A New Political Spectrum.
I contend that our relationship to science is mistaken; a consequence of arresting Galileo for the heresy of proving the earth orbits the sun, and supressing science as an understanding of reality even while using science to drive the industrial revolution. In short, we used the tools - but we didn't read the instructions, and that is why we are headed for extinction.
One way we might correct this mistake is to recognise science politically. So let us imagine a political party that recognises science as truth - let's call it 'The Science Party'. Let us further imagine, there's such discontent with politics as usual that "Sci-Pol" immediately took half the seats in Parliament - and formed a government. The question is this:
Who sits opposite and why?
One way we might correct this mistake is to recognise science politically. So let us imagine a political party that recognises science as truth - let's call it 'The Science Party'. Let us further imagine, there's such discontent with politics as usual that "Sci-Pol" immediately took half the seats in Parliament - and formed a government. The question is this:
Who sits opposite and why?
Comments (133)
I do believe that there already has been so much politics underlying science historically and that this has been extremely complex. A large part of it has involved religious belief, especially Christianity. I don't see that you can possibly explore this question without an exploration of this.
You conflate what it means to be the opposition in politics with opposition to truth.
An opposition might consist of anyone who opposes technocracy, which I wager would include some scientists.
Politics is about dealing with humans, societies and its issues. We, humans, are mostly irrational, we think with our stomach, our emotions bias us continuously.
Why do you think sociology has never been able to become a science?
Scientific disciplines help us to dialogue with nature, our nature and it tell us we are complex and, again, not rational.
This is (among many other reasons like the survival principle, etc) why science party has and will never work to govern humans. It could maybe one day govern cyborgs.
Quoting Jack Cummins
For the purposes of this thought experiment, I don't see the need.
For the purposes of forming a conclusion that religion has supressed science as truth for 400 years, I would certainly need to understand the long history of the relationship!
Did you know that Sir Issac Newton had to hide his anti-trinitarian beliefs in order to be appointed to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge? Do you not think there's something rather psychotic about the man who wrote Principa Mathematica - having to pretend to religious opinions he did not have to advance in his career?
Did you know that Darwin worried himself sick, and delayed 20 years before finally publishing Origin of Species in 1859 - and that his ideas were met with religious objections that continue to this day?
But all that isn't relevant to the question - who sits opposite Sci-Pol in Parliament?
Quoting baker
I think politics does that all on its own - no help from me. It's like that old joke. You can tell when a politician is lying. His lips move!
Who sits in the Science Party I would ask.
The way I see it there would be leftists, centrists, conservatives, greens in that party. Likely that party would break up into factions that oppose each other, even if they all say that science is important.
Quoting NOS4A2
technocracy
NOUN
the government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts.
Right, because "we've had enough of experts." But Sci-Pol isn't a technocracy per se. Rather, it's a political party built upon the philosophical belief that science now constitutes a highly coherent understanding of reality - we need to recognise as substantially true, and be responsible to in our decision making - to survive and prosper long term.
Religious fundamentalists primarily, plus all manner of kooks, cranks, and quacks who have their own little proto-religions they follow in defiance of scientific evidence.
Of course, it is entirely up to you how if you wish to form your hypothetical discussion but I would think that to take it out of historical context is not going to be the most truthful way.I would have thought that the two examples you give about Newton and Darwin point to the complex politics of science. In doing so, I think you are going to create stereotypical extremes of arguments, just recasting science in the territory of all the heated conflicts of the politics of our present time.
My understanding is that this is a simplistic description of what happened. The Pope was scientifically literate and buddies with Galileo. Galileo went out of his way to be a pain in the ass, and that's why he got in trouble. It was totally avoidable. I haven't time to dive into the full history, but simplistic myths should not be taken for history.
Okay, but thinking with your stomach - tell me this: would you rather get on a rollercoaster designed by an engineer in accord with the established principles of physics, geometry, materials science and so forth, or one designed a priest?
Because currently, the world is a roller coaster designed by a priest, and it is going to crash! But hey, maybe that's part of the grand design? Maybe God will leap out at the last minuet and save the faithful. Hallelujah! It's a miracle! I wouldn't bet on it myself.
I think we need to recognise that science is a substantially true understanding of reality, and we need to be responsible to scientific truth, or we are doomed. I don't believe that means - dictatorial government based on science as truth with a capital T - because of Hume's is/ought dilemma. He says:
"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not…"
The usual interpretation of this observation is that no list of facts adds up to a value, and therefore science cannot constitute a system of government. Science is facts - not values. But to my mind, Hume describes what human beings do - and cannot help but do; which is, to prioritise a list of facts in terms of their values. Which is why I ask the question - who sits opposite? Democratic government is a compromise - so who would sci-pol be compromising with? Capitalists? Communists? Seventh day Adventists? Who?
That would be a realistic concern were it not for the philosophically solid constitutional basis of the party... and the blood oath!
Quoting Pfhorrest
I do feel it would be absolutely necessary for sci-pol to respect freedom of conscience, religion, thought, speech and expression. Human rights shouldn't be an obstacle to any well intentioned political party, and while - I'm not a believer, I'm agnostic, I recognise that religion is important to people. It's also important historically. Were it not for religion, hunter gatherer tribes could not have joined together to form civilisations, and we'd still be running around naked in the forest jabbing each other with sharp sticks. So, we owe a lot to religion - but this; science is true.
Quoting Jack Cummins
I would have thought that those two examples demonstrate first, that I do understand the history, and second, that it is as I've described it - an oppression that divorced science as truth from science as a tool, allowing science to be used for ideological power and profit, without any responsibility to science as an understanding of reality. As I said, we have used the tools but not read the instructions. I could have said science was denied any status with accusations of heresy, and reduced to whoring itself out to government and industry. Is that truthful enough?
There's some truth to that. In "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" Galileo put the geocentric view - the Biblical view of an earth fixed in the heavens, in the mouth of Simplicio - a pun on 'simpleton' in common Italian. But then, Galileo wasn't a pan European governmental organisation claiming divine authority. It was a mistake for Galileo to mock the Church, but that doesn't mean it was not a mistake for the Church to make a heresy of valid knowledge of Creation.
I just think that you need to avoid the creation of stereotypes and I am not convinced that you are going to really going to do any justice to the questions of truths of science in this way. As someone said earlier to you, the full story of Galileo and Darwin are not straightforward. To try to fit science into the fierce divisions of modern politics is going to create tense and unnecessary divisions.
:brow:
What stereotypes?
What questions of the truths of science?
In what way, is the full story of Galileo and Darwin - not straightforward?
In what way would a politics you already characterise as "fiercely divided" be made worse by tense divisions? Tense sounds like an improvement over fierce!
That is an important point, the question of ought, because it comes down to values. These are central to any interpretation of what lies behind the surface. However, it may not be possible to just perceive science this in the constructs which arise in the politics alone, but within the wider sociological framework. It would seem that apart from political considerations, it would involve questions involving the sociology of knowledge.
I am sorry if I come across as being disconcerting. I just like to think critically, but I am logging out for the night now, so you can continue your discussion with others, with no further interruptions from me.
Quoting creativesoul
Science says that human beings evolved in tribal groups - and then, quite recently in evolutionary terms, tribal groups joined together to form civilisations.
Science says that chimpanzees have morality of sorts - they share food, groom eachother, and defend the tribe - and they remember who reciprocates, and withhold such favours accordingly. Consequently, we can safely assume that primitive human tribes were much the same. Primitive humans were moral creatures. Moral behaviour was an advantage to the individual within the tribe, and for the tribe in competition with other tribes. Morality is a sense - like the aesthetic sense, or a sense of humour.
Morality is not an explicit set of moral laws handed down by God. This explicit moral order is a political pretence necessary for human tribes to join together. It is the actual "inversion of values" Nietzsche identified, but misunderstood. It was not the amoral, self serving individual - fooled by the weak, but rather tribal morality made explicit for the purposes of the multitribal social group. This is demonstrated with reference to Hume, mentioned above. Hume says:
"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not…"
The usual interpretation of this observation is that no list of facts adds up to a value, and therefore science cannot constitute a system of government. Science is facts - not values. Science is the "is" but not the "ought." But that's a mistake. To my mind, Hume describes what human beings do - and cannot help but do, because ultimately, morality is a sense ingrained in the individual by evolution in a tribal context. We cannot but prioritise a list of facts in terms of our values - anymore than we cannot but automatically determine if a joke is funny, or whether a painting pleases the eye.
So, the answer to your question - what ought we do, is at the nexus of the facts, the innate moral sense, and sustainability.
You wouldn't need an opposition. While there is general consensus among natural scientists concerning the facts of their field, there is no such agreement over the uses of science. One could argue that this is the domain of the social sciences , but then there as many opposing camps here as there are in the political domain. Good luck getting anthropologists, economists, political scientists and psychologists to agree on anything.
Though I agree with the belief, I do not see how it is applicable to politics. Not to mention, despite the principle, scientists are often wrong. Put a scientist in charge of producing more honey and he creates the Africanized Honey-bee. Put a scientist in charge of explaining homosexuality and he reasons it’s a mental illness. Put him in charge of governing, what then? Perhaps more important principles are required.
I got your meaning. It was very aggressive. I thought it necessary to say that, while I believe science is key to a sustainable future - I've no desire to cast religious people as:
Quoting Pfhorrest
At the very least I recognise the enormous role religion has played as the central coordinating mechanism of civilisations over thousands of years. Further, I'm agnostic. I have a lot of respect for religion, but I'm not a believer - and I think the Church made a grave mistake vis a vis Galileo and science - that had vast implications, we need to correct or we will die out.
I'm happy you're down with valuing science as an understanding of reality, and I thank you for the post. But have a little respect for the party opposite please. Otherwise, it's a zero sum game that no-one will win, because the board will get up-ended!
There's no such thing as luck, and we could all use some. So, thanks - but I haven't laid out my political platform yet. I think there is a general consensus on the broad brush strokes shape of a scientific understanding of reality, on what scientific methods are, and on the utility of technology. That said, other than securing a prosperous sustainable future by harnessing limitless clean energy from the heat energy of the earth itself - by drilling close to magma pockets in the earth's crust, lining the bore holes with pipes to pump water through, to produce steam to drive turbines, to produce massive base load electricity - to produce hydrogen fuel, capture carbon, desalinate water to irrigate land, and so on - I'm wide open from a policy point of view. Hence the question: who sits opposite?
Scientists are never right. That's a virtue. It allows them to learn. Arguably however, "a political party that recognises science as truth" is not necessarily a party of scientists. It's a party of people who think science is true - and the best guide to a prosperous and sustainable future.
I’m just answering your question about who would be politically opposed to a science party as factually as I can. The people that I see in real life opposing science in the political arena are a subset of religious people (not all religious people), and in addition to that, people with weird fringe beliefs contrary to scientific evidence (“kooks, cranks, and quacks”), who are not necessarily the same people as the religious ones. (Though I do think those kind of phenomena fit into the same category as religious belief, socio-epistemologically speaking).
So if someone were to form a political party opposing some kind of Science Party, I expect it would be them.
One recent example, the recent interview between Macron and Al-Sisi. Al-Sisi says human rights are a human construct and for Egyptians that believe in God, God is above any human construct so above human rights, so they follow what their God says in the Quran. Macron responded in France they got the illuminism and at the center is the human individual. Completley opposite views,who is right?
And this is just one example on why science cannot be a party. Science is an instrument politicians use to govern but at the service of certain ideologies and powers.
When science will be so powerful that it can create a model of the values of the world and human behaviours and we can create the technology to manipulate and control populations to make them follow the mandate of that science then science will be a super powerful tool but always a tool used by humans, by stomachs.
You say they're both wrong but they are the head of 2 countries, 2 major countries and they have to deal with reality and reality is that people are attached to their history and traditions and changing that takes a lot of time. History and traditions of Egypt are substantially different than ours. We cannot just impose our thinking like being the best unless you want to repeat the worst episodes of history (war, dictatorship, etc...)
I agree with you (if I read you right between the lines) that science, and mostly technology we made out of scientific discoveries, shape our lives. I agree that western societies rely more and more on science.
I would even go beyond that asserting that in western countries it is technology to govern us, and not us to govern technologies. This has been quite clear in the last decades where ethics and politics are deeply challenged by technology (social networks, genetics, electric cars, etc.)
But we have to deal with reality and there're countries that are still run differently. Where religion and state are still together. Maybe it is a matter of time... I'm optimist and I believe western society is making progress, history is not just randomness or repetitive cycles, there is progress towards something... a singularity? Who knows.
Note: I don't believe God is above anything, but science is and science says sooner or later the sun will destroy the Earth if we do not do it first... how should we deal with this?
:grin:
Ah, the blood oath! How didn't I come to think of that? How silly of me. :up:
Then politics sits opposite of science.
I think it was Ben Carson that proposed the idea of the Logic Party. The problem is that he was also a theist.
The opposition would be theocrats and politicians as both are based on emotions and the subjective nature of morality and pleading to popularity and authority.
The reality is that humankind is two generations from a catastrophe we won't survive. We can solve it by acting now - and secure a prosperous sustainable future, or condemn our children and our grandchildren to hell, and our species to oblivion. That's the reality.
What a splendid attitude to have, so conducive to making a positive change in the world and bringing about world peace!
Not really
Despite you feeling disconcerted by what I wrote to you late last night, I am really concerned about the catastrophe which is likely to occur within the next couple of generations. I have been writing on that in another thread for a fortnight. I am wondering if what you are really trying to say is that the politicians are not listening enough to the findings of many of the scientists, especially on the climate and ecology. If that is, I am in complete agreement with you.
Quoting baker
Sustainability. I'm seeking to bring about sustainability, with the minimal possible change in any other respect. I'm not a revolutionary. I want the powers that be to be able to get on board, because time is short. The window of opportunity to prevent disaster is closing quickly. It really matters that we have the correct approach - and less energy is not the right approach. Stop eating meat, cycle, second hand clothes, stop flying, insulate homes - it goes on and on. We cannot 'eek out' our way to sustainability. That should be obvious; even to the party opposite.
Well that's not it - so maybe look at my comments and try and get your head around what I am saying about the relationship between science and ideology. Here's a handy guide:
Science = true!
Ideology = not true!
If whilst reading my comments again, you find yourself getting a little lost, consult the handy guide.
Well, I respect you but I disagree, it is your reality, not mine . I don't think in 2 generations it will be the end of the world but agree we have to better protect our environment. There re many other challenges though.
I am not wishing to contradict you. I am only saying that it is not a matter of scientists vs an opposite party. It always takes a while for the mainstream of society to catch up with the leading edge of science. Many people have been speaking of sustainabilty for the last two decades and it may be that many current problems, not just the pandemic, are a going to be a wake up call for change. But to frame it in an equation of science being true against ideology is too simplistic because there are many scientists, with many varying academic and political persuasions.
I agree. But I don't see how your attitude is conducive to inspiring others to change.
What do you mean by "less energy"?
For many people, such changes are too much to commit to within some foreseeable time frame. This is the reality of change.
These are not questions within science, they are questions of philosophy of science, and there is absolutely no consensus on these issues.Not to mention the fact that whatever local consensus there has been within regions of scientific practice has undergone significant change over the past 500 years concerning the nature of reality, on what scientific methods are, and on the utility of technology.
What you’re on about isnt science, it’s scientism, the elevation of one view of science over all others as the ‘one true way’ science is, and the elevation of science above all other human endeavors as having a special access to truth.
That's the issue that underpins the error in almost everything you have posted.
There is a great deal of agreement among scientists on the broad brush strokes shape of a scientific understanding of reality. How otherwise could there by a general consensus about climate change, for example, or evolution, or the bacterial theory of disease, or plate tectonics?
I'm perfectly well aware that philosophically, epistemically, all scientific conclusions are provisional, always less than certain - and always open to revision in face of new evidence. But at the same time there's a vast coherent body of informally accepted knowledge that is simply not in dispute. At least, not among scientists.
No, but thanks for asking - again.
I'm quite satisfied that I'm not committing the naturalistic fallacy because, my explanation of "how things are" - does not inform what we ought to do. Rather, examining evolutionary history demonstrates the error we have made; it explains why it's necessary to be "true to reality" to survive, and why we decried science as a heresy. I point out that this is the mistake that drives humankind toward extinction, and which it is necessary to correct to secure the future. But ultimately, despite all this, you could still argue humankind 'ought' to become extinct. Is that what you're saying?
Indeed.
I was never a scientist. I have spent a lot of energy and time overcoming a mainline Protestant religious upbringing and its world view. Some time back I made a commitment to a scientific understanding of the world. (Of course I made a commitment. I'm a religious atheist--sacred vows get made.) The world view of science is that the world is understandable--not obviously understandable, but with systematic study what is not understood can be made known. The project is not complete, of course.
A Science Party? Good idea. Something to counter the "Know Nothing" organization, and the 3D party of Deny, Deflect, & Deceive. The whole corporate-political mafia of liars, thieves, knaves, and scoundrels.
So, there are already people who would happily join the Science Party. Just be aware that while rational people (including scientists) do their best, we are driven by the same ir-rational drives as everyone else. You make an excellent case for cheap abundant electricity and hydrogen fuel produced by tapping geothermal energy. I've read your extensive research which has been vetted by numerous academic peer groups. You have discovered the solution. So what's the problem?
The trouble is, I just don't like it. I want to like it, but I can't. I'm in love with solar. The sun is the way! And I'll do everything in my power to make sure that your project is torpedoed at the earliest possible opportunity. Solar IS the way forward. The preceding bold/italicized text was for RHETORICAL PURPOSES ONLY.
That's one of the things that can go wrong with science based politics: Even the best scientists have egos; have vested interests; get emotional; can be treacherous. Highly rational science-politicians have the same batch of emotional drives as the average orangutang. We all do. Our limbic system is our Achilles heel.
Still, you have the right idea. Just don't expect totally smooth sailing.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sol Invictus!
The sun has been beating down for days, reaching 40º on the front deck. So I've been investigating solar panels.
What's odd is @counterpunch's notion that one solution needs must fit all categories; that digging a hole in the Earth will be the best solution in Iceland and the Sahara.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Harnessing limitless clean energy from magma is a good idea. It's an idea that needs development, but the energy is there - and the technologies exist to extract it. It's geothermal in the same way humans and orangutans are both primates. The difference is that magma power can be shown to produce vastly more power than solar, more reliably, and more cheaply.
A human member of Sci-Pol would have to accept that, because those are the facts. (Membership policy regarding orangutans is yet to be decided!) Sci Pol is responsible to a scientific understanding of reality. A member blocking a plan going forward without scientific justification would be liable to the same sanctions as a scientist fabricating data. It's unethical. It's dishonest. The responsibility of sci-pol to a scientific understanding of reality is about methods, motives and reasoning that can be referenced to an objective truth, such that crookedness stands out like a sore thumb.
You first.
Wind and solar are profitable industries, but they are not adequate to the challenge. They cannot produce enough power to meet our needs. Wind and solar will cost a fortune, barely produce a trickle of unreliable power - and then in 25 years, present us with a big pile of tech scrap and the same costs all over again - all to produce slightly less carbon. But there is a source of clean energy sufficient to the task; and more! Magma power - the big ball of molten rock beneath our feet. It is high grade energy, its constant, and virtually limitless. Tapping into magma energy on a massive scale would change everything - we could meet all our energy needs, and capture carbon and bury it, not merely producing a little less carbon - but reversing the tide.
Let me ask you a question; how do you get solar energy out of the Sahara? What's odd is that you haven't thought about that; not that I have thought about it. The basic physics is very clear - because of entropy, less energy is worse. We need more energy, and magma can provide as much as we can use.
Demonstrably false.
Tasmania exports renewable energy to continental Australia.
There is also a project to export Australian solar energy to Indonesia.
Being a continental plate, Australia is extraordinarily stable. Magma is far too deep to for drilling. THere are a few small projects, but nothing on the scale of wind or solar.
But none of that is of philosophical interest. What is curious here is the error of thinking that one solution will fit all possible needs. The closed mindset.
Fanaticism.
East Anglia ONE - UK offshore wind array, 102 turbines, 7 MW each, producing 714 MW - enough for 600,000 homes. It took 10 years to build, and cost £2.5bn.
The UK has 30 million homes. So roughly, that would require 6000 windmills, costing £1500bn - ish. Only from 2030 - UK government intend phasing out petrol cars, adding the transport energy demand of 30 million cars to the national grid. So 10,000 windmills costing £2500bn. Plus storage facilities - because wind is intermittent. Wind turbines have a working life of around 25 years, and then need replacing. So, rather than repeat myself - I'll repeat myself:
Quoting counterpunch
Liquified hydrogen fuel contains 2.5 times the energy of petroleum - so, given that:
"Remote parts of Siberia are too costly to connect to central electricity and gas grids, and have therefore historically been supplied with costly diesel, sometimes flown in by helicopter."
Using magma energy to produce electricity, and electricity to produce hydrogen - would allow 2.5 times as much energy per kilo to be flown in to remote locations. And it would be clean energy.
You don’t seem to agree.
I wonder. What are the environmental consequences of doing so? Does the process disturb the natural subterranean environment? Are there any changes in the pressure of the lava chambers/tubes closer to the surface in the surrounding areas?
Don't piss Pele off!
:razz:
The new political spectrum I envisage ranges from ideological traditionalists to scientific rationalists, and on that spectrum, I'd place your argument on the middle ground. You're hedging your bets, and that's not an unreasonable response to a complex issue - for you. I am more toward the scientifically rationalist end - because I know more about the solution I devised, and my claim is - that's not unreasonable for me.
In my view, we cannot afford a 'less energy' approach to the future - because of entropy. Civilisation is a designed state that takes energy to build and maintain. Balancing human welfare and environmental sustainability in our favour - in a manner that is socially, politically and economically sustainable requires vast amounts of energy. A 'less energy' approach implies trouble - people forced into poverty by dictatorial government, forever after. How can that work? I wouldn't even start down that road.
I believe that magma power is more than adequate to meet global energy demand; I'd be looking to exceed global energy demand two or three times over in order to extract carbon from the air, desalinate water to irrigate land, recycle all our waste etc - very energy intensive processes nonetheless necessary to a long term sustainable future.
Brilliant. A little 'broad brush' maybe, but you've given us some actual figures to back up your argument from the real world. Good move.
Right then, let's have the figures for your solution. £2.5 trillion for wind every 25 yrs (according to your figures - I'm not endorsing them, only the fact that you've bothered to present them). What is the cost for your solution to fuel 30 million homes and 30 million cars, and what is it's replacement time?
Oh yes, and
Quoting creativesoul
plus the cost of any insurance needed against those consequences.
Oh and we'll have to have that breakdown for each country, of course, since contrary to @Banno's suggestion, you're claiming this is the solution for each and every country in the world.
But presumably you've got access to all this data, yes? Otherwise you'd be arguing with a little more humility. So let's have it, then we might all get on board, but if not we will have at least been usefully informed.
For an indication of what's possible, we could look at IDDP-1.
"The borehole of this well was unintentionally drilled into a magma reservoir in 2009. The hole was initially planned to drill down to hot rock below 4,000 metres (13,000 ft), but drilling was ceased when the drill struck magma at only 2,100 metres (6,900 ft) deep. This same occurrence has only been recorded once, in a Hawaiian geothermal well in 2007, but in that instance, it resulted in the sealing and abandonment of the hole.[6]
In IDDP-1 the decision was made to continue the experimental well, and upon inserting cold water into the well, which was over 900 °C (1,650 °F). The resultant well was the first operational Magma-EGS, and was at the time the most powerful geothermal well ever drilled. While not producing electricity on the grid, it was calculated that the output of the well would have been sufficient to produce 36 MW of electricity.[7] ...."
I think there are more accessible magma deposits, and better techniques for extracting energy - not least, containing thermal expansion inside pipes, to produce high pressure superheated steam - to drive turbines, to generate electricity. I'd envisage a considerable improvement in energy yield; above and beyond the 36MW potential of this one hole.
To put that in context, 36 MW is five £250m windmills worth of energy; only constant, high grade energy - not intermittent, low grade energy that will forever require fossil fuel back-up.
I don't see any costs in there, nor replacement schedules, nor risk assessments.
Oh, and the other thing that would be interesting to hear is why, if it's cheaper, lower risk and lower environmental consequence, yet produces free energy - why is no-one doing it already? Why are firms investing in low return industries when they could be selling electricity at half the price of their competitors and still making a huge profit?
Quoting Isaac
Me either. It's almost as if that's not possible at this stage.
Quoting Isaac
I don't know. Why, at one time - did people carve glaciers into chunks and transport the ice thousands of miles, when they could just have invented the refrigerator? Madness!
Then how do you know it's better than wind?
Quoting counterpunch
They did invent the refrigerator.
One of the technical difficulties I see is getting enough piping into the bottom of the well, pumping water down, and getting high pressure steam back up at the top. I'm not an engineer, so I don't have any tables to consult here. But suppose a pipe breaks at the bottom of the well--either a cold water supply or a steam return. How would it get fixed? Will the operators be able to pull the everything out of the hole quickly enough so that too much generating time isn't lost?
District heating distributes steam for several miles, but building-heating steam is neither superheated nor under very high pressure.
Householders had to empty a pan under the ice box which caught the melting water.
Of course people used the ice to cool drinks, too.
Ceramic probe around X20 - P91 chromium steel pipes.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm looking at letting the entire facility into the side of the volcano - with bore holes of 18" diameter drilled from inside the facility, toward the magma chamber - at a depth of around 1km.
Quoting Bitter Crank
The ceramic probe is designed like the element inside a kettle - coiled around, with the liquid (not necessarily water) flowing in and out of the probe. The surface area coverage exposed to heat could be maximised in various ways; including flattening the pipes - but this is problematic, because smoothness of the interior is an issue with superheated steam. It was a problem for steam trains. Irregularities allowed for condensation, reducing the steam pressure.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This depends on the liquid used, the pressure and temperature available, the depth of the bore hole and the smoothness of the pipework. Using water, and assuming a steam temperature of 190–230?C, jet velocity of 100 m/s at a pressure of 200 kPa - in a bore hole 1km deep, it would take 10 seconds from the probe to the surface. Depending on the thermal qualities of the pipework, my guess is it wouldn't be a huge issue. These are all good and relevant questions - I wish I could answer more precisely, but it's all still very preliminary.
.
That's precise enough -- close enough for government work, as the saying goes.
So, many small bore holes rather than a few big ones.
Another geothermal approach which is being used (to a small extent) in Minnesota (and other places) involves the differential temperature of soil about 6 to 10 feet below the surface. In the winter buried pipes extract heat and in the summer dissipate heat. The soils are generally around 50-55º F all year round, depending a bit on soil type and rainfall. This approach is good for homes and small buildings. Either trenches can be dug to bury the pipes, (or pipes can be tunneled) or bore holes can be used.
This approach works in temperate zones. In very hot areas subsoil temperatures tend to be too warm for cooling.
I've seen that heat difference engine approach used - I think it was a program called Grand Designs, where they follow people building their own homes from scratch. As you say, pretty small scale. Produces some power for domestic use - and not a bad use of materials, if you happen to be digging a foundation.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I suppose it's technologically possible now, to drill holes big enough to drive trains through, but the decisive factor - I think is, that I'd be drilling through hot volcanic rock - at temperatures upward of 500'C. My best guess for how the drilling would proceed - is inside an envelope of supercooled gas - preferably, not flammable gas, so maybe, nitrogen. The nitrogen would cool the drill bit; and I think this would impose limits on the size of the bore hole. Further though, geological stability might come into play with anything much bigger than a couple of feet wide. So, yes, many small bore holes - with inlet and outlet pipes - cold water in, hot steam out. Alternatively, it may be possible to just drill straight through - past the magma chamber, and pump cold water in one end, and harness hot steam jetting out the other.
The dissolution of truth is a natural consequence of a struggling society and of an "empire" at risk of collapse. In the contemporary US, this presents itself as an unprecedented denial of objectivity-- mostly on the Christian right, in my opinion, but in certain sectors of the left too. We need to address the underlying issues that cause this dissolution of truth as opposed to delineating a Science Party.
While I think that the lost art of objectivity is generally better-preserved on the left than on the right, I could not name a certain "chunk" of the political spectrum that I think would undeniably fit the Science Party.
The difference is that right wing incoherence is actually based in the ignorance of historical belief, and is a compromise to accommodate that - in the context of freedom of speech and opinion. There are people who believe the earth was made in seven days - well, so what? Everyone knows why they believe that; and why they refuse to accept the fact the earth is billions of years old.
The left's incoherence is both deliberate and dictatorial - like for example, how facts matter when talking about climate change, but don't matter when talking about gender. Their position on truth is one of convenience to the power game they're playing; like Doublethink from Orwell's 1984:
"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
This is probably at great risk of going of topic, but the left is cornered with truth with regards to gender. They identify, correctly, that the existence of a body is not equivalent to the categorisations of either sex or gender we give might give to them. One's body is a body, not a sex or gender. To think this is concerned with ignoring truth is to entirely misunderstand what is at stake.
It is off topic. I'm not at all keen to get into a debate about gender theory; particularly one that states a political position as a fact - without any explanation.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
I disagree, and so does the science. Developmental psychologists like Piaget - note distinct differences in play patters and behaviours between boys and girls that cannot be attributed solely to socialisation.
Clever argument, but it doesn't hold up in the face of current political realities. As you're well aware, a plenty of people on the right believe that, for example, COVID is literally not real and Joe Biden somehow stole the election. Bringing up this kind of thing fifteen years ago might have been strawmanning, but it isn't anymore-- this is a significant portion of people on the right, including (apparently) some people in the US Senate. There's something more than a "free speech" compromise happening here. This is deceit of the masses by a demagogue.
Quoting counterpunch
Well, yes and no. At the very least I think it's unfair to claim that facts just "don't matter" re: the left's views on gender, as @TheWillowOfDarkness brings up. Plenty of leftists acknowledge the relationship between sex and gender, the influence of sex hormones on development, etc. A person born male is probably going to feel like, and present as, a man. The question is how we address those for whom sex and gender feel mismatched.
That said, I am frustrated by, in no particular order: 1) The fact, in many places, people are allowed to take puberty-modifying hormones with little screening. 2) The fact many leftists refuse to even entertain the idea that the large amount of young females who feel non-binary or genderless might indicate a problem with some of the expectations of womanhood, and that transitioning is not always the right option. (I was among said group of females.)
What is it with every conservative or moderate constantly bringing up 1984? ;) I've always thought we lived in more of a Brave New World.
I'd ask you to consider COVID-denialism and the events at the Capitol and the disturbing popularity of Q, and weigh those against some of the left's apparent doublethink. I am not convinced that the left is in any way more "deliberate and dictatorial" than the right.
Quoting Rosie
I used gender politics as an example of how facts are disposable to the left.
"Postmodernism and critical theory commonly criticize universalist ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress...and is characterized by rejection of the "universal validity" of binary oppositions..."
This relates to gender politics:
"In the last fifteen years it has become routine for many social and/or historical analyses to address the variables of gender, class, sexuality, race and ethnicity. Within each of these categories there is usually an unequal binary opposition..."
So, in relation to this philosophical background, political correctness seeks to deny, and/or undermine that binary opposition - and so denies, or disregards the biological fact.
I feel somewhat ambushed by your personal stake in the matter. I don't want to upset you. But there's real damage being done by left wing ideologues, teaching primary school children there are 99 genders, and then GIDS handing out puberty blockers like smarties; all compulsory under the dictatorship of political correctness.
1984 is way more apt to left wing authoritarianism than Brave New World. Winston Smith was a citizen. John Savage was an outsider; throwing the world into stark relief. Smith was oppressed - denied freedom of thought and speech by design. Savage was a natural man in an artificial world; but a lot of people were very happy in Huxley's utopia!
I had a feeling this is where your bullshit about truth in science was headed.
People are free to change gender. You're free to whine about it.
End of story.
I do not see any equivalence between the most vocal people on the left and right; the gender extremists (left) and Proud Boys (right) for example are made of different stuff. But there is something similar in the way they both formed around extreme granule positions.
Extremism isn't new, of course. I just find it perplexing that I can not detect what, exactly, is driving the current extremes.
A different extremism is that of the leftists and tender-hearted American liberals who would like to open the borders to the entire oppressed population everywhere. Yes, we could do that, but the open-border advocates have not reckoned with the effect that would have on the 320,000,000 citizens.
Did you really? Wow. I myself had no idea. You must be psychic or something.
Quoting frank
Gender dysphoria is a mental disorder according to the DSM-5. In young people, it's often a phase. Puberty blockers cause irreversible change.
Quoting frank
As is Dr Marcus Evans - one of the 30 or more psychologists who quit GIDS citing politically correct pressure to "affirm" this mental disorder, and proscribe puberty blockers to children. You can find him on twitter.
Quoting frank
No. It's not the end of the story. The NHS is going to get sued big time. A test case has already gone through the courts. Expect a class action suit in the near future - and billions in taxpayers money paid out to people damaged by politically correct, medically unsound practice.
Ok. The courts will settle it then.
This is what I was talking about: the argument is the gender binary is objectively untrue, for it does not recognise various objective facts about gender, sex and the body (and the binary is most certianly not "scientific" because it tells falsehoods about empirical states of the world).
To bring this back somewhat on topic, gender, sex and its relation to bodies is a great exmaple where what's professed as the "scientific" is not so at all. Take the suggestion about gender you gave in your response to me:
What does such an observation entail? It's not "the nature" of a boy or a girl. Neither is the sole feature of individuals who are a girl or boy. Even at face value, what the observation has measured (higher rates of certain play behaviours amongst groups of children), is not reflected in what conclusion is claimed (that certian behaviours are only of girls or boys). Indeed, the observations actually show the opposite of the claim: that both boy and girls engage in either set of play behaviours, so either are of a girl or a boy. A greater number of girls behaving are certian way doesn't eliminate the empirical states of other who act in other ways. The same for boys.
Your claim suggests an empirical falsehood: that a certains behaviours are exclusive performed by girls or boys, as some are done more often by one group or another.
Then we have a question of "socialisation" vs "nature." The fact you are raising this shows you haven't looked at much in the last 40 years on the topic. Nature vs nature has long been recognised as an incoherent opposition because everything we do has both a biological and environmental component. When we are "nurtured", our biological body is responding to an environment to produce an outcome. The same is true of "nature", as when our biology grows one way or another, ot does so in an environment (and in virtue of the absence of an environment which doesn't cause it to do something else).
The nature vs nurture opposition is not scientific: it ignores how both biology and an environment go into producing something we do. In this respect the left isn't afraid of biology these days, indeed they affirm it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in accounts of sex and gender in relation to the body. The thing about biological states is well, they are biological states, regardless of how we categorise them under sex, gender or any other identity categories we might have. If we have someone who is classified as a woman, but has a penis, she still has a penis. The biological fact of her penis isn't dependent on being categorised as a man.
The gender binary is anti-scientific with respect to biology. It doesn't treat biology as its guiding principle. Rather than recognising biological states for what they are, and that they are what they are, no matter how they might be classified under sex and gender, it treats biology like it is subordinate to categories of our language, as if what we named biology was what made it what it was.
Even worse, this practice leads us to ignore , dismiss or deny the very existence of some biologies-- such as various intersex biologies or even just the biology of someone engaged in what us supposedly cross gender play (i.e. the failure to recognise more uncommon behaviours of a certian body are still behaviours of that body), for they do not fit with the binary narrative of what sort of person occurs with a given gender.
The gender binary is as far from science as you can get. It concerns itself not with describing the world and the biology people have, but with affirming a culture of placing bodies in select categories, regardless of how their biology exists.
I quote this line, but refer to all of your argument up to this point. You have misunderstood. Boys have tendencies toward physical spatial play - and girls toward social play. It's very well noted in the literature. These are not one-off experimental results. And it doesn't mean those behaviours are exclusive; but that there are distinct differences in patterns of play. Given a room full of toys, boys will instinctively go for the cars and footballs - whereas girls will go for the dolls. Piaget is not some left wing undergraduate psych student - he spent his life studying developmental psychology. Why impugn his professionalism?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
That's just not correct; not least because it's not nature "vs" nurture. No-one with any education would see these as exclusive. It doesn't happen, and never has. It's always been that both nature and nurture influence development, but often one is more influential. Lefties want everything to be nurture - so they can subject it to their identity politics dogma. They construe gender as a social construction - but then, I think you should read the story of David Reimer. Dr Money's conclusions were premature to say the least - and yet still form the basis of left wing gender politics dogma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
That is quite possibly the maddest paragraph ever written in the English language. Barring incredibly rare genetic abnormalities, a human being with a penis is a man. Not "categorized as a man." But as a matter of biological fact, the penis owner IS a man. Incredibly rare exceptions - such as hermaphrodites, do not invalidate the fact a human with a penis IS a man. That way madness lies - and that's precisely the intent of left wing, post modernist, neo marxist, political correctness bigots and bullies, regardless of the harm their crazy making causes.
You simply don't realize how dependent your concept of gender is on culture, and that gender may be much more fluid than you realize.
If you assert that gender is culture dependent - how do you know? It's not enough to assert my ignorance - you need to demonstrate it by proving that what you say is true. The evidence for my position, that gender is a biological fact - and that gender dysphoria is a mental disorder is overwhelming. Almost everyone's gender is consistent with their sex, and denying that - imposing re-categorisation across the entirety of society, feeding puberty blockers to confused children, allowing male criminals into women's prisons, men into women's sports, changing rooms and bathrooms - to affirm and normalise what is more readily understood as a mental disorder, is unreasonable.
The term 'gender dysphoria' focuses on one's discomfort as the problem, not identity.
The concepts of masculine and feminine, as well as our attitudes about transgenderism and homosexuality, are largely shaped by our culture. I'm not sure if I need to argue the point. Do I, or can you accept this?
I don't accept this. Was I being too subtle? If you can;t explain yourself - but can only assert your pre-programmed politically correct opinion, save yourself the effort. I already know what you think. My question is, why do you think that?
For the overwhelming majority of people biological sex and gender are the same thing. Gender is not socially constructed. Humans are not born blank slates - which then have a socially constructed gender imprinted on them. Boys and girls are biologically and psychologically different, and these differences manifest as gender roles.
Interesting that you import sexuality into this discussion. I didn't raise it, but now you have - I wonder to what degree the assumption of socially constructed gender is really an excuse for submissive gay men, to play the female role - without experiencing the psychological implications of submission?
Have you had problems with this kind of thing?
I think there's some biological basis for gender, just as I think there may be a biological basis for liberalism vs conservativism. Liberals are believed to be naturally more open to new experiences and that's could be the biological basis for being generally progressive rather than conservative. Nevertheless, it's obvious that culture plays a large role in how these propencities may develop. No one is born knowing gender role norms, for example.
Whatever the case, on further reading of the topic I see that you brought up the issue of gender politics as [i]"an example of how facts are disposable to the left"[/I] and therefore not distinguishable from what I'll call [i]Trumpism[/I]. I can only assume that you either fail to appreciate the difference between institutional facts and empirical facts, or that you're deliberately presenting a weak argument in order to mislead. We don't need to look any further than the number of votes that Trump received in the 2020 election and the number of objectively false statements that he's made over his term in office to get a good indication of how much the American right values truth, and compare those numbers to left-wing administrations.
Quoting counterpunch
I've read this several times and can't make sense out it. Can you rephrase the question?
This might help you understand how gender roles vary by culture.
Right so, if you say:
Quoting praxis
...what do you think the effect is of undermining gender norms by teaching primary school children there are 99 genders, and taking drag queens into schools, and school trips to gay pride - and so forth? The feminisation of men! Which is exactly what the right are complaining about. When I was a kid, boys were boys. We fought, played football and climbed trees. No-one was imposing gender stereotypes on us. We wanted to do those things. I didn't have any skin on my knees until I was 14. Girls didn't want to do those things. Boys did those things because we were allowed to be boys!
Quoting praxis
And in doing so, you'd seek to dismiss the validity of the argument. But I'm not Trump. I'm not an American. I'm British, and as a straight white working class man - I find that suddenly I'm at the back of your politically correct queue, and that the queue is getting longer from the middle as supposed victims are getting put in line ahead of me, purely on the basis of their arbitrary characteristics. It's bait and switch. I was fine with don't discriminate on the basis of arbitrary characteristics. That's fair, but now it's positive discrimination on the basis of skin colour, sexuality, gender - and that creates perverse social incentives: i.e. the feminisation of men!
Quoting praxis
Of course you think that I don't understand, or am dishonest. How else could I possibly disagree with the politically correct dogma if there weren't something wrong with me? You say my arguments are weak?! You've used an appeal to the worst example, and now an ad hominem attack upon the clarity or honesty of my thought. That's weak.
Quoting praxis
No. Consider it rhetorical. I'm not that interested!
I don't think it does, partly because it's nothing I didn't already know, secondly because it's hunter-gatherer tribal culture, and lastly because I'm talking about my culture, which is under attack by an enemy within. Reds under the bed! A fifth column of post modernist, neo-Marxist political correctness bigots and bullies - hacking away at the very foundations of Western civilisation.
One of the cheats in the gender discussion is the construction "gender assigned at birth". 999 times out of a 1000 gender is identified by glancing at the external genitals. The number of situations where sex organs are so ambiguous that a doctor would need to arbitrarily "assign" a sex is very small. Use of the verb "assigned" is a clever way of asserting that gender is arbitrary.
There is some validity to your observation. It could be extended to say "socially constructed gender" is a justification for men and women whose sexual orientation falls in the middle of the Kinsey scale to experiment with cross dressing, cross-role playing, changing pronouns, etc. Some males (no idea how many) may just find the female gender role more attractive (whether or not they are gay). (Sexual orientation is different than gender confusion.)
I presume you are using "female role" and "submission" in the sexual sense.
The problem I have with that part of your observation is that a large share of gay men perform both roles in the same encounter with equal competence and satisfaction. Maybe once upon a past--pre gay lib--time men thought in terms of female roles and submission (pitcher/catcher, active/passive, dominant/submissive). Certainly the old psychiatric literature (pre 1972) used that terminology.
At least from my (fairly extensive) experience most gay men are actively involved in sexual encounters--period. Maybe in "rough trade sex" (sexual encounters with roughish, working class heterosexual men) the old terminology would still be relevant -- but even then, gay men who like rough trade pursue it. (Full disclosure: my few encounters with rough trade didn't end well.)
There are some specialty areas, like bondage and discipline which involve pretty much exclusive master/slave, top/bottom roles--and this would be true in heterosexual B&D. Or so I gather, anyway. I find the B&D/S&M scene sort of interesting, the same way I find fascist gangs interesting.
As you know, politics make for odd under-the-bed fellows. The vaguely defined left and right share some similar cognitive defects. The arbitrary gender people and the anti-evolution or intelligent design (sic) people kind of think the same way.
Quoting Bitter Crank
If by clever you mean dishonest, then yes, they're very clever! Did you read the case of David Reimer? Circumcision gone wrong; so they surgically turned him into a girl, and raised him as a girl in ignorance - and his maleness re-asserted itself in later life. Before then, however, the doctor involved had declared his genius, and the social constructionists ran with it. The idea gender is socially constructed remains the left wing, politically correct viewpoint, but the actual case upon which that assumption was built proved the exact opposite.
Interesting as the rest of your post is, I have nothing to contribute to the discussion.
Except maybe: "Oh! I see!"
What troubles me though, is the conflation of sexuality and gender - particularly in education.
"A BBC programme aimed at nine- to 12-year-olds includes the claim that there are 'over 100 gender identities'. The film, 'Identity – Understanding Sexual and Gender Identities', is being offered on the corporation's website as part of its relationships and sex education package."
The BBC are utterly consumed by political correctness; and they're piggy backing the idea of socially constructed gender, on the back of a spectrum of sexual orientation - and that comes far too close to grooming kids for my liking. I remember when the Labour Party were in bed with the paedophile information exchange (PIE) - and seeking to normalise paedophilia under the auspices of moral relativism. Now, they've got it so you can't dissent from this indoctrination - or it makes you a bigot.
I have not misunderstood. The point is that the given evidence of patterns does not fit with the conclusions about which trait belongs of which people in the given analysis.
A mass pattern is a mass pattern: it shows a rate of occurrence amongst a group. It does not show nature if an individual is only the a majority occurrence. Paiget has observation and grounds to claim a pattern of play in the observer mass group, that it is the cases that more girls played a certain way and boys another.
He does not have grounds to suggest social play is the specific “nature” a girls. Or that spacial play is the specific “nature” of boys. The empirical state of a given girl or boy is not a mass pattern. If we asking, “What is in the nature of a person with a given gender to do?” we are not measuring what behaviour are more common of a mass, we are asking about what it is a individual of a girl or boy might do. His own observations, the lack of exclusivity of behaviour, show the exact opposite of what you suggest they do: that girls and boys have a nature of engaging in spacial or social play respectively.
The argument you are making, suggesting that girl and boys only have a “nature” because more of them behave in some way, is outright lying about what occurs empirically. Some, even many, girls and boys have a nature which are the opposite of the pattern. Just because there aren’t as many of them doesn’t make them any less existing people with their own behaviours.
The problem isn’t that patterns of behaviours haven’t be observed, it’s that people are interpreting these to mean something they don’t and engaging in anti-scientific (as it is blind to the empirical reality of girls and boys who’s nature it is to break the pattern) account of the nature of girls and boys in the process.
You misunderstand. I was not suggesting any people were claiming development was only nature or only nature, my point was that each influence was both nature and nature. So there is no opposition of nature effects and nurture effects at all.
Take something considered a nature, like the influence of a gene. Nowadays we know that the gene does not act unilaterally. It occurs in a specific environment which did not induce it to some other effect. Now take something considered nurture, like humans learning one language or another. How do we learn a language? Our bodies have to react in certain way to the environment we encounter. Our biology makes it happen. The supposed “nurture” effect is only produced if one has a specific biological nature. It’s literally impossible for nature or nurture to be more influential because every instance is produced by a specific combination of itself and its environment.
The notion of a “blank slate” has been dead for decades. It’s also just about as far as you can get from the modern left accounts of gender identification as you can get. I’m very familiar with the David Remier case. It’s a seminal case for analysis of gender identification, innate sense of body and self.
It is very important because it shows the innate pull and effects of gender identification, and the dangers of community authors trying to enforce an identity and belonging which is not one’s own. Mr. Money’s attempt to enforce and alter David Remier’s sense of identity and belonging is akin to what your gender binary does to many trans people.
When encountering a trans person with dysphoria, the gender binary tries to insist (exactly like Money did to Remier), that their sense of identity and belonging of a body is false, and instead is really this other one (that Reimer was a girl, who was meant to have a certain body, in the case of Money. In the case of your gender binary, that a trans woman is actually just a man and is meant to belong with a man’s body). The left isn't concerned with, as Money was, attempting to give someone whatever identity or gender they want, irrespective what identity a person actually had. They are concerned with recognising what it innate to a given person, even when that violates exceptions of what their identity should or must be.
It's clearly not a biological fact. Even you admit that to the biological state doesn't automatically make you a man-- if that were true, then various intersex people would be just men too, as they are human. Do you not see the outright contradiction this insistence?
When I say categorised as man, what I mean is there is a distinction between a biological state and having a given identity. The former is an existing organ, which might occur also sorts of places: someone might have chopped on off an have it sitting on their mantle (is this biological state of a penis a man?), perhaps someone has worked out how to grow now in a lab (is this biological state of a penis is a jar a man?), it might be an organ on a intersex person. So how come the biological state gets some exception when on these people you deem men, such that it's presence just means a man is there?
The point here is not people with biologies don't have identities. People with biological states of penis are men all the time. It's just that the identity of man isn't given by the presence of the biological state of a penis (as seen in all those expectations who pretend don't have relevance), but rather through the identity itself. There are men with penises, rather men being there because there is a penis.
I don't lie. What would be the point? This has really snowballed from my comment that the left deny the biological fact of gender. Now we've got penises in jars sitting on the mantlepiece - the secret aim of every politically correct fifth wave feminist!
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Of course I do. How could I possibly understand and disagree at the same time? Oh, right - because it's not the left wing argument that gender has a basis in biology. They do not acknowledge that it's nature and nurture. They claim gender is socially constructed. But nice example of moving the gaol posts. Was that on purpose - or did you not realise you were doing it?
Anyhow, keep going, and now factor in how undermining gender roles in society influences childhood development, and then ask yourself - are people happier for not knowing what gender they are "supposed to be"? Suicide rates amongst trans people are significantly above the average!
This is how you respond to a reasonable post. :roll:
Quoting frank
It wasn't a reasoned argument. You didn't make a point - you gave me homework, posting a link without picking out what you think is relevant.
You're like the new NOS, but less fun.
How so? Would NOS happily go pick out a branch to hang himself from - when you waved vaguely in the direction of a forest? If you're gonna make a point, make it your point!
I have known about Reimer's case for quite some time. It's pretty bad. According to Wikipedia: "Recent academic studies have criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regard to his involvement with the involuntary sex-reassignment of the child David Reimer,[3] his forcing this child and his brother to simulate sex acts which Money photographed[4] and the adult suicides of both brothers."
John Money (b. 1921, New Zealand, d. 2006, U.S.) was Reimer's psychologist. Money was at Johns Hopkins University from 1951 till retirement. He established the Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1965. Money was the co-editor of a 1969 book "Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment", which helped bring more acceptance to sexual reassignment surgery and transgender individuals.
Google can find several lists of possible genders, all bullshit. Here's 5 examples.
Novigender
A gender identity used by people who experience having a gender that can’t be described using existing language due to its complex and unique nature.
Polygender
This gender identity term describes the experience of having multiple gender identities, simultaneously or over time.
This term indicates the number of gender identities someone experiences, but doesn’t necessarily indicate which genders are included in the given person’s polygender identity.
Social dysphoria
A specific type of gender dysphoria that manifests as distress and discomfort that results from way society or other people perceive, label, refer to, or interact with someone’s gender or body.
Soft butch
Both a gender identity and term used to describe the nonconforming gender expression of someone who has some masculine or butch traits, but doesn’t fully fit the stereotypes associated with masculine or butch cisgender lesbians.
Stone butch
Both a gender identity and term used to describe the nonconforming gender expression of someone who embodies traits associated with female butchness or stereotypes associated with traditional masculinity.
In written submissions, Mr Hyam said: "That children are not capable of giving informed consent to undergo a type of medical intervention about which the evidence base is poor, the risks and potential side-effects are still largely unknown, and which is likely to set them on a path towards permanent and life-altering physical, psychological, emotional and developmental consequences... is the common-sense and obvious position."
But the social constructions don't care about people; they only care about the self righteous glow they feel when wagging their finger in someone's face! Someone's haunting androgynous face!
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/0D3D/production/_114798330_keira.png
On the basis of their disadvantage, rather. Most don't want to give up their advantage, though fortunatly many do.
Quoting counterpunch
Your "argument" is essentially that because liberals hold institutional beliefs they don't value truth any more that Trumpers. EVERYONE has institutional beliefs. Money, for example, is one of the most widely accepted social constructs. Just because someone agrees with a social construct says nothing about how much they value truth in general, reason, empirical facts, or science.
Quoting counterpunch
I pretty much assumed it was rhetorical nonsense.
Disadvantage someone is assumed to have, on the basis of their arbitrary characteristics. Reversing that, making those arbitrary characteristics an advantage through positive discrimination is not fair to the majority. It's discrimination against people like me - a white working class straight man with no 'ism' card to play, whose identity - allow me to assure you, confers no particular advantages, less yet privilege!
Quoting praxis
Is it? Thanks for telling me what my argument is. That's very helpful - for you. It's called reframing the argument - or setting up a strawman to knock down. Thing is, I've never used the phrase "institutional beliefs."
What I have sought to point out; Trump aside as a somewhat unique character, is that the right devalue scientific truth in the context of freedom - that seeks to accommodate the diversity of belief and opinion. The left devalue scientific truth to force their dogma on people.
I can’t speak for the UK but Jim Crow laws that were enforced up until only around 55 years ago institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for African Americans. Deeply engrained societal norms don’t change quickly, you may have noticed, especially when there is a strong conservative population that resists progressive reform.
Quoting counterpunch
Lol, yes, Trump is a rather inconvenient truth for the shit that you’re trying to sell so let’s put him aside.
I can't speak for the US, but it does seem they didn't handle ending slavery very well. If only the colonies had been returned to rightful rule of Her Majesty - all this could have been avoided! Still, now - it's not being handled very well by progressives either.
Quoting praxis
Not really. Trump's election was a demonstration of anger at the left - that wasn't simply discontent with equal rights. Trump's election tactics were a parody of left wing techniques - identity politics played for political advantage, divide and conquer, post truth deception, and so on. Trump gave the left a taste of their own medicine, and that was a departure for the right.
Possibly could have been avoided. Had the colonies been a British possession during and after the Industrial Revolution, and given British mills' very strong demand for American slave-cultivated and picked cotton, slavery might not have ended any sooner than it did. Machines to replace human labor in cotton growing weren't available until well after the period of the American Civil War.
It's quite possible that had Queen Victoria and Parliament ended slavery in... 1875, say, the British land-owning subjects living in the cotton growing colonies would have spawned black hatred of the sort that the descendants of British colonists spawned (manifested in Jim Crow laws.)
No, it's not being handled very well by progressives, middle of the roaders, or reactionaries. The most progressive administration--Roosevelt's,1932-1945--did very little to help black people. A solid argument can be made that it was the southern Democrats that prevented FDR from doing more, but it would have been surprising if a brahmin like Roosevelt had championed black people.
No child under 9yrs was to work
Age certificates should be kept by employers
9-13yr olds were to work no more than 9hrs a day
13-18yr olds were to work no more than 12hrs a day
No children were to work at night
All children were to receive 2hrs of schooling a day
Factory inspectors would be used to enforce the law
So yeah, great demand for slave picked cotton in the mills. Huge!
I'm aware that child labor was routine and customary pretty much everywhere for a long time. The US wasn't any different.
This is something that's too often skated over in these discussions. 'Man', 'male', 'he', and 'him' are just words, nothing more. The job they do is determined by the community of language users who maintain their meaning. Their use is not determined by some external authority, it's determined by us, the community using them.
The fact that, as you say, there exists only a spectrum of body-types, behaviours, feelings, even chromosomes is undeniable. The fact also that there exist patterns in these spectra (they do not evenly and homogeneously transform from one extreme to the other, but rather cluster in groups) is also undeniable.
Neither of these facts has the slightest thing to do with the choice of a language community to use words to loosely refer to any one of those clusters they can vaguely identify, and it is only these choices that are clashing.
There's not some god-given rule which states that the word 'man' can't be used to pick out a vague clustering of body-types and behaviours on those two spectra. The fact that body-type and behaviour are not discrete is irrelevant ('green' is not discrete either but blends seamlessly from yellow to blue, doesn't mean we can't have a word for it). The fact that the clusters of body-type and behaviour don't always align on their respective spectra is also irrelevant ('builder may refer to someone whose job it is to build or someone who is actually building - the two often, but not always coincide, the word causes no problems).
What the movement to change the way we use these words wants to do is just that. Change the clusters the words are used to pick out. Change them away from body-type, a bit more toward behaviour, and a lot more toward feelings. There's nothing wrong with that at all, the use of words is arbitrary and determined by the community using them. What is not right is the accompanying claim that the previous use was somehow wrong. There's nothing 'wrong' with a word picking out a loose clustering of properties along a spectrum - we do it all the time. There's nothing wrong with a word picking out a conjoined set of properties which do not always conjoin - again, we do this all the time.
There's one, and only one, relevant argument here. The terms we use (picking out the clusters and coincidences they do) leave some people feeling upset because, not falling into one of those clusters and coincidences, they feel the use of those terms somehow misrepresents them, and that's potentially a deeply unpleasant experience. Surely we have not become so monstrous as a society that something's being a deeply unpleasant experience for many is now insufficient an argument to change that thing? This move to tie oneself up in knots to make the other side somehow logically wrong (instead of just morally wrong) is making the problem worse and just builds bigger walls between opposing groups.
It's easy now, to project modern moral sensibilities onto the past and identity slavery as a moral horror - but moral horror was the order of the day. If you can differentiate between slavery, and having to send your nine year old out to do a 9 hour day in a dangerous factory - to keep body and soul together, you have a finer tuned moral sensibility than I.
My grandfather was born in 1910 - failed his 11-plus exam, and was taken out of school and put to work in a coal mine. He was conscripted to fight in World War II, survived that - and died in 1990, in a rented house with barely enough in the bank to cover his funeral.
White privilege!
Deception isn’t a departure or novelty in American politics. Trump took it to new extremes though, and his supporters drank the kool-aid with cultish devotion.
I saw 'All the President's Men' recently, about Nixon and Watergate, and it was apparent, as the reporters - Bernstein and Woodward, drilled toward the truth, that there was a universal expectation that putting the truth in the public domain would matter. And it did. Nixon was forced to resign. Such naivety seemed incredibly poignant to me in contrast with the post modern day post-truth era; wherein the message is everything.
Well that's left wing philosophy - and it's like with Trump, the right have woken up to the game being played against them. I'll give you a for instance. In 2012, Obama shut down the collection of data on Arrest Related Death by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2013 Black Lies Matter was formed. Just before the 2020 election, BLM kicked off - and I wanted to know what the truth of the matter was, so I looked up the stats.
There are around 10 million arrests per year - as an average of data from 2003-2012. There are around 1000 Arrest Related Deaths. That's 0.01% of arrests result in death. Of those, 32% were black. So that's one third of 0.01% of arrests results in the death of a black person. 320 people per year, in a country of 320 million. It's literally one in a million. So, here's my question. If this terrible loss of life was of such concern that forming BLM was necessary - why did Obama shut down data collection?
In the Nixon era - it might have raised some eyebrows. In an era in which truth mattered, the disparity between the statistics and the social media generated narrative; a false narrative that incited riots and looting causing hundreds of millions in property damage, and spiking a Presidential election - that might have been something Woodward and Bernstein would have dug into, and dug and dug - in the expectation that truth would matter. Instead, BLM got a Nobel fucking prize!
According to BJS ARD data collection was suspended in 2014 because of challenges related to under-reporting and the program was redesigned and data collection resumed in 2015. That’s what I found with a quick search anyway. If this is inaccurate perhaps you could provide links or other verification of your claims.
Quoting counterpunch
What’s the disparity?
Quoting counterpunch
They were nominated, though they did just win Sweden's Olof Palme human rights prize for 2020 for promoting "peaceful civil disobedience against police brutality and racial violence" around the world.
No. Data collection was shut down the year before BLM were formed. Not the year after. They were formed in 2013. Shockingly, I don't keep a record of everything I've read, in case I need to provide a link later - but you've just been there. You could produce the link from your browser history - if you would contradict me.
Quoting praxis
The disparity is between the statistics, and the idea fostered by BLM through social media, that there's a racist killing spree being conducted by the police. It's just not true!
Quoting praxis
Okay, nominated for a Nobel peace prize for inciting riots with lies and burning and looting businesses, killing and assaulting people and attacking police!
In a post truth era - faced with the impossibility of reason, people can only pick a side, and stick to it no matter what!
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ardprs1516pf_sum.pdf
Quoting counterpunch
Indeed, no one is claiming there’s a racist killing spree being conducted by the police.
You haven’t actually shown a disparity.
Quoting counterpunch
That’s not the reasons for the nomination, as you know. If you don’t value truth or reason and only want to pick a side and stick to it that’s your choice.
Home | Data Collection Detail
Data Collection: Arrest-Related Deaths (ARD)
Status: Inactive
[b]Frequency: Annually from 2003 to 2012
Latest data available: 2012[/b]
https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=dcdetail&iid=428
The latest data available is 2012. I examined statistics for the period 2003-2012. I know I did.
Arrest-Related Death Report (CJ-11A)
2012 PDF (150K) | 2011 PDF | 2010 PDF | 2009 PDF | 2008 PDF | 2007 PDF | 2006 PDF | 2005 PDF | 2004 PDF | 2003 PDF
Quarterly Summary of Arrest-Related Deaths (CJ-11)
2012 PDF (961K) | 2011 PDF | 2010 PDF | 2009 PDF | 2008 PDF | 2007 PDF | 2006 PDF | 2005 PDF | 2004 PDF | 2003 PDF
Reporting Materials
2012 CJ-11A Question-by-Question Guide (150K) | 2012 Reporting Information (190K) | 2012 Frequently Asked Questions - State Reporting Coordinators (168K)
If the program wasn't shut down until 2014, where's the data for 2013? Practically speaking, data collection was shut down in 2012 - the year before BLM were formed. There's something very strange here. Woodward and Bernstein would be intrigued!
— counterpunch
Quoting praxis
Seriously, praxis? Is that the level of debate? Do I have to prove both sides of the argument to you?
What are BLM saying then - when protesting outside city halls, with long lists written in blood, of - exclusively, black people who have died in custody?
Why has a racist motive has been attributed to Chauvin - the officer in the George Floyd case, with absolutely no supporting evidence for that? The implication is perfectly clear.
Again, there are 10 million arrests per year. 0.01% end with the death of the suspect. Approximately 1000 people per year die in custody. 32% of those are black people. So there's around 320 black people die in custody every year.
The long list written in blood is a false narrative. The number of deaths is a tiny percentage of the number of arrests - and the proportion of black people killed is proportionate to the number of crimes committed by black people; which is significantly above average.
It’s hard to make anything out but I’m pretty sure no one is yelling “there’s a racist killing spree being conducted by the police,” though I did spot a sign that read “blue lives murder.”
I’m not very good at conspiracy theories but I’ll give it a shot... perhaps there were no arrest related deaths in 2013 and because this fact didn’t support the false narrative of the communist lizard aliens from outer space that are on a clandestine mission to take control and colonize our planet their supreme leader (Barack Obama) stopped data collection for that year. Hey this is fun :starstruck:
For example, black people - 13% of the US population, committed more murders than the entire white, 76% of the US population. 95% of black people murdered are murdered by black people. So, if Black Lives Matter, perhaps black people should be protesting themselves rather than the police!
You asked “What are BLM saying then - when protesting outside city halls” and I posted a video of BLM protesters saying things outside of a city hall in California. Maybe a tad facetious but eminently practical and honest.
Basic BLM claim is systemic racism. If you look at their website, language like “deadly oppression” is used. You would not find any hyperbolic claim like “there’s a racist killing spree being conducted by the police” there or on any mainstream media outlet. Again, you fail to show a disparity.
Quoting counterpunch
Trying to understand your reasoning, you’re saying that deadly force is justified against citizens if they’re merely associated with crime and regardless if they pose a threat?
If that’s the case, then I imagine that you’d be okay if you had a son and he was killed by police while innocently traveling though a high crime neighborhood that was predominantly white. It’s weird that you’d be okay with that. I would expect more from those who’ve sworn to serve and protect.
I confess, I didn't really watch the promo video of sanitized scenes we'd like to see - instead of the rioting burning and looting that actually took place. The location wasn't really the operative factor, bur rather - the lists drawn in blood, of black people killed by police.
Again, for the record - there are 10 million arrests per year. 0.01% end with the death of the suspect. Approximately 1000 people per year die in custody. 32% of those are black people. So there's around 320 black people die in custody every year.
A long list painted in blood is intended to create a false impression; one might reasonably describe as the impression that:
Quoting praxis
There isn't. It's a false narrative.
Quoting praxis
No I'm not. How on earth did you get that impression? Black people are 13% of the population. They make up 32% of those killed by police. I anticipated you might argue this shows police bias. But it's actually a consequence of the fact that black people commit more crime. Perhaps, also, given that black people commit more violent crime, they are also more likely to resist arrest.
The list isn’t “created,” it’s a statistic, right? And as far as I can tell those are your words and therefore your particular narrative. I just read that BLM uses red paint to symbolize blood, if that’s what you’re referring to with the bit about painting in blood.
Quoting counterpunch
So we should just assume that that’s the case rather that study the situation? That doesn’t seem like an impartial attitude. Anyway, given that black people are more heavily policed than white the opposite may be more likely.
Sorry, much of my effort is spent trying to take you seriously.