"I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat. That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off."-- From Al Gore's up-coming interview, on 60 Minutes, where he disses Global Warming skeptics while declaring himself the "P.R. agent for the planet"
"[Naomi] Wolf has become an image consultant,...as Time reported,...Vice President Al Gore paid Wolf thousands of dollars a month for advice on presentation, from the tones of his speeches to the color tones of his wardrobe. The Washington Post relayed that Wolf 'has long contended that earth tones are more 'reassuring' to audiences'' and that she is 'the person behind Gore's recent wardrobe change.'"-- From Jodi Kantor's 1999 article on Naomi Wolf in Slate.com.
O.K., Naomi says earth tones are "reassuring" (where'd she get that from?) and, now, Al is wearing brown and he's all fired up for yours truly to "save the planet" - if I don't do as he says, I'm crazy, right? So, my hippie-dippy nature-loving friends, what in the world could this one lone city-dwelling nigga have for you to combat that shit? Well, though I was born and raised in California, I've lived in, and studied, Europe - really studied it - and, heavens to Betsy, I read. So, prepare to get your minds blown, assholes:
* p. 9: The four significant social reform groups of this era were: Wandervogel (free spirit/migrating bird); Naturmenschen (natural men); Lebensreform (life reform); and Monte Verita (mountain of truth), the community at Ascona, Switzerland; a precursor to Esalen in Big Sur, California.-- From "A Pictorial Anthology from Germany to California: 1883-1949", which I got - along with that cool (and eye-opening) 1917 photo of back-to-nature German proto-hippie Bill Pester in California - from Chris Locke's awesome Mystic Bourgeoisie. He got the photo from a site called Hippie Roots and the Perennial Subculture. There you can find this quote as well:
* p. 61: The people of Ascona refused eggs, milk, meat, salt and alcohol. Nature cure was a powerful idea in the German mind, and was a widespread and profound rebellion against science and professionalism.
On August 20, 1903, a newspaper in San Francisco, California published a large article about Ascona/Monte Verita, describing the people and their philosophies. This was certainly one of the first times that detailed news of the European counter-culture had reached the California coast.
Although Ascona died out after 1920, the spirit of it was reborn in California at Big Sur in the 1960s, with Esalen Institute becoming a "Monte Verita" on the Pacific.
"Germany had always made a virtue of their late submission to Latin civilization and had glorified the natural man and woman with all of their virtues and vices. Over 2000 years ago (about 51 B.C.) Julius Caesar noted of the Germans: 'The only beings they recognize as gods are things that they can see, and by which they are obviously benefited, such as sun, moon and fire; the other gods they have never even heard of.'"Those "ancient teachings" are some pretty hippie shit,...
So do you get it yet? This is leftover pagan shit, y'all! Al and Naomi just put earth-toned lipstick on a NewAge pig! (And Al is looking rather piggish these days,...)But - I know you're going to say it - science (which I claim to love) supports it! True, but my talks with scientists have taught me three things:
1) The science community is made up (almost overwhelmingly) by Leftists, and - like all Leftists - they're not really prone to questioning their own assumptions. Especially the assumption they're not affected by NewAge thinking. (They're too smart - ha, ha: this ain't an I.Q. test, folks,...)
2) They haven't studied cultism, or NewAge's pagan roots, and the sneaky way pagans work on/in society - meaning: how it's worked on them - very well.
3) Like everyone NewAge has affected, they want to be heroes, so they can tell the rest of us what's what.
Don't you dare forget any of this, people - especially the desire to slander the non-believers as the whack-jobs:
Like Hillary Clinton's presidential "inevitability"; the Left's ability to end the war after winning both houses of government; the bogus claims about "over-flowing landfills", or any of the other bullshit beliefs the Left has sold as accepted fact, I'm pretty confident Global Warming, too, will come apart. If I'm wrong, I'll admit it - hey, I'm just one black guy: merely "a tiny, tiny minority" (in more ways than one) - but, if I'm right, this should be the final proof needed that, for the last 40+ years, Americans have been played for suckers in a world-wide NewAge scam to shift our priorities, from what's really important to mankind, to what those with pagan-based beliefs have desired for thousands of years. Watch:
Like all scams, it's only a matter of time, and the blow-back for something of this magnitude - just for the sheer arrogance of believing they could force Europe's medieval mindset into America's modern era (and almost got away with it) - should be ferocious. Just like when this latest round of bullshit began:
The science community is made up (almost overwhelmingly) by Leftists, and - like all Leftists - they're not really prone to questioning their own assumptions. Especially the assumption they're not affected by New Age thinking.
ReplyDeleteWhat you need to do then is:
1) Define "new age thinking" - not some catch-all bucket for everything you dislike or are uncomfortable with, but something that could actually be observed, tested for and measured
2)Develop a method to test its presence and then compare a random selection scientists with a control group
3)If the "new age thinking" exists among scientists at a greater frequency than the control group, publish your finding and develop a hypothetical explanation for this.
4) Test the theory, if your experimental results seem to show its validity, then you have a working theory that will stand until new evidence comes along.
5) If "new age thinking" exiosts at the same or at a lesser rate among your random subset of scientists than among a control group, dispassionately make note of that fact and junk your original hypothesis.
That's the difference between scientists and conspiracy theorists. Scientists test their hypotheses in an unbiased way. They don't elevate things to the status of theory (and certainly not "truth") that can't be falsified. And when the experimental results give the lie to their original hypothesis, or if new evidence comes along, then they admit they were barking up the wrong tree, discard teh original theory, and move on.
Conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, work with definitions that are so broad they can never be falsified. They don't try to disprove their own ideas (like scientists do) instead they ignore conflicting data points and seek out evidence that supports their their theories. When something doesn't, they find some loophole or exception to explain how the conspiracy must be even bigger than they had imagined.
There is nothing wrong with being a conspiracy theorist, BTW. Its just not science, and scientists are not likely to abandon the one tool they have for investigating reality that really does work, in order to accomodate the unfalsifiable plots and conspiracies of every random person with a grudge against the world who happens to share some of the same skepticisms they do.
Failing all of the above you also just save yourself a lot of trouble and do a google search for "informal logic."
Then you would know, at least, that logical fallacies like "all scientists are leftists, and all leftists lie to themselves, therefor all scientists are liars" are in fact logical fallacies and could avoid making such foolish statements in the future.
Here, I''ll do you a favor:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts. To be more specific, a fallacy is an "argument" in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support. A deductive fallacy is a deductive argument that is invalid (it is such that it could have all true premises and still have a false conclusion). An inductive fallacy is less formal than a deductive fallacy. They are simply "arguments" which appear to be inductive arguments, but the premises do not provided enough support for the conclusion. In such cases, even if the premises were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true.
Another brave "anonymous" - figures:
ReplyDeleteLook - whoever you are - do I look, or sound, like a scientist to you? No, I'm an artist - it says so at the top of the blog - and I'm studying a subject (culture) on my own time, and in my own way, and I just happened to find some biases I found disturbing in the field of science. You don't like it? Tough. I didn't create the culture of the scientific community. If it was so perfect, it wouldn't need other interested outsiders, like James Randi, to tell them where they fuck up either. And, as he proves, daily, when discussing believers as "stupid" and "idiots", saying "I love you" isn't the only way to show you care.
And where, oh where, did I suggest scientists "abandon the one tool they have for investigating reality"? Or that "all scientists are leftists"? You're making shit up as you go along. What? Did the big bad layman hurt your widdle feewings by saying something cwitical about scientists? Aww, I'm so sowwy. Next time, I'll be sure to kiss their widdle asses, as instructed. Give me a break. They were no nicer to me, when I first started pointing out things to them, than I am to them now, and, as far as I'm concerned, at this point, that's fine. Like with global warming, we'll just have to wait for the evidence to add up - or come apart - to ultimately see who's correct. But I'll tell you this:
My view of this subject - this subject, not particle theory, Black Holes, or AIDS research - is being accepted in some pretty intelligent corners; where before (when I started this) I was being laughed off every science and medical blog there is.
Does it all make straight sense? No - but what about NewAge and cultism does? Welcome to Alice In Wonderland, friend, where - until everyone's willing to spin around and scream, "You're just a deck of cards!" - the Red Queen is having the time of her fucking life. And, just so you know, I didn't make that shit possible either: It's just the way I found it.
And I'm as shocked as the next guy. I'm shocked there are scientists lined up against the president in war time. I'm shocked there are scientists "studying" the paranormal. I'm shocked there are scientists "testing" homeopathy. I'm shocked there is woo in medical schools. I'm shocked the "scientists" of the IPCC didn't get the math right - and won't admit it. I'm shocked the scientists know Al Gore is being alarmist and won't tell him to shut up. I'm shocked by all of that and more. And your answer is what? Tell me to shut up or become a scientist myself? No thanks. Like James Randi, I seem to be much more effective being exactly what I am, and doing exactly what I do.
Hell, it got your attention.