31 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Static Culture
The fantasies of Wells and Huxley were based on the
same idea, that a species adapting itself too perfectly to
a static ecological niche is doomed to stagnation and
ultimate extinction. Their nightmares describe a possible future for our species, if we succeed in building
around ourselves a protective cocoon that shields us
from the winds of change while our mental faculties
dwindle. A future of senile dementia is as possible for
the species as it is for the individual.
And yet, when I compa...Folksonomies: culture cultural change
Folksonomies: culture cultural change
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notes
notes30 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Are the Humanities Political?
It is
very easy to argue that knowledge about Shakespeare or Wordsworth
is not political whereas knowledge about contemporary
China or the Soviet Union is. My own formal and professional
designation is that of "humanist," a title which indicates the
humanities as my field and therefore the unlikely eventuality that
there might be anything political about what I do in that field.
Of course, all these labels and terms are quite unnuanced as I use
them here, but the general truth of what I am po... 1 notes
notes30 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
The Danger of Dumbing Down Science
'Dumbing down' is a very different kind of threat to scientific sensibility.
The 'Public Understanding of Science' movement, provoked in America by
the Soviet Union's triumphant entry into the space race and driven today,
at least in Britain, by public alarm over a decline in applications for
science places at universities, is going demotic. 'Science Weeks' and
'Science Fortnights' betray an anxiety among scientists to be loved.
Funny hats and larky voices proclaim that science is fun, fun, f... 1 notes
notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Technology is Information
The most revolutionary aspect of technology is its mobility. Anybody can learn it. It jumps easily over barriers of race and language. And its mobility is still increasing. The new technology of microchips and computer software is learned much faster than the old technology of coal and iron. It took three generations of misery for the older industrial countries to master the technology of coal and iron. The new industrial countries of East Asia, South Korea and Singapore and Taiwan, mastered ... 1 notes
notes24 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
The Soviet Union, Von Neuman Predictions, and Computers
I have a friend, a young American physicist, who spent a year doing theoretical physics in the Soviet Union. He likes to go to the Soviet Union, not because it is a good place to do physics, but because it is a good place to observe the human comedy. When he went back to Leningrad recently for a shorter visit, he received a proposal of marriage and was called in twice for questioning by the KGB, all within the first week. He speaks fluent Russian, and the KGB people find it difficult to belie... 1 notes
notes19 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Anti-Science in Communism
Suppression of knowledge weakened Russia in the Lysenko affair. which a political ideologue and former peasant named Trofim Lysenko ingratiated himself to communist leaders and was placed in charge of national agriculture because of his ideological conformity. He denounced and suppressed scientists who questioned his odd schemes as "fly lovers and people haters"^^ (because geneticists were doing fruit fly research-h—I kid you not!) and his uneducated methods decimated Soviet agriculture. So... 1 notes
notesThe USSR and China as examples of how anti-science attitudes and political loyalty over empiricism damaged both countries.
18 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Suburbs are the Result of Fear of Nuclear War
The Federal Civil Defense Administration determined that the country that would win a nuclear war was the one best prepared to survive the initial attack. Achieving this required a homeland mobilization on an unprecedented scale, and our children needed to know what to do when nuclear war came. They commissioned a nine-minute film called Duck and Cover that showed Bert the turtle pulling into his shell to survive a nuclear explosion that burns everything else. The film exhorted millions of sc... 1 notes
notesThe government encouraged migration from cities to the suburbs to move people away from kill zones.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Space Exploration Costs the Same as Exploring the World
The Solar System is much vaster than the Earth, but the speeds of our
spacecraft are, of course, much greater than the speeds of the sailing ships of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The spacecraft trip from the Earth to the Moon
is faster than was the galleon trip from Spain to the Canary Islands. The voyage
from Earth to Mars will take as long as did the sailing time from England to North
America; the journey from Earth to the moons of Jupiter will require about the
same time as did t...Folksonomies: economics space exploration
Folksonomies: economics space exploration
1 Europe spent as much money proportionally to discover America as it would cost us to venture to Mars.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Military is Good For Space Exploration
The experience of space exploration gives no unique philosophy; to some
extent, each group tends to see its own philosophical view reflected, and not
always by the soundest logic: Nikita Khrushchev stressed that in the space flight of
Yuri Gagarin no angels or other supernatural beings were detected; and, in almost
perfect counterpoint, the Apollo 8 astronauts read from lunar orbit the Babylonian
cosmogony enshrined in Genesis, Chapter 1, as if to reassure their American
audience that the exp... 1 notes
notesThe competition against other militaries unites them against the public. Space flight would move them into a peacetime occupation.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
We Need Experimental Societies
Our instincts and emotions are those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors of a
million years ago. But our society is astonishingly different from that of a million
years ago. In times of slow change, the insights and skills learned by one generation
are useful, tried, and adaptive, and are gladly received when passed down to the
next generation. But in times like today, when the society changes significantly in
less than a human lifetime, the parental insights no longer have unquestioned
validity... 1 notes
notesSociology is too complex to accurately predict how we should manage our society; we need to conduct experiments in order to determine the best path forward. In America, the States could serve as such laboratories.
