21 APR 2014 by ideonexus
"Susicion of Authority" is Also Propaganda
While individuals get our empathy and sympathy, institutions seldom do. The "we're in this together" spirit of films from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s later gave way to a reflex shared by left and right, that villainy is associated with organization. Even when they aren't portrayed as evil, bureaucrats are stupid and public officials short-sighted. Only the clever bravado of a solitary hero (or at most a small team) will make a difference in resolving the grand crisis at hand.
This rule of con...
1 A conspiracy meme that comes from both the left and right.
20 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
The Riddle of Power
The eunuch rubbed his powdered hands together. “May I leave you with a bit of a riddle, Lord Tyrion?” He did not wait for an answer. “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do...Three men in a room command a forth to kill the other two, who dies?
22 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Science is Connected to Prosperity
The progression of physical science is much more connected with your prosperity than is usually imagined. You owe to experimental philosophy some of the most important and peculiar of your advantages. It is not by foreign conquests chiefly that you are become great, but by a conquest of nature in your own country. 1 
notes
notesGreatness comes not from the conquest of foreign nations, but from the conquest of nature in your own country.
22 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Science is Human Power, Needing Guidance
It is against the background of conflict and confusion in the relations of science and society that we find ourselves confronted with a crisis in the history of mankind, and particularly in the history of human government. It is a crisis arising from the rapidly increasing power given to man by science. It is a crisis such as we are accustomed to leave to the arbitrement of sectional interests supported by shouts and cries. But it is one to which scientific inquiry can provide a solution. For... 1 notes
notesAnd science can provide the guidance through managing human beings through biological knowledge.
02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
China Must Reject "Great Power Chauvinism"
Things develop ceaselessly. It is only forty-five years since the Revolution of 19II, but the face of China has completely changed. In another forty-five years, that is, in the year 2001, or the beginning of the 21st century, China will have undergone an even greater change. She will have become a powerful socialist industrial country. And that is as it should be. China is a land with an area of 9,600,000 square kilometres and a population of 600 million people, and she ought to have made a g... 1 notes
notesCautionary words from Mao.
19 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Science as Power, Kept in Writing
In sedentary and peaceable societies, astronomy, medicine, the most simple notions of anatomy, the knowledge of plants and minerals, the first elements of the study of the phenomena of nature, acquired some improvement, or rather extended themselves by the mere influence of time, which, increasing the stock of observations, led, in a manner slow, but sure, to the easy and almost instant perception of some of the general consequences to which those observations were calculated to lead.
Meanwh... 1 notes
notesEarly scientists pursued science for power, and committed it in written form.
13 FEB 2012 by ideonexus
Information is the Power to Control
Information is a
part of all systems of power. Top bureaucrats try to control
information as part of their control over subordinates and clients.
Corporations try to control information through trade secrets
and patents. Militaries try to control information using the
rationale of “national security.” So-called freedom of information—
namely, public access to documents produced in
bureaucracies—is a threat to top bureaucrats.
In a society where not everyone can read and write, litera...
1 Where people can read, publish to media, and speak out against their employers, they have power.
21 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Interest In Science Comes from Greed
I do not believe that the present flowering of science is due in the least to a real appreciation of the beauty and intellectual discipline of the subject. It is due simply to the fact that power, wealth and prestige can only be obtained by the correct application of science. 1 notes
notesScience is necessary for wealth and power, so most people pursue it for those reasons rather than awe and enlightenment.
