So the march for science just concluded today, what are your thoughts Holla Forums? Whether or not the act has any influence on policy, in my opinion it was absolutely indicative of the thoughts of many modern people. There is a steadily growing belief that science will be the sole source of salvation for mankind, which is also coupled by the notion that scientific and democratic principles explicitly go hand-in-hand. Also, what would the role of scientific/technological research and progress be in a post-capitalist world, according to whichever theory you subscribe to?
March For Science / Science in Leftism
Charles Wood
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Sebastian Cruz
Might as well just have named it March for Capitalism.
Robert Baker
Why is that?
Daniel Carter
I think it's pretty obvious that the 'March for Science' was actually a march to defend climate science specifically. It's not like you can point to any other field that has been substantially hampered by Trump's election. Of course being a pack of spineless liberals terrified of the idea of presenting an actual opinion, they instead opted to chicken out and call it a march for (vague, abstracted) science. As if the process of empirical investigation of natural phenomena is somehow being threatened by a boilerplate GOP presidency.
Of course, climate science is absolutely something that definitely needs defending, but presenting a false front like this demeans everyone involved.
As for the role of science in a post-capitalist world, well frankly putting thought into that very topic is what convinced me to become a leftist in the first place. Scientific research of all kinds is constantly, needlessly hampered by capitalism. Every fucking thing that happens has to turn a profit, so new technology only gets researched when companies can be convinced that their R&D investments will get results within 5 years at absolute maximum. All government research is restricted by the need for the work to be 'in the national interest', which in practice means only research that has military applications, or research that can be sold to big business for a song gets any money. Universities constantly hamper research by insisting on inhuman publishing volumes that are totally antithetical to careful, in-depth research, and the restricted number of well-paid positions makes internal faculty politics a bloodbath (A postgrad friend of mine loves watching Game of Thrones specifically because it reminds him of his own lab). On top of all that, the power-law distribution of wealth in capitalist society means that only a tiny fraction of the Earth's population even gets the opportunity to do scientific research. I don't personally give a shit about racism, sexism, foreign wars, etc - my problem is that these artificial discriminatory and political barriers capitalism puts up equates to a massive waste of brain power that could be used to invent spaceships and robots and all that good shit.
On the topic of people's blind faith that science will save us - it's an extension of the idea summed up in sniff man's quote about the end of the world being easier to imagine than the end of capitalism. People are so unable to conceive of a different way of organising today's society that they are forced to put the idea in the same basket as 'hypothetical future inventions'. This is a sad thing, because we have the materials, energy, labour and overall productive capacity to comfortably administer to everyone's material desires today.
Tyler Ward
Science is god except for when it comes to human biodiversity xD
James Carter
Biology moved past the XIXth. I know it is hard to acceot but that's the truth.
Liam Edwards
I was high on ideology lads.
Landon Lee
Good post, I agree completely. One of the better arguments for socialism is that it doesn't waste human resources like capitalism and discrimination on arbitrary lines does.
David Cruz
t. brainlet
Joseph Cook
I'll make something useful out of your shitpost by talking about this. It's definitely a tendency of modern thought (at least in the west) to treat science as 'God' in the sense of what they put their hopes in, to whom they look to for guidance, even going so far as to think of an afterlife/immortality that would be provided by it (telomere extension, cybernetic implants, 'uploading' (lol) your brain into a computer). What they tacitly assume however, is that all of these advancements will be efficiently and fairly provided by a democratic society with an interest in the welfare of all its citizens. What would be more likely is that the powers of science, especially research into group psychology and the science of predicting peoples thoughts/desires will empower elites like never before, which in fiction is often described by cyberpunk dystopias. This is the distinction between /r/futurology-tier and 8ch/cyber/-tier thought with regards to the future of technology and society also why did that board have to die
James Martin
wtf I hate proper methodology and honest analysis now
Jonathan James
Corporate shill Bill Nye was there to make sure to remind everyone that anti-science rhetoric cut across the aisle and that lots of left wing types were anti-science as well. I'm really starting to hate that man.
Cooper Edwards
green-left types railing against nuclear power and evolved plants are pretty anti-science
Caleb Diaz
Shilling for G.M.O.s under capitalism is a waste of time that only helps to entrench massive corporations at the expense of third world farmers. Technocrat shills for the bourgeoisie like Nye will be tortured to death publically then have their intelligence permanently dulled via surgery once the revolution occurs.
Justin Ward
Jesus christ how do you nazbol fucks manage to sound shrill even over the internet?
Isaac Johnson
fascinating order
Josiah Taylor
404
Daniel Bennett
We should really malke a bigger appeal to scientists tbh. Theoretical physics is arguabbly the hardest course you can take, and you get paid a pretty average wage to do it after. Even if you discover something ground breaking, it's usually not for decades after your postulation you're rewarded for it, assuming you're still alive.
And then there's research. I have a friend in chemistry who wants to go into enviromentalism, will get ~20-30k starting salary. Not too bad right? Well if he went into hair products, he'd get ~200k STARTING salary.
Pointing out these and many more contradictions of capitalism to scientists and how it effects them is an opportunity we cannot ignore.
Fuck engineers though.
Parker Phillips
It was cringy as dick. Antitheists, Elon Musk fags and all other manner of smug fuckdouches abounded.
Landon Morgan
an actual scientific approach to human biodiversity would lead you to mandatory ra ce mi xi ng to ensure every population has pockets of every gene it might need rather than "lol we accidentally turned the world into a swamp and 90% of people that aren't black died of malaria"
Grayson Taylor
This notion that knowledge can ever be totally free of ideology and establish a realm of total objectivity is pure ideology in itself.
Jose Murphy
Fuck Scientism.
Logan Williams
Isaiah Edwards
I wonder how many of these fucks like "I fucking love science" on Facebook.
It's not a march for science, it's clearly for an ideology.
Noah Jones
*gasp*
Isaac Johnson
I thought he was convinced that philosophy and science weren't mutually exclusive?
John Myers
Which one is more likely
1. The media, the government and capitalists are virtuous people who suddenly begun to care about the environment
or
2. The rich countries with access to modern technologies want to slow down the development of poor countries dependant on coal and the like and make those countries dependant on said modern technologies distributed by the 1st world instead?
Keep in mind that I'm not saying that global warming is not real nor that it's not caused by human but I'm highly sceptical about the good will of people who are so "concerned" about the environment.
People who attent to such marches are just virtue signalling liberals.
Nicholas Martin
Start killing the third world, that's how you protect the environment. Stop the third world from breeding and destroying and replacing everything else in their environments with themselves, especially when they can't support themselves.
Logan Myers
Read a book. Or look in the world. Or look in the west.
How many people are directly involved in labour of keeping people alive? How many are involved in satisfying the basic needs of food, shelter, energy, education.
Not that many, in fact just enough so others can be involved in shuffling the paper and money for someone else. So many people can be involved in shuffling the spectacle around, perpetuating the prevalent ideology. And only some can actually afford to be idle.
Your post is either shitpost or pure ideology, idealist way to look at world.
All humans modify their surroundings. Third worlders have their environments ruined because capital was imported into their countries, sucking in the natural resources, and the labour of people, solidifying it and funneling the surplus value in the pockets of western wealthy capitalists.
The decisions of upper class have done a lot of damage to the environment. The non-owning classes are fairly okay because they cannot do much. The ruling class rules, exercises power, and because human information capacity is limited, they need to limit the information input. Thus damage of the environment occurs because of neglect, because they do not care, are incapable of caring because caring would harm their profits.
The bourgeoisie do not increase their ranks because it would mean less political power for them. The trend is that less successful capitalists are driven out of business and forced to be wage-earning managers.
Anthony Watson
The first world consumes upwards of 20x more resources per capita than the third world. Thus a true scientist would advocate the eradication of the first world since that would be far more efficient and humane.
Jose Hall
They make up for it in volume.
Jason Powell
GAS THE SCIENTISTS
GLASSES BAN NOW
Jose Clark
March for white males, more like.
Tell me when they get round to paying some women to join their march.
Carter Howard
Pick one
Didn't Einstein say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results?
Ian Adams
Genius, just mindlessly extrapolate into the future, based off a few data points, while never taking into account countervailing tendencies.
They were saying the same thing about China maybe 2 decades ago, or Europe two century ago. Guess what happened?
Kayden Martin
The guy who wrote this?
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:^)