I agree with everything you said, but the question is: why do people react this way? There are very intelligent, very rational people that will do exactly what you described: dismiss anything like this out of hand. Why?
The issue is people's worldview. The universe as a whole is too complex for the human mind. So we take bits and pieces of it and make a model in our head of how the world works -- our gut feel on how things are. Call it a philosophy, a perspective, a metacontext, whatever; it's all the same.
The thing is, once we form a world view, we protect it. It's so fundamental to how we think, that we would question fact before questioning it. Because of this, it tends to act as a filter to data coming into our brains. Those facts that support our worldview get special attention. Those that do not -- or actually contridict it -- get explained away or ignored.
This isn't really intellictual dishonesty because this usually happens before our intellectual mind gets ahold of the data. And it's not always bad. When our worldview -- our mental model -- is fairly accurate, it helps us simplify and speed up the process of reason. It's bad, though, when the world view contridicts important facts.
So, some people have as a fundamental part of their worldview that white males have always been dominant because they have always been racist and sexist and violent and basically bad, but certainly not superior. In fact -- to them -- most prejudice has always been motivated by realization of inferiority to these other groups. If data comes out that, no, white males might actually have some superior qualities in certain areas then, to them, it cannot be correct. It contridicts their worldview. So, instead of questioning their fundamental beliefs about how the world works, they question the data.
We all do the exact same thing all the time, in whatever area our own worldview comes into conflict with reality. Which is why true scientific objectivity is so difficult, if not impossible. You have to continually check your own biases before absorbing just about anything. It's very tough. Few people ever achieve it with any real consistency.
Shhh... You can't mention Adam Smith to these guys. They take it as a matter of faith that all wealth and progress was Intelligently Designed by the government instead of naturally evolving from society.
Not really. Those sciences that have practical application -- material science, mechanics, chemistry, etc -- will continue to be advanced. By the engineers themselves if need be (that's more or less how it was historically done).
But stuff like evolution -- how does that impact anything at all? Whether God created life on Earth a few thousand years ago or it evolved over billions of years has no practical value. (Which isn't to say that it might not have spiritual or philosophical value, but is that really what science is for, anyway?) The question is really sort of irrelevant.
Especially when you realize what how science is supposed to work. Scientists study physical phenomona and then create models to explain them (the entire universe being too big and complex to comprehend in one gulp, we take subsets of it's truth as we observe it and make models). These are models. They say "from what we observe, the universe appears to work in this way." We cannot state in any fashion, say, how the sun came to be. But we can say that, from observations are consistent with a model that supposes it formed from a swirling cloud of gas. It says that it behaves as if it was formed in this way.
Saying that something behaves in a way consistent with a model is a far, far cry from saying that in actuality it happened this way. The former statement is science -- resting only on what can be observed and keeping an open mind about the rest. The latter is philosophizing about science. And when a scientist starts philosophizing about his models you learn two things real quick: A) he's a bad scientist; B) he's a bad philosopher.
This sort of hyperbole is just infuriating. Yes, America is having a crisis in the technical fields, but blaming it on Bush is idiocy.
Let's look at history. Arguably, the era experiencing the greatest innovations in science and technology was from the mid 17th century to the middle of the 19th. You've got Newton and Liebniz and Hooke and all those other Royal Society guys rewriting every bit of our knowledge of how the world works -- and doing so under the authority of a state and church with far, far more control then the US government has ever had.
The second greatest technical period is probably from WWII through the 1960s in America -- especially the 1950s when we developed and perfected nuclear power, jet aircraft, rocketry, computers, etc; and all in a far more controlled society. Heck, the 50s US has become the cliche of an uptight, religous, puritanical society. Yet we grew by leaps and bounds.
Besides, the whole "intelligent design" stuff, where it affects anything it affects pure science. And pure science very rarly is the driver of much of anything. Where the technical fields impact our lives is through engineering. It's making science practical. And that's something that the evolution vs ID really has no impact on.
But engineering really is in dire, dire straits in this country, but for completely differnt (almost opposite) reasons. Primarily, in my mind, because of the stiffling of innovation because of government regulation and excessive lawsuits. When you codify everything, mandate everything, and ban everything else then there is no room to innovate and do new things. It's the Democrats and their state-controlled regulatory state that has stiffled the technical fields, not the religious right.
There's also one very big similarity between all your examples: all these pieces of information are owned by somebody. In every case, it is the owner -- and nobody else -- that can decide if it is better kept secret or spread to everyone.
You're basic theory is that YOU (or someone that thinks just like you) can be ultimate arbiter for everyone of what information should be spread and which should not. What makes you so special? Why not Bill Gates instead?
An ownership society is the only one that protects from the abuses of arbitary power implicit in the idea that somebody can decide for everyone what they can and cannot do.
The problem is deeper than gratis vs libre, because most people misunderstand libre.
Liberty is not license. It doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. It doesn't mean a lack of rules.
Liberty needs rules. Information might want to be libre, but that doesn't mean you can take whatever information you want from whomever you want and do whatever you want with it. Your liberty (and liberty is ALWAYS both personal and individual) is limited, as Jefferson said, by the bounds of other people's equal rights. Law is there to enforce those boundaries.
Without some set of rules keeping other people from choosing to violate others' rights you have anarchy, which has very little to do with liberty.
The ideal is to want rule of law and not of man. To have a playing field where the rules are understood, and enforced equally on everyone, and are there to protect people's liberty; instead of a system of arbitary power where individuals (private, corporate, or state) can arbitarily change the rules, arbitarily enforce them, and do so for their own benefit.
Information wants to be free because it is easy to move it around. But in the interest of protecting the rights of all people (you and those in the RIAA as well) there have to be rules protecting the ownership of information. Otherwise there is no libre, only anarchy.
Is selling your personal data to some shady group wrong? Yes. Is getting copyrighted music of a P2P system without paying for it wrong? Yes, and for exactly the same reasons. Without ownership there are no rights, and disrespecting ownership is disrespecting libre.
As for the death penalty/abortion thing, it comes down to 2 basic disagreements over world view. First: is a fetus a human being? Second, the left believes in "thou shalt not kill" while the right believes in "thou shalt not murder." There's a world of difference in there, because one side believes that all violence and all killing is wrong. The other believes that violence, even up to lethal levels, is often a very beneficial thing. It is the misuse of it that is wrong.
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I agree with everything you said, but the question is: why do people react this way? There are very intelligent, very rational people that will do exactly what you described: dismiss anything like this out of hand. Why?
The issue is people's worldview. The universe as a whole is too complex for the human mind. So we take bits and pieces of it and make a model in our head of how the world works -- our gut feel on how things are. Call it a philosophy, a perspective, a metacontext, whatever; it's all the same.
The thing is, once we form a world view, we protect it. It's so fundamental to how we think, that we would question fact before questioning it. Because of this, it tends to act as a filter to data coming into our brains. Those facts that support our worldview get special attention. Those that do not -- or actually contridict it -- get explained away or ignored.
This isn't really intellictual dishonesty because this usually happens before our intellectual mind gets ahold of the data. And it's not always bad. When our worldview -- our mental model -- is fairly accurate, it helps us simplify and speed up the process of reason. It's bad, though, when the world view contridicts important facts.
So, some people have as a fundamental part of their worldview that white males have always been dominant because they have always been racist and sexist and violent and basically bad, but certainly not superior. In fact -- to them -- most prejudice has always been motivated by realization of inferiority to these other groups. If data comes out that, no, white males might actually have some superior qualities in certain areas then, to them, it cannot be correct. It contridicts their worldview. So, instead of questioning their fundamental beliefs about how the world works, they question the data.
We all do the exact same thing all the time, in whatever area our own worldview comes into conflict with reality. Which is why true scientific objectivity is so difficult, if not impossible. You have to continually check your own biases before absorbing just about anything. It's very tough. Few people ever achieve it with any real consistency.
Shhh... You can't mention Adam Smith to these guys. They take it as a matter of faith that all wealth and progress was Intelligently Designed by the government instead of naturally evolving from society.
Not really. Those sciences that have practical application -- material science, mechanics, chemistry, etc -- will continue to be advanced. By the engineers themselves if need be (that's more or less how it was historically done).
But stuff like evolution -- how does that impact anything at all? Whether God created life on Earth a few thousand years ago or it evolved over billions of years has no practical value. (Which isn't to say that it might not have spiritual or philosophical value, but is that really what science is for, anyway?) The question is really sort of irrelevant.
Especially when you realize what how science is supposed to work. Scientists study physical phenomona and then create models to explain them (the entire universe being too big and complex to comprehend in one gulp, we take subsets of it's truth as we observe it and make models). These are models. They say "from what we observe, the universe appears to work in this way." We cannot state in any fashion, say, how the sun came to be. But we can say that, from observations are consistent with a model that supposes it formed from a swirling cloud of gas. It says that it behaves as if it was formed in this way.
Saying that something behaves in a way consistent with a model is a far, far cry from saying that in actuality it happened this way. The former statement is science -- resting only on what can be observed and keeping an open mind about the rest. The latter is philosophizing about science. And when a scientist starts philosophizing about his models you learn two things real quick: A) he's a bad scientist; B) he's a bad philosopher.
This sort of hyperbole is just infuriating. Yes, America is having a crisis in the technical fields, but blaming it on Bush is idiocy.
Let's look at history. Arguably, the era experiencing the greatest innovations in science and technology was from the mid 17th century to the middle of the 19th. You've got Newton and Liebniz and Hooke and all those other Royal Society guys rewriting every bit of our knowledge of how the world works -- and doing so under the authority of a state and church with far, far more control then the US government has ever had.
The second greatest technical period is probably from WWII through the 1960s in America -- especially the 1950s when we developed and perfected nuclear power, jet aircraft, rocketry, computers, etc; and all in a far more controlled society. Heck, the 50s US has become the cliche of an uptight, religous, puritanical society. Yet we grew by leaps and bounds.
Besides, the whole "intelligent design" stuff, where it affects anything it affects pure science. And pure science very rarly is the driver of much of anything. Where the technical fields impact our lives is through engineering. It's making science practical. And that's something that the evolution vs ID really has no impact on.
But engineering really is in dire, dire straits in this country, but for completely differnt (almost opposite) reasons. Primarily, in my mind, because of the stiffling of innovation because of government regulation and excessive lawsuits. When you codify everything, mandate everything, and ban everything else then there is no room to innovate and do new things. It's the Democrats and their state-controlled regulatory state that has stiffled the technical fields, not the religious right.
There's also one very big similarity between all your examples: all these pieces of information are owned by somebody. In every case, it is the owner -- and nobody else -- that can decide if it is better kept secret or spread to everyone. You're basic theory is that YOU (or someone that thinks just like you) can be ultimate arbiter for everyone of what information should be spread and which should not. What makes you so special? Why not Bill Gates instead? An ownership society is the only one that protects from the abuses of arbitary power implicit in the idea that somebody can decide for everyone what they can and cannot do.
That reminds me of something from Heinlein's wisdom of Lazarus Long:
"Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend."
If only more people would take the time to remember this.
The problem is deeper than gratis vs libre, because most people misunderstand libre.
Liberty is not license. It doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. It doesn't mean a lack of rules.
Liberty needs rules. Information might want to be libre, but that doesn't mean you can take whatever information you want from whomever you want and do whatever you want with it. Your liberty (and liberty is ALWAYS both personal and individual) is limited, as Jefferson said, by the bounds of other people's equal rights. Law is there to enforce those boundaries.
Without some set of rules keeping other people from choosing to violate others' rights you have anarchy, which has very little to do with liberty.
The ideal is to want rule of law and not of man. To have a playing field where the rules are understood, and enforced equally on everyone, and are there to protect people's liberty; instead of a system of arbitary power where individuals (private, corporate, or state) can arbitarily change the rules, arbitarily enforce them, and do so for their own benefit.
Information wants to be free because it is easy to move it around. But in the interest of protecting the rights of all people (you and those in the RIAA as well) there have to be rules protecting the ownership of information. Otherwise there is no libre, only anarchy.
Is selling your personal data to some shady group wrong? Yes. Is getting copyrighted music of a P2P system without paying for it wrong? Yes, and for exactly the same reasons. Without ownership there are no rights, and disrespecting ownership is disrespecting libre.
As for the death penalty/abortion thing, it comes down to 2 basic disagreements over world view. First: is a fetus a human being? Second, the left believes in "thou shalt not kill" while the right believes in "thou shalt not murder." There's a world of difference in there, because one side believes that all violence and all killing is wrong. The other believes that violence, even up to lethal levels, is often a very beneficial thing. It is the misuse of it that is wrong.