Have you not observed that science is very often politicized, filled with fraud or just plain mistaken? The anti-intellectual position is anti-skepticism.
Then come with proof or some shred of evidence, rather than asking an unsubstantiated question that undermines the scientific process unnecessarily by trying to insert doubt from a place of zero expertise in the field.
I think they call this the appeal to authority fallacy, it’s the people without expertise in a field that often see the holes in something first, then the holes start glowing after they get hand waved away by smug narrow-minded experts.
> it’s the people without expertise in a field that often see the holes in something first
While it's obvious that everybody makes mistakes and has blind spots, I'd wager that, in general, being more knowledgeable gives you better tools to spot actual holes.
And sure, experts too can be narrow-minded and smug. Just like everybody else.
> And sure, experts too can be narrow-minded and smug. Just like everybody else.
Being an expert always adds a big weakness: You get paid to do this so you are biased.
So no, they are not "just like everybody else", they have spent more time on it so they know some things better, but you can't get away from biases that comes from being paid to do something and that makes experts worse at some other things.
it can even happen in software engineering but takes different forms, someone outside sees the problem first because they are looking from a different perspective or due to familiarity with some external factor or edge case of their environment
His premise seems to be that life past 65 averages out to suffering and a slow decline toward death, which I think many active and happy older people (who don’t wish to be killed!) would argue is very mistaken.
Misanthropic environmentalism isn’t environmentalism at all. Environmentalism designed by humans should be good for humans, not give them scheduled death dates.
This is likely satire along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal. The main giveaways are the directness of the language and the time of writing (on the tail of covid when people were unironically making such proposals).
>on the tail of covid when people were unironically making such proposals
They were? I remember a lot of awful stuff about those years, but this isn't one of them. I remember people making somewhat mean-spirited but understandable comments about (some) older people getting killed off by Covid due to their own actions (refusal to take the threat seriously and take precautions, leading them to catch it, and then have much worse outcomes due to the fact that the disease was much more deadly for unhealthy and older people).
The Lieutenant Governor of Texas, one month into the pandemic, was mulling how it might be best for society if we just carried on as-is and accept that a lot of old people would die:
> As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival, in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that's the exchange, I'm all in.
The chief science advisor of the UK described his meetings with the PM of the UK in 2020:
> “He says his party ‘thinks the whole thing is pathetic and Covid is just nature’s way of dealing with old people – and I am not entirely sure I disagree with them. A lot of moderate people think it is a bit too much.’”
> Vallance’s diary also recounts how then chief whip Mark Spencer told a cabinet meeting in December 2020 that “we should let the old people get it and protect others”. He said that Johnson then added: “A lot of my backbenchers think that and I must say I agree with them”.
Hmmm so Paul blocked me on X for calling out his effective support for Hamas. And then this double-talk nonsense. He’s really quite something of a fragile little narcissist who can never be wrong.
Why? The guy credentials is psychology as far as we are aware. Was he speaking about the isolation in the pandemic? Maybe he had a point there. Was he talking about anything else? Where's his research on the topic?
In the pyramid of evidence "expert opinion" is at the bottom for a reason.
No, it's because nobody was talking about Jordan Peterson. There are other well credentialed scientists who were censored, read the sibling-parent comment. Bringing him up as a scapegoat and then using that to mewl about how people are babies for being concerned about disenfranchisement of opinions is bad faith at best, a straw man argument, and inflammatory.
I’m sure it’s totally unrelated to the increase of street junkies and urban crime resulting from the post 2020 “reimagined” policing in many major cities.
What major cities have "reimagined" policing exactly, and in what way? Why would that be related to walking, especially as the first thing that comes to mind for you?
I suppose if you’re not American you may not know there was a defund the police movement in 2020 along with decriminalization of “urban camping” around the same time. As a result there are less police on the streets, more crime, and many more mentally ill and addicted homeless. See my home town of Austin, Texas for example. Just yesterday a teenager was hacked by a machete maniac at our town lake. Sane people are now more hesitant to walk many of our popular streets. As a side note, traffic on pedestrian fatalities are up because the mentally disturbed and intoxicated junkies wander into traffic fairly often.
There was a decent amount of _talk_ for some time by mostly fringe figures. What major police departments were in _any_ way defunded by any stretch? None. Not one.
> along with decriminalization of “urban camping” around the same time
Again, where and exactly how?
What actually happened is largely that conservative news spent the year talking up crime and blaming the non-existent increase on their favored political foes.
I suppose there were no full-on defunding, but it does look like there was some reduction in funding, which (from the article) is a trend reversal [1]
> With public pressure on them, mayors and city councils responded. In 2020 budget votes, advocacy groups won over $840m in direct cuts from US police departments
> Portland, Oregon, cut $15m from its budget
> Austin, Texas, has made some of the most dramatic changes in the country, directly cutting roughly $20m from the police department
>> the kids will only ever be as smart as their teachers and these 'teachers' (ie parents) are not the brightest.
I can feel your arrogance and contempt from here, suffice to say that’s not how “smart” works and it’s certainly not how education works. Sounds like you could benefit from some extra home schooling yourself.
I'm sorry... what? Thiel's political opinions, alignments and investments are not remotely a secret. And having actually read the article, it seems pretty preposterous to imply it was a hit piece. If anything, this makes me feel like maybe Thiel is more complicated or nuanced than I'd previously thought him.
At its best, money is a terrific measure of satisfaction you’ve provided to other people. This man builds products people like and shares the story of his success for free to build an audience. These are all good things. You respond with bitter vitriol, that is not a good thing. If this is how you approach life you will not deserve his success or money.
>This man builds products people like and shares the story of his success for free to build an audience.
Maybe people are getting tired of 90% of social media content being about "building an audience". Everyone is trying to sell us something, all the time.
