists are right about the end of the world being imminent, or rather the world as we know it.
Biotechnology will make changes to sex and sexual orientation cheap and convenient – so much so they will become a primary recreation in a few generations. Of course the fundies are afraid – to them, that’s worse than The Great Old Ones eating everything. Speaking of Great Old Ones, biotech will also endow us with the ability to grow new appendages … such as tentacles.
Sorry if this sounds a little woo… but I am firmly of the opinion that we are on the brink of something truly great….
I fully expect to live well past 100 … and hopefully past 200 & beyond! Not through woo — I expect technology & science to provide mechanisms to fix my broken machinery, and make me good as new or better. Lots of different ways have been posited, from cellular rebuilds to hardware enhancement to full-blown cyborgs to … A *lot* of this is already ‘on the drawing board’ so to speak – and we’re learning more every year! yeay science!
One of the biggest regrets I have is that my grandparents died before I was born (they were in their early 60’s — not unknown at the turn of the century)
My dad died in his 50’s (environmentally induced cancer)
My Mom is still going strong in her 80’s.
I’d really like to meet my grandkids… and great-grandkids. I’d love to hang & get into whatever is cool (just as I do with my own kids).
My wife wonders why I’d *want* to live that long… I ask her why the hell not. There is just so much to learn and do and see and try … There just isn’t enough *time* to do everything I want in three-score & ten….
So maybe wishful thinking — but I’m pretty certain not.
However, if not me – I see hope in this for my kids…. We may be looking at the last generation for whom time is an enemy!
(somewhat unfounded, but based on a similar premise to Mark Morford)
The one edge that the USA has which has lead to our “superpower” status is leadership in science and R&D. Think Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Amgen, Genentech, and hundreds of others. The secret!!! Fifty (50%) of the world’s R&D money, private and public, is spent in the USA. Plus, a socioeconomic system that allows innovation and innovators to thrive.
The world copies and steals from us, not the other way around.
That can change. Nothing is written in stone or lasts forever. Toynbee pointed out that empires fall from within, and 19 out of 22 civilizations have done so to date. We could be the 20th out of 23.
People have been calling for the demise of the American empire for decades. It was popular in the 1930’s among leftists, including Toynbee. I’m not going to toss in the towel yet. But I’m more pessimistic now than anytime in my life. We have the resources and brainpower. We are losing our will and leadership. Stay tuned, will the American empire go the way of the Roman?
Bush deserves to wind up his administration by doing 25 to life in some lock-up for war criminals (or arguably, some hellhole in the Texas prison system).
However, there are a slew of lesser offenses for which he merely deserves to be slapped upside the head, sharply and repeatedly–possibly by everyone in the country. And one of them is his implication that stem-cell researchers are his moral inferiors.
I’ve started three different responses and eliminated them all. I’m so frustrated and depressed by how far behind our country is falling and knowing that with all the help from this administration, we haven’t hit bottom yet.
We’re like the big bully with nothing but bluster to back us up, never realizing that everyone else will eventually grow up and leave us behind.
Now Bush wants nuclear power, as if we know what we’re doing.
But PZ… The Wright Brothers didn’t destroy human souls to make their progress work!
:-)
Raven
It’s arguable that Rome fell apart from within long before the demise at the top…. Regardless I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I’m appalled at the lack of vision demonstrated by so-called ‘leaders’ in the US… and of the demands for such tunnel-vision from some extremely vocal constituencies within the US (Religious Right being but one).
I do think these are minorities… but most people appear to operate as if they are blind – and simply follow the loudest crank who promises direction….
We can only hope that enough of the fabric that allows innovation and research to proceed will remain, and that the ‘thought vacuum’ at governmental levels does not affect this country’s ability to attract smart, hard-working, engaged people from abroad – as it has throughout it’s history. (We had Kat on another thread the other day wondering if the US was a ‘safe’ destination)
The US has been great *because* it has been a melting-pot, and has accepted and embraced a plurality of ideas and inspirations from everywhere.
If that goes – then all we need to do is wait for the thrashing to stop. The beast will already be dead.
*We* need to ensure this remains the case.
People have been calling for the demise of the American empire for decades.
Raven – I’m not “calling” for this–as an American, it’s not something I want. However, the demise is happening as I type.
I expect history to remember the Bush Administration as the one that kicked us off the cliff, pried our fingers off the edge as we struggled for purchase, threw rocks at us as we finally started to drop–and then went on the lecture circuit with tales of how they will eventually be proved to have saved us.
oops… misplaced the last sentence…..
Should have said…
The US has been great *because* it has been a melting-pot, and has accepted and embraced a plurality of ideas and inspirations from everywhere.
*We* need to ensure this remains the case.
If that goes – then all we need to do is wait for the thrashing to stop. The beast will already be dead.
“Now Bush wants nuclear power”
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Nuclear is the LEAST dirty & dangerous energy source, & essential if we want to both drastically cut CO2 emissions & keep the lights on.
I am British and looking at America from this side of the Atlantic the more I come to think America is becoming uncivilised. It were no for the likes of PZ I would have already concluded that the country was beyond hope.
The US has been great *because* it has been a melting-pot, and has accepted and embraced a plurality of ideas and inspirations from everywhere.
Including wonderful ideas about torture and domestic spying and indefinite detention without representation and making it illegal to talk about our government’s actions.
Where did we get those ideas? Hitler’s Germany?
What will really be the killer would be if Bush were to make it illegal for US firms and universities to invest in stem cell research, even abroad. But I’m sure the pharma companies will pay him enough so that this doesn’t happen.
The research will be done, possibly even by “exiled” US citizens who cannot pursue their interests in the US.
As ever, he’s playing to the “Christian” right, whilst ensuring that corporate America can still make its mega bucks, as if they can’t do it in the US, they will do it elsewhere in the world, probably paying lower wages (more profit) and probably with lower ethical and environmental standards (again more profit).
It will be the well educated (probably liberal) scientist who will suffer the most, whilst Bush’s supporters have their interests protected at all times.
Mah 9,
The research is indeed being done. The UK has provided funding for a number of American researchers who were unable to pursue their research in the US because of the lacking of federal funds. I understand New Zealand has also provided a home and funds for such researchers.
CalGeorge
That’s exactly the point I was making… er.. in a different way…
As the US migrates towards a ‘group-think’ mindset dominated by vocal minorities (RR, etc) we run the risk of becoming just another totalitarian state…. (re Molly, NYC above)
It’s OUR responsibility to ensure.that.doesn’t.happen.!
But we don’t get there by DENYING or REFUSING IDEAS. We get there by working hard and being vocal ourselves!
I may not like it, but (to use one of Heinlein’s favorites) – if everyone rubs blue mud in their bellybutton, you have three choices: get rubbin’; leave town; or try to change things (knowing that the latter may be somewhat risky).
I’m simply suggesting that it’s our job to make the effort to change things…. not to satisfy our personal group-think, but to allow and revel in plurality (*even* blue-mud-rubbing if that’s what folks want to do).
“Now Bush wants nuclear power.”
Someone made the point to me last night that government is getting behind wind power because this way energy production stays in the hands of the big energy companies.
The solar alternative is being slighted because it would give more control to individuals – think of millions of Americans putting solar panels on their roofs – and take it away from big energy producers.
Make sense?
So perhaps solar is the answer, not nuclear.
I have a real problem with this line of thinking. The US has experienced worse times in our history – severe depressions, multiple recessions, wars, rebellions, corrupt elected officials (presidents on down), multiple assassinations, 9/11, and that pesky civil war of ours. What is remarkable is our resilience to these issues and our ability to bounce back. Bush is gone in less than 1.5 years (and please don’t give that crap about him canceling elections – be real). Another president will take over, agenda’s will change, and history will march on.
Not at all off thread. Right on thread. Isn’t anybody concerned about anthropogenic GHG, global heating, and planetary peril trumping everything?
Isn’t this terrifying human caused global heating the most perilous problem ever encountered in the history of science and humankind?
A few days ago Larry Moran scolded me for using the word “peril” as I’ve used here. James Hansen and his colleagues used it recently in a powerful paper; “Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control with great dangers to humans and other creatures.” All the best predictive power of science, both empirical and modeled, shows the very high probability of a non-linear “runaway” cataclysm on the near horizon. “Cataclysm” is used also.
See the abstract and entire dire warning here; http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2007/Hansen_etal_2.html
I have a question regarding stem cell research. Wouldn’t those cells come from fetuses that weren’t going to be implanted (IE leftovers from fertility clinics?)??
If the one baby born from the dozen, two dozen, one hundred fetuses created in the lab is “a gift from God,” wouldn’t the stem cells from those discarded fetuses also be “a gift from God?”
@ dogmeatib
No, they would be a “gift from Satan”, as you would have to destroy the “soul” in the foetus to get them. And only Satan would try an destroy a “soul”.
Cal:
Insofar as you’re referring to religious delusion and dogma, well, yeah, politicians from both parties often claim some religious affiliation and speak the language of religion. Whether we like it or not, that’s the language of a huge percentage of the electorate; howevermuch we might hope otherwise, it’s certainly true that an outspoken atheist or anti-theist is equally unlikely to be nominated for high office by either party. I actually do think the Dems are much more strongly committed to the principle of secular government, but since Obama is currently in my town addressing the United Council of Churches, I must grudgingly concede at least part of the point.
As for political philosophy (ideology, actually, but I don’t mean that word in the casual, pejorative sense), the notion that there’s no significant difference between Dems and Repubs is a Naderesque fallacy.
There are fundamental differences between the political right and left in this country: Are we an atomized population of individuals, or is there a community whose whole is more than the sum of its parts? Is government a (perhaps) necessary evil that inherently opposes individuals’ freedom, or does it reflect the natural consensus of the community? On the global scale, are we an individual state in a world of other individual states, or are we a member of an international community of nations.
The policy implications of these differences are profound, and despite the tendency of political pragmatism to drive both parties to relatively moderate versions of these positions, relatively is the key word: Republicans and Democrats have significantly different policy visions for the country and its future, and it matters who’s in charge. If you can’t see that, you’re just not looking closely enough.
You have to get pretty far away, one way or the other, from the center of the ideological spectrum, to find a vantage point from which our two major parties look the same. I suppose from the POV of gamma rays or radio waves, red and blue do look pretty much the same, eh?
Ummmmm,
GW vetoed the use of tax payer $ to fund embryonic stem cell research. The research is not ‘illegal’….. it just won’t be paid for by the tax payers. The research is (and should be) funded by the private sector. You brighty brights should know by now the more the government gets involved in your life the worse it becomes. You should be applauding this veto….. Of course that would require getting past your hatred for America… not to mention getting a grip on your Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Dogmeat? Stop making sense. Look at the flag, isn’t it pretty?
Bush derangment syndrome, that’s a laugh. Give me one reason, ONE, why I should trust that he has my best interests in mind. One reason why I should give him the benefit of the doubt. I think six years of unnecessary war and eroding of civil rights and environmental protections and corruption is enough to make anyone deranged, don’t you? Oh, and if effective research into finding cures for things like Parkinson’s disease isn’t worthy enough of federal funding, then what is?
Oh, and not to say that I hate America, but why should I like it? Let’s not just let this slide as an untested assumption. Why should I like America more than any other of the First World democracies? Just because I was born here?
Much of the funding for US stem cell research has come from foreign governments – notably the UK and New Zealand . This veto does not prevent that – so governments get involved anyway, and people like you can stay paranoid.
Speaking of which, Start Hoarding Air Now .
False dichotomy, I think. You don’t have to believe in some mystic universal good (that somehow doesn’t require doing good to any individual) in order to believe that there are some situations when the interests of some individuals are opposed to the interests of many more individuals and government should intervene on behalf of the latter.
Sadly, these statements are nowhere near contradictory. The consensus of the community can be, and all too often is, in favor of opposing the freedom of some individual members of that community (e.g. two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch).
Government is a weapon that can be wielded either to defend or to oppress people. And the majority is neither factually nor morally infallible – that is why we have *limited* democracy and certain rights deliberately placed beyond the reach of ordinary majorities.
Again, false dichotomy. Both viewpoints can be useful in different contexts. The presence of a community does not preclude or devalue individual action when the circumstances make it appropriate (however, it is wise to consider the reactions of other members of the community to such action before committing yourself to it).
Also, you seem to have a seriously out-of-date view of the ideology of the Republican Party. Ron Paul is not their frontrunner, he is an also-ran with near zero influence in the party. Limited-government conservatism is, for all practical purposes, presently dead in American politics. The present-day Republican Party is promoting a strong government with close ties to strong corporations and churches (only Christians need apply). They occasionally try to cover that agenda, but actions speak louder than words.
. You brighty brights should know by now the more the government gets involved in your life the worse it becomes.
*chuckle* Someone doesn’t think about where the roads he drives on come from, doesn’t think what happens when he flushes the toilet, missed the news reports on all that tainted food (that got let through incredibly lax regulatory standards), never heard of what happened at Walkerton, Ontario (where the idiot, antigovernment right-wing government fired most of the provincial water inspectors, because private companies could take it over, and 21 people died of e. coli contaminated water and at least 2300 more got sick — if government had been actually involved there, that wouldn’t have happened), never heard of the Rural Electrification Initiatives…
Yep, government is always bad, except most of the time, when it isn’t… (Gawd, I love my OHIP.)
Llewelly, your post about Kelvin was a good lesson for somebody who thought he knew a great deal about Kelvin. Grazi.
Man, I needed that. Thanks, PZ. Last year I was about to give up on this country. I’m not now (although I’m still weighing options on where I want to grow old).
Raven – I’m not “calling” for this–as an American, it’s not something I want. However, the demise is happening as I type.
It’s not that I exactly disagree with you Molly, but I do think, with the rapidity of communication today, that the nature of “decline” has changed. I don’t think we will see any single apocalyptic decline, but a gradual breaking up of the U.S. into enlightened and darkened pockets. We see that right now, with the abysmal levels of crime, poverty, divorce, and breakdown of the health care industry and the level of education in the Red States. The “Red State-Blue State” divide is widening. But America will not tumble in one great fall. However, local communities will be left to fend for themselves – and that won’t be pretty.
It were no for the likes of PZ I would have already concluded that the country was beyond hope.
Me too. But don’t give up on us.
Gerald, the article about Kelvin that I linked to was not mine, nor is the blog it was posted on. Furthermore – I suspect the author of the article misunderstood Kelvin (although Kelvin did have some rather odd (by modern standards) beliefs.) . Quite funny all the same.
GW vetoed the use of tax payer $ to fund embryonic stem cell research. The research is not ‘illegal’….. it just won’t be paid for by the tax payers. The research is (and should be) funded by the private sector.
Pacifier (and in what orifice is that pacifer stuck?) – It should? Why?
You brighty brights should know by now the more the government gets involved in your life the worse it becomes.
Gosh, you’re right!!!! You should be personally protecting your city from muggers and rapists, putting out any fires, running a few hospitals, schools, weather stations, prisons etc., building and maintaining all the roads and bridges, making sure everyone’s food won’t poison them and homes won’t collapse on them, defending the national borders, holding lynchings (you could go with jury trials and the rule of law, but that would be more “government-ey” than you’d like) and so on. Then, if there’s any time before your day job, you can direct air traffic.
You should be applauding this veto….. Of course that would require getting past your hatred for America
Right. The Americans who are for their country maintaining its preeminance in science and technology are the ones who hate America. And assholes like you love America–just not most of her citizens.
… not to mention getting a grip on your Bush Derangement Syndrome.
. . . by which you mean the disinclination of more than 70% of all Americans to make excuses for him, like you. There’s derangement a-plenty–virtually all on the Right, where anyone with a lick of sense has been chased out over the last 77 months.
And yet you remain there. What does that tell us?
Most of us know Kelvin for his lordship, absolute temperature, and failed pronouncements about the future of science. The century old words of the article, however, are very appropriate for today’s perilous crisis of global heating. How many scientists knew about Svante Arrhenius’s prescient statements about GHG until recently?
Today’s post at Mooney’s Intersection/flogging science is more adaptation and sequestration. Who are these yuppie careerists working for? Mooney doesn’t take any real criticism. The blatant adaptation peeyar is crypto anti-science.
I’ve said it before: The use of the term ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome’ is a surefire indicator that the person using it is a complete idiot. It’s like the term ‘evolutionist’.
Oh, I don’t. I only wonder how the votes for and against Brother Jeb will be counted.
Ermm… yes, except you shouldn’t use the word “runaway”, because that would mean a self-reinforcing warming resulting in Venus. Having to evacuate Bangladesh, even across decades, is horrible enough, really.
Even you dumby-dumb should have learned that it’s not that simple. There are things that governments can only mess up, and there are things that only governments can handle. Leaving the financing of basic research entirely to private corporations equals a massive restriction of basic research because few corporations are going to fund research that might have some applicability for something at an unknown time in the future.
Get over your Bush Worship Syndrome.
And no, I’m neither an American, nor do I hate America. I say Jail to the Thief.
Oh, I don’t. I only wonder how the votes for and against Brother Jeb will be counted.
Ermm… yes, except you shouldn’t use the word “runaway”, because that would mean a self-reinforcing warming resulting in Venus. Having to evacuate Bangladesh, even across decades, is horrible enough, really.
Even you dumby-dumb should have learned that it’s not that simple. There are things that governments can only mess up, and there are things that only governments can handle. Leaving the financing of basic research entirely to private corporations equals a massive restriction of basic research because few corporations are going to fund research that might have some applicability for something at an unknown time in the future.
Get over your Bush Worship Syndrome.
And no, I’m neither an American, nor do I hate America. I say Jail to the Thief.
Oh David, you’re so cruel… to the smug and deserving.
Будмо!
George W. Bush has presided over one of the largest expansions of government size and power in the history of the US. Anyone who thinks differently is the one who is “deranged”.
I love those brights who declare government to be “the problem” and in the next breath denounce any criticism of the executive branch as “treason.”
I have to nick Jail to the Thief for my own personal stash.
Mark Morford mused about the possibilities of biotechnology for shaping humans in November 2001:
http://tinyurl.com/3635wp
“Perhaps we can move more toward a strain of the human animal that decidedly lacks the narrow thinking of, say, the GOP, of the religious Right, the soul-crushing doctrine of the Vatican and the more uptight and delimiting belief systems of the planet…
Perhaps we can filter out those arcane and sanctimonious establishments that have already tried to force-engineer the species, make everyone think and act alike, blindly support lopsided military actions, kneel before the same angry God, eat anything that begins with “Mc.” …
No more gene that creates war-mongering sycophants? No more hereditary predisposition to believe everything the Pentagon spews forth? No more violent parents? Flagrantly homophobic senators? … Colorado Springs? I mean, can you imagine?”
“That’s what the Republicans are doing to this country right now: damning us to a future as a backward, corrupt mess, a big, blundering headache for the world. In 2100, will the rest of the planet see us in the same way Turkey was seen in 1900?”
Looking at how technology is increasing the power of networked individuals/small groups (particularly biotech in the form of engineered microbe weapons)I believe most nation-states in 2100 will have long since splintered into personal fiefdoms and microstates. The center can’t rule the periphery if its enforcers keep getting annihilated by superempowered individuals and groups.
I’m not as optimistic as Robert about the chances of getting rid of nationalism. On the other hand, the good news is the demographics for Republicans are looking less and less tenable as time passes. It’s very likely that continued urbanization will flip the troglodytes out of power and things will get slowly better.
Only an American would say that. From the perspective of the rest of the world, the Democrats and Republicans are practically identical.
You see “profound” differences only because you’ve been sensitized to the slightest nuance of distinction by your lack of exposure.
Only an American would say that
Only someone who didn’t know squat about the current state of American politics would say otherwise.
And if that was meant as a put-down of Americans: Screw you.
There is a simple structural reason why, in a two party system, the two parties have almost identical positions, but face in opposite directions. The difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is not so much where they are, but where they want to go.
It is a difference worth voting about.
I’d be willing to bet that I know at least as much, if not more, than you do about the current state of American politics.
And the two parties, with their respective platforms, are still virtually identical on the vast majority of issues. Most people here aren’t even really aware that most of those issues exist – since they never see a different position, they take them for granted.
If you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish.
Raven, you state “The one edge that the USA has which has lead to our “superpower” status is leadership in science and R&D.”
While I agree with you to a point, don’t forget that the thing that led us to those scientific and R&D accomplishments isn’t just cash, its having a large “creative class”. Microsoft, Apple, etc. are all constructs of people who were brought up to think differently. The thing that has made us so strong until lately was a society that celebrated diverse thought. Now our schools cut the classes that foster that kind of thinking. We’re starting to pay the price already. But there is hope. What’s the hottest degree to have to get into business right now? A Masters of Fine Art. We’ll see if we can turn it around in time. Unfortunately, our current administration isn’t exactly friendly to those who don’t conform.
If you want to know about water, don’t ask a fish.
And if you want to know about America, don’t ask an America-basher, however smug he may be.
And once again, on behalf of my entire country: Go fuck yourself.
Are doctors being defeatist when they try to diagnose an illness? America’s been sick for a long time – and I’ve been here to watch it fade.
Do you know what the argument from consequences is, Molly?
I suppose if I want to learn about the Soviet Union, I should only ask diehard Stalinists?
Yes, there are large and real differences between the two parties. Yes, it matters which one you vote for. But it doesn’t matter that much. Political power in the U.S. is substantially decentralized. Much power is devolved to state and local governments. The federal government has three branches, and it is rare for either party to control all three at the same time. The legislative branch is further divided into two chambers, which are often controlled by different parties. There is a sophisticated mechanism of checks and balances. The press and public opinion are also significant checks on the power of public officials. When one party does gain control of Congress and the White House concurrently, it usually overreaches, prompting a public backlash that returns control of one of those branches to the other party at the next election or the one after that. As Arthur Schlesinger says, one of the greatest features of democracy is its capacity for self-correction. That capacity is on display in the constant shifts in power between the two parties in Washington and in state and local government.
Strong partisans of both parties tend to exaggerate the power and partisanship of the other party. The reality is that both parties orbit fairly close to the political center. That’s how they stay in the game. The center is constantly shifting, and the parties are constantly changing to adapt to that movement. Policy change tends to occur incrementally and gradually. Big changes in policy over short periods of time are rare. These features of American democracy contribute greatly to the nation’s long-term stability and prosperity. Reports of their forthcoming demise are exaggerated, to say the least.
It is perhaps an error to include the Soviet Union in the list, at least at the time of Stalin, who fancied himself a scientific thinker.
Bush and his xian allies’ policies are reminiscent of Stalin’s science wars. There is a book about it, “Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars” by Ethan Pollack.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8283.html
éIn 1948, while the Berlin crisis threatened an irreparable rift between the United States and the USSR, Stalin wrote memos, held meetings, and offered editorial comments in order to support attacks against Mendelian genetics. In 1949, with the first Soviet atomic bomb test only months away, Stalin called off an effort to purge Soviet physics of “bourgeois” quantum mechanics and relativity.
In the first half of 1950 he negotiated a pact with the People’s Republic of China and discussed plans with Kim Il Sung about invading South Korea, while also writing a combative article on linguistics, carefully orchestrating a coup in Soviet physiology, and meeting with economists three times to discuss a textbook on political economy. In some cases he denounced whole fields of scholarship, leading to the firing and occasional arrest of their proponents.
His efforts to unmask errors in science were paralleled by an equally intense drive to show how each discipline could contribute to building communism and serve as a symbolic weapon of Soviet superiority in the battle with the West along an “ideological front.”” …
“Stalin did not venture into scientific laboratories, conduct specific experiments, or solve equations. Yet he insisted that science was intertwined with the foundations of socialism and with the Party’s raison d’eˆtre. Thousands of newly accessible and previously unexplored documents from Communist Party, Russian State, and Academy of Sciences archives reveal that he was determined–at times even desperate–to show the scientific basis of Soviet Marxism”
…
“Science played a unique role in Soviet ideology. When Soviet citizens publicly spoke or wrote about Soviet ideology, they were referring to a set of ideas identified and propagated by the regime and used to justify the superiority of the Soviet state.
In principle, these ideas were derived from interpretations of canonical texts by Marx, Engels, and Lenin and were supposed to reflect and shape Soviet reality. They were supposed to be all-encompassing and internally consistent with “Party lines” defining the parameters of acceptable positions within various fields of thought. Soviet ideology contrasted with “bourgeois ideology”” …
“The regime strictly upheld its prerogative to judge every activity on ideological grounds. But what about the cases when science and Soviet ideology seemed to contradict one another?”
Just replace marxism-leninism with you-know-what to bring up to date with the Bushies.
Here is a review of the book I mentioned above,
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/174276/
“The book would have also been enriched by some of the Stalin generation’s stories, such as the one about the physicist Pyotr Kapitsa, who carried on an ironic correspondence with the Soviet leader while under house arrest. Or the tragic story of two brothers who were the pride of Soviet science — Nikolai and Sergei Vavilov. Nikolai was a leading geneticist and a staunch opponent of Lysenko. He perished in the gulag. Sergei, on the other hand, was a physicist who, at the behest of Stalin, served as chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Their contrasting fates were emblematic of the times.
As the Soviet regime was to discover, science policy by fiat comes at great cost. For those scientists who did not successfully “deviate with the Party line,” as the Soviet anecdote went, it was their last mistake: “Countless scientists in every discipline miscalculated what ideologically correct science was supposed to look like. Stalin was the only person who could keep up with his own evolving interpretations.””
And if our economy fails and our political institutions collapse – hypothetically speaking – what would you say then?
Only an American would say that. From the perspective of the rest of the world, the Democrats and Republicans are practically identical.
Gore wouldn’t have invaded Iraq or banned stem cell research. Caledonian considers this trivial. Welcome to libertarianism.
Is that really the best way you have to discredit an argument – assert that the person making it is a libertarian?
Libertarianism has discredited itself, Grumpus. George seems to have identified you as one because of your ideological positions.
Problem is, he’s wrong.
Not that being wrong has ever stopped you.
Problem is, he’s wrong.
So, Gore would have invaded Iraq and banned stem cell research? I suppose he would be a global warming denier too? Gore and Imhofe, not a dime’s worth of difference between them, eh?
Support your position. Whinging doesn’t suit you, Cal.
Libertarians are such fun, like Cal. His “arguments”:
“Is that really the best way you have to discredit an argument – assert that the person making it is a libertarian?”
“Problem is, he’s wrong.
Not that being wrong has ever stopped you.”
If a libertarian had a single synapse, I think it would have been discovered.
That’s not my position. That’s a strawman.
You said, and I quote:
That would appear to be “your position”, Grumpus.
Cal, you said, “And the two parties, with their respective platforms, are still virtually identical on the vast majority of issues.” You’ve been presented with three rather substantive issues on which Democrats are opposed by Republicans whose numbers sustain their President’s veto, Iraq, stem cell research, global warming. Your responses have consisted of whinging and accusations of fallacies.
I’ve heard it said that Libertarians are Republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid. By your lights, that should read Democrats/Republicans who want to smoke dope and get laid. In my experience, Democrats smoke dope and get laid without resorting to such tactics; for Libertarians, dope and sex are hypotheticals, living as they do in their parents’ basements. As per your advice on fish and water, I won’t ask you about basements and inane political ideologies.
I will go so far as to say there is not enough difference between Democrats and Republicans, and that most of today’s Democrats are not as far left as many Republicans from the fifties were, but only a fool would say that the two parties are virtually identical. But then, here I am addressing the fool who called our host a moron, so, my expectations continue to plummet.
So, Gore would have invaded Iraq and banned stem cell research?
Probably not, but who knows? It’s worth remembering that lots of Democrats voted to invade Iraq, including two of the leading Democratic presidential candidates for the 2008 election, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, as well as the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry. Now maybe it would never have come to that point if Gore had won the 2000 election, or maybe it would happened anyway, perhaps just a bit later. Another factor is the likelihood that Congress would have had a larger Republican majority if Gore had won the presidency, and that the Republicans would be more likely to have retained control of Congress in the midterms if the president had been a Democrat. American voters tend to split the ticket, rarely giving control of the White House and Congress to a single party at the same time. The same kind of political complexities apply to question of stem cell funding.
On balance, I’d say yes, we probably wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, at least not in 2003, and there probably wouldn’t be ban on federal funding of stem cell research, if Gore or another Democrat had won the 2000 presidential election. But it’s far from certain. If the American people were strongly in favor of invasion, then we probably would have invaded, whether the president had been a Democrat or Republican.
My point here again is not to suggest that there aren’t big differences between the parties, but to suggest that those differences are often greatly exaggerated by partisans on both sides, and that the political process itself tends to produce centrist government over time.
/testing HTML tags
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Robert said:
Looking at how technology is increasing the power of networked individuals/small groups (particularly biotech in the form of engineered microbe weapons)I believe most nation-states in 2100 will have long since splintered into personal fiefdoms and microstates. The center can’t rule the periphery if its enforcers keep getting annihilated by superempowered individuals and groups.
s9 said
“I’m not as optimistic as Robert about the chances of getting rid of nationalism. On the other hand, the good news is the demographics for Republicans are looking less and less tenable as time passes. It’s very likely that continued urbanization will flip the troglodytes out of power and things will get slowly better.”
I wouldn’t characterize my statements as optimistic or pessimistic though. For one, the nationalism of a large nation-state in such a future scenario is simply replaced by lots of mini-nationalisms of the various fiefdoms and microstates. Those developements will actually destroy urban culture and urbanization. Imagine the U.S. shattering into thousands of little microstates. For example, in one little valley you will have a few settlements that formed a libertarian microstate but in the next valley, there is a stifling religious theocracy. Imagine the polygamists in Colorado City, AZ becoming a soveriegn microstate.
A good TV example of such soveriegn microstates fighting each other is the war between Jericho and New Bern ( from the Jericho TV series ).
Nuts! My HTML tags got messed up again!
I’ll try it again.
Robert said:
Looking at how technology is increasing the power of networked individuals/small groups (particularly biotech in the form of engineered microbe weapons)I believe most nation-states in 2100 will have long since splintered into personal fiefdoms and microstates. The center can’t rule the periphery if its enforcers keep getting annihilated by superempowered individuals and groups.
s9 said
“I’m not as optimistic as Robert about the chances of getting rid of nationalism. On the other hand, the good news is the demographics for Republicans are looking less and less tenable as time passes. It’s very likely that continued urbanization will flip the troglodytes out of power and things will get slowly better.”
I wouldn’t characterize my statements as optimistic or pessimistic though. For one, the nationalism of a large nation-state in such a future scenario is simply replaced by lots of mini-nationalisms of the various fiefdoms and microstates. Those developements will actually destroy
urban culture and urbanization. Imagine the U.S. shattering into thousands of little microstates. For example, in one little valley you will have a few settlements that formed a libertarian microstate but in the next valley, there is a stifling religious theocracy. Imagine the polygamists in Colorado City, AZ becoming a soveriegn microstate.
A good TV example of such soveriegn microstates fighting each other is the war between Jericho and New Bern ( from the Jericho TV series ).
There! Somewhat better.
Robert said: A good TV example of such soveriegn microstates fighting each other is the war between Jericho and New Bern ( from the Jericho TV series ).
Sounds somewhat like the phyles in Neil Stephenson’s ‘The Diamond Age’. The internet and nanotech cause the almost total elimination of economic scarcity, (at least for nessecities), which causes people to no longer need to pay taxes to territorial governments. Instead, they form geographically diverse ideological clans. Like Neo-Victorians, or Cyber-libertarians.
Wars and economic struggles between such technologically empowered groups would be…interesting, devestating, but highly different from anything we saw last century.
Exactly.
Although I bought Diamond Age , I haven’t got around to reading it. Perhaps I should start.
You’re being accused of offering fallacies because you ARE offering fallacies, and you’re either too dishonest or too stupid to admit it.
The argument wasn’t that they didn’t differ on any important issues, or that their positions on particular issues weren’t distinguishable. Offering a few examples of important, particular issues on which the two parties differ might be useful in deciding whether to support candidates belong to them – BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POINT YOU’RE ARGUING AGAINST.
What was that argument? Repeat it for us.
Ah. Table-pounding. Check the caps-lock key, Cal. The rubber am I! glue you are! gambit works much better with Frank Oz doing the Yoda voice. The point I’m arguing against is that you’re merely offering contradiction, we’ve taken the getting hit on the head lessons as read and are all pointing and laughing at the contrarian jackass who cannot make an argument to save his life, or haven’t you noticed?
I loved Diamond Age, but thought that the balkanization issues were much better explicated in Snowcrash, what with Fedland and bimbo boxes. Anybody looking at the technology in Diamond Age as utopian roadmaps might consider that Neal Stephenson wrote it after wondering what things might be like if nanotech worked as promised instead of drowning us all in Bill Joy’s gray goo (not that Bill Joy’s fantasies are worthy of more than mockery. I’ve made 3D models in VI. Bill Joy deserves gray goo). As per his comments on speaking at Cody’s while flogging System of the World, he expects the 21st century to consist mostly of ecological catastrophes and massive species extinctions, but that’s not as much fun. Someday, N. S. will learn how to end a book.
Several weeks ago, someone commenting to this site recounted a story of being teased and bullied by a group of Down Syndrome adolescents because she wasn’t part of their social clique while she was waiting for a school bus.
For some peculiar reason, that story came to mind while reading the stunning argumentation of Mr. Cope.
Does not. Idiot.
Readto: It is fallacious to claim that I contradicted you and called you a name.[close Cal troll tags]
Ken, stogoe, don’t forget that if this country were only properly run, Caledonian, with his much-vaunted “rigor”, would be the philosopher-king over all the rest of us.
So please–show some proper respect to the little freak, ‘kay?
“I loved Diamond Age, but thought that the balkanization issues were much better explicated in Snowcrash, what with Fedland and bimbo boxes. Anybody looking at the technology in Diamond Age as utopian roadmaps might consider that Neal Stephenson wrote it after wondering what things might be like if nanotech worked as promised instead of drowning us all in Bill Joy’s gray goo (not that Bill Joy’s fantasies are worthy of more than mockery. I’ve made 3D models in VI. Bill Joy deserves gray goo). As per his comments on speaking at Cody’s while flogging System of the World, he expects the 21st century to consist mostly of ecological catastrophes and massive species extinctions, but that’s not as much fun. Someday, N. S. will learn how to end a book.”
Some people might start ecological catastrophes or exterminate species just for fun. In that case, some biohacker might replace the species with an entirely new species, or just create new creatures to wreak havoc on ecosystems for enjoyment. Hell, some people might blow up an orphanage because they enjoy the chaos and destruction. The technology certainly favors chaos.