Atheism isn't a worldview, but

[Fred]

Dont get pissy just because your little helmet turned out to be made of thin air. You should have checked it out yourself. One would expect the internet to contain mention of this device, somewhere, anywhere, that doesn't lead back to his article. It does not. Deal with it. (you know you can find technical specs for the Millennium Falcon online right? So, a fictional starship, but not your little gadget. Spare me.)

"I couldn't find what one would expect on the to find on the internet" is all you need to impugn Wolfe's journalistic integrity? If you actually knew who he was, you'd know who silly that sounded. Besides, finding info for something as newsworthy as the fucking poster boy for obsessive interviewing and background research getting bamboozled like you say he did should be far easier to dig up than the specs of some technology you don't even know the name of, yet ya couldn't find anything? Curious, given Wolfe's journalistic stature, that would have certainly been news both his supporters and detractors would have pounced upon in a heartbeat.

Moving forward, the reaction to this sort of proposal has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not one believes in fairy tales or science.

Awesome. That's three times we totally agree on something in one day. This is about the other wing, the relativist folks. Fairy tales are at the other end with the mythic.

As I have already pointed out, it has to do with our societies reactions to being presumed guilty before you have committed a crime. Pick up Minority Report by Philip K. Dick and take a look at this issue again.

Holy fucking shit. Did you just offer a science fiction story as evidence to deny the existence of the postmodern pov? Why, yes, yes you did. Darwin wept.

Regardless, you missed the point while reaching for your Dick. The people protesting against this were not protesting presumptions of guilt. It was about eugenics implications and it's only once instance amongst a mountain of examples illustrating this rift, which is not at all about the accuracy of the science, but the role of science.

People are divided, but not along your arbitrary lines.

My lines aren't at all arbitrary, which is the whole point, but if you disagree then explain how people are divided as you see it. If you have something besides a fucking science fiction story to show why the basic contours of premodern, modern, and postmodern are inaccurate, go for it. But you never get around to actually saying anything specific, just the boring blanket denunciations.

Are you saying I made up postmodernism and it's attitudes towards science? Hell, even you have to be familiar with Sokol's infamous hoax where he just blew the postmodern game up. Are you saying this stuff didn't happen?

I'm not arguing against science, I'm arguing against the conclusions you draw from it without being able to offer up much more than "because that's the way I say it is".

This is the wtf part. These aren't my conclusions any more than the the materialist ones are yours. I didn't make up the history, I didn't make up the premodern, modern, and postmodern designates. There's enough books to fill a large library on this stuff. It gets dealt with all the time in popular culture whether played out in the New York Times Book Review section's legendary pissing wars or Sam Harris going off about the relativists or what have you. It's just the contours of the playing field and nothing of what I am saying is anything but talking about those contours. You guys seem to be rock solid familiar with the rational/mythic battles, but that's only one front of the culture wars.

Exemplified in the case of the magic helmet above. Let me illudistrate how this looks from the outside.

Like I posited before, even if the helmet itself was absolute fabrication, it doesn't effect the point.

Step 1: Swallow the Kool-Aid

Far as I can tell, the only thing I am talking about here is a broad outline of history, our current cultural landscape, and developmental psych. If that's kool-aid, yup. Swallowed it.

Step 2: Find some dubious source that you think people will accept at face value

Hmm. I reference a guy regarded as not only perhaps the keenest observer of the social mileau of the last 50 years, but is acknowledged as one of the earliest critics of postmodern madness and coined the term the Me Generation back in the 70's to describe it.

You referenced a science fiction story to counter. What were you saying about dubious?

Step 3: Make conclusions based upon the Kool-Aid and your "source"

Hey, there's Wolfe again. You did know he wrote the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, right? You do know that's regarded as the authoritative book for those who want to get the deepest insight into the birth of the San Francisco Acid scene, hence the hippies and all that, one of the more familiar wellsprings of a lot of postmodern attitudes. Went against the Eisenhower years stuff which was the swansong of that mythical world the fundies seem to want to hearken back to. If you want more social background on that, hey, check out The Right Stuff, as Wolfe goes deep into it there. Or you could just read another science fiction story if all this history and sociology shit's too deep for ya.

Step 4: Complain that no one else will swallow the Kool-Aid

Fuck complaining about not swallowing the kool-aid. At this point, I'd be happy just to hear you articulate it. All these steps and you haven't touched that one yet.

Step 5: Make a new thread.

Or read a science fiction story.

[Epimethean]

I don't think you got his point about Minority Report, but then again, you seem to pick and choose when you are going to understand relevant points.

[Fred]

So we should accept a bunch of cockamamie garbage dreamed up by inventors BEFORE such things can be vetted through proper channels, and this has what benefit on science? Science fiction is great stuff-and some of it does affect the directions science takes, but let's call a duck a duck here, and I see quackery in boldface.

Wait a minute. I didn't bring science fiction in here, Rhythm did. Are you saying the science all those neuroscientists whose work it was said to be based on is quackery? Are you saying the guy who is waiting to get his own version of such out there but can't because of the political climate is a quack? Even if they both were total frauds, is anyone denying that the knowledge and ability to do it for real exists?

Nobody in the article was denying the science of the article. The point is that they didn't like the implications of the science so they didn't want it done, just like Gloria Steinem freaked when EO Wilson came out with Sociobiology because she didn't like what it said about gender equity.

This shit's been happening all over the map for decades. What is the point of insisting it isn't?

Is being gay learned or inherited? On that one, the rationals and the relativists are against the mythics, unless any of you out there are into the praying away the gay way, which I highly doubt.

The point is that there are two fronts to the ant-science battle ya hear about, and they aren't the same. The fundie rail against climate change and the relativist rail against the intelligence and other social issues are both challenges, yes, but they aren't coming from the same place.

The fundies don't agree with the relativists on the intelligence issue and the relativists don't agree with the fundies on climate change and so on.

I'm not doing anything more than talking about the terrain. I'm not saying who's right or wrong in the least. I'm just describing the landscape it's all taking place on.

[Epimethean]

What you brought in was science fiction masquerading as non-fiction, which was disingenuous. Rhythm's point played on a different level, where science fiction can be honest.

[ElDinero]

What a stupid point anyway. Are you saying that novels cannot have a message or teach us anything about our own society? Tell it to Asimov and Orwell. Many fantasy and sci-fi novels have this exact purpose in mind.

[fr0d0]

Rhythm is objecting to the Mystic position. Rhythm holds a part Mystic WV, but considers himself a Rational, anti Mystic.

I'm probably guilty of the same thing :S

<retro edited to be more balanced - sorry R. +... this is actually on topic >

[The Grand Nudger]

We pick our battles. lol. (also edited) Rhythm isn't an anti-anything except things which are likely to get the entire lot of us axed. Worldviews aren't so easily classified.

[fr0d0]

Retro edited - just a heads up R

[downbeatplumb]

Yeah, the stench of patchouli and the latest "world music" are heavy in the air at my hovel.

They are at my house, my wife even has her own 'authentic' native american drums!.........................Sigh

[Epimethean]

So long as she shags like a squaw, good on yer.