PetePierson wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 7:44 pm
The Outsider wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2024 5:49 pm
Why are you opposed to people with relevant education, knowledge, and experience making decisions? You, me, Billy-bob in WV, and Justice Samuel Alito don't know fuck all about how industries impact the environment and the public health, but people who study it for a living do. God forbid they make use of that education, knowledge, and experience.
Your argument doesn't hold water because it's basis is completely illogical. It's more or less anti-science and frankly we have a few thousand years of history that show how that position works out for people.
My assumption is that you're almost as cynical as I but also much younger so at least on track. Operation Paperclip, Northwoods, and many others have caused distrust in the "experts" (military or otherwise). And after how they got nearly every single thing wrong during the Covid Regime including just flat out making shit up, they can can all get fucked (copyright MB).
And I agree, I don't know shit. But for however long I have remaining on this rock, I'll be accountable for my decisions.
A. I'm extremely cynical, but in a different way than you are. I hate the average human being and lower. I hate people who lack empathy and compassion because no matter how educated or otherwise intelligent those traits are the mark of an extremely flawed mind. I think 80% of humans are stupid, panicky, reactive apes with opposable thumbs. Most people are so fucking stupid that if they had been born 1000 years ago they'd have been eaten by a fucking predator before they reached adulthood.
What I'm not cynical of is, by and large, the scientific community. Forget government agencies (especially during COVID) because those aren't scientific institutions.They're inherently political and politics taints everything it touches with ideological agendas and other insidious bullshit. Dr. Fauci, for example, is an extremely bright immunologist and infectious disease scientists. DId he get some things wrong about COVID? Sure, but that's honestly to be expected when dealing with a novel virus that is rapidly spreading to the point where you're forced to take action before you've had time to truly study it. However, the vast majority of the problem with the COVID response was how politicized it got combined with a completely incompetent executive branch that more or less hamstrung the CDC with it's bullshit.
Scientists can absolutely be pieces of shit, especially in certain disciplines that are vulnerable to unpalatable biases. However, most of the things you'll see me talk about are not disciplines that are really able to be nefarious. Climate change, astronomy, physics, chemistry, materials science, etc. are all things that are vital to our survival that are having great work done in the study and pursuit of understanding in their respective fields.
B. Climatology is generally something that is studied by people outside of governmental organizations, the vast majority of information on climate change can be found from sources outside of the government. And in the cases that you find it from government organizations it's in places like NOAA, NASA, and the NHC which are about as a-political as government organizations get.
C. Yeah, I know about Paperclip, Northwoods, MKULTRA, etc. but to be perfectly honest, in regards to Paperclip, anyone who wouldn't co-opt those brilliant scientific minds at the time are fools and Paperclip culminated in some of the most valuable scientific research missions that human beings have ever undertaken. I'm a cynic but I'm also a pragmatist. You can get me up in arms about the government doing shady shit to it's citizens but you ain't gonna rustle my jimmies by beating the shit out of Nazis, kidnapping their best scientists, and then successfully going to the moon a couple of times, etc. That one decision is the biggest reason we are where we are today as the global powerhouse in terms of technology, economic, and military prowess. Northwoods is honestly a reason to have faith in the government as it was drawn up by shady fucks (shady fucks exist everywhere and in greater numbers than most people would like to believe) and then shot down by the one person who could actually order it carried out.
You want to get into how the government is fucked then let's talk about the Tuskegee Experiment or the many fucked up CIA black projects from the 60s and 70s.