How do we create a willing ear?

[driewerf]

This thread is slightly inspired –or is at least becoming more urgent due to Pitabread’s thread about the dangers of creationism.

Creationism is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of science denial. You have climate change denial, antivaxxers, body positivity movement that slides into denial of any health consequence of obesity. In the nineties of the previous century I remember people denying or mocking the existence of the ozone depletion above the Antarctic.

When the Obamas (especially Michelle Obama) launched a campaign for healthy nutrition for children there was a huge backlash. Somehow it is bad to care for healthy food for children. The argument? “Unelected experts don’t know what my kid needs”. Well, no. That’s exactly the very definition of being an expert. Someone who knows better.


And here we are at the core of the issue. Too many people seem to think that reading one or two Facebook posts equals years and years of study and practical experience and make someone an expert on whatever subject. Any idiot with a keyboard and an internet connection can produce whatever text he wants and is put on a par, if not higher, than leading experts and Nobel prize winners.


How do we restore the notion that no one knows everything? That experts are – yes people who know a lot more and better – about a subject that the layman?

How do we restore a willing ear again for knowledge science and expertise again? It’s not a fanciful question. It is a matter of life and death. Whether it is about obesity, climate change or vaccinations, taking the wrong decision implies taking huge risks.

Any thoughts?

 

[SkyWriting]

How do we restore the notion that no one knows everything? That experts are – yes people who know a lot more and better – about a subject that the layman?

Simple. People can become experts at anything they wish. If we restore that idea, then we can dispense with the talking heads. (Not the band of course.)

 

[TheWhat?]

An attitude of the internet is for experts isn't helping things. It lends toward what people may feel is an infringement of their rights -- censorship.

Make it ok to not be an expert to have a conversation and maybe others won't be so incentivized to find quotes on the internet, or they may even berate others for presenting themselves as experts.

 

[TheWhat?]

I should add that I say that as someone who since college fell in love with the idea of open debate in the public square, an attitude that reflects the internet's early days more so than what we have now.

 

[timothyu]

It is going to be a tough fight to restore any sense of the recently deceased normality as the whole purpose of the Great Reset is to throw confusion into the mix while an old system is eroded on all fronts from education, health, supply and business, in order to produce a new one. Everything today is about confusion, not expertise. The whole idea of today's so called experts changing their stories every few days is to bolster that confusion and wear down if not break, the people's will. The quickest way back to the old normal is to stop listening and reacting until the old experts with no vested interest in the Great Reset are once again allowed to speak.

 

[Frank Robert]

This thread is slightly inspired –or is at least becoming more urgent due to Pitabread’s thread about the dangers of creationism.

Creationism is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of science denial. You have climate change denial, antivaxxers, body positivity movement that slides into denial of any health consequence of obesity. In the nineties of the previous century I remember people denying or mocking the existence of the ozone depletion above the Antarctic.

The change came with the merger of the right and the evangelicals during Reagan years. It began the explosion of the cultural wars and the right has milked it ever since.

When the Obamas (especially Michelle Obama) launched a campaign for healthy nutrition for children there was a huge backlash. Somehow it is bad to care for healthy food for children. The argument? “Unelected experts don’t know what my kid needs”. Well, no. That’s exactly the very definition of being an expert. Someone who knows better.

And here we are at the core of the issue. Too many people seem to think that reading one or two Facebook posts equals years and years of study and practical experience and make someone an expert on whatever subject. Any idiot with a keyboard and an internet connection can produce whatever text he wants and is put on a par, if not higher, than leading experts and Nobel prize winners.

It isn't so much that conservatives think they know more, rather it is loyalty to their political party.

How do we restore the notion that no one knows everything? That experts are – yes people who know a lot more and better – about a subject that the layman?

How do we restore a willing ear again for knowledge science and expertise again? It’s not a fanciful question. It is a matter of life and death. Whether it is about obesity, climate change or vaccinations, taking the wrong decision implies taking huge risks.

Any thoughts?

If after two years of a pandemic with over 700,000 dead, millions of people taking up ICU beds and millions of people who will suffer long term Covid symptoms still think they and the right wing knows better nothing is likely to change.

 

[timothyu]

If after two years of a pandemic with over 700,000 dead, millions of people taking up ICU beds and millions of people who will suffer long term Covid symptoms still think they and the right wing knows better nothing is likely to change.

This is a global issue, not some localized political one.

 

[Frank Robert]

Simple. People can become experts at anything they wish. If we restore that idea, then we can dispense with the talking heads. (Not the band of course.).

To become an expert you need to learn from the experts. There is plenty of reliable information on the internet that point to the experts if you know what you are looking for and if you take time to search for it.

 

[Frank Robert]

This is a global issue, not some localized political one.

Yes it is a global issue. So try searching and finding what the more successful countries have been doing and are doing. I think you will find that they don't have politics telling them choice trumps reasonable mitigation strategies and vaccines. Let us know if you find something different.

 

[timothyu]

So try searching and finding what the more successful countries have been doing and are doing.

They've all for the most part, communist and capitalist alike joined forces in the WEF. That is common knowledge.

 

[Frank Robert]

They've all for the most part, communist and capitalist alike joined forces in the WEF. That is common knowledge.

I have no idea of what WEF is.

Did you look up what life saving mitigation precautions successful countries like Norway, S. Korea and others took and are taking? If you did perhaps you can inform us why a large fraction of the US has not taken them.

 

[driewerf]

They've all for the most part, communist and capitalist alike joined forces in the WEF. That is common knowledge.

I have no idea of what WEF is.

I think it's the World Economic Forum, the mass networking gathering of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

 

[timothyu]

I think it's the World Economic Forum, the mass networking gathering of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

The WEF was formed in 1971 quietly establishing a now functioning world government called Corporatism. People often lost in their own petty politics and delusions of past nationalistic glory, usually miss what is going on in the real world.

 

[Bradskii]

Any thoughts?

I dunno. But...maybe this goes in cycles and we're on an upswing. I sincerely hope so because we don't want to drop any further.

The last few years have been pretty testing. Divisions over Brexit, Trump, global warming, covid, race, gender...hell, I think I'll stop there. And it's been a top down problem. I think that we all had a good idea of directions that we needed to take. But there was disagreement about how we should get there. Now...we have people pointing in completely different directions. Led by those we've voted into power.

You could ask a hundred politicians what their aims are for the next few years and I think that a depressingly large proportion would say ' to remain in office'.

Where is the light on the hill? Where are the long term policies? Where is the overall general agreement on where we need to be? Hell, the US midterms are next year and there are millions still arguing about last years election. Give it a few months and everyone's thoughts will be on 2024.

Anyway, I'll be interested to hear other views.

 

[Frank Robert]

I think it's the World Economic Forum, the mass networking gathering of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

Weather communism or neoliberism @timothyu does not understand the dismal failure of the US response to the Covid pandemic.

 

[Frank Robert]

The WEF was formed in 1971 quietly establishing a now functioning world government called Corporatism. People often lost in their own petty politics and delusions of past nationalistic glory, usually miss what is going on in the real world.

It is known as neoliberism in the US that is behind the top 10% control 90% of the wealth. But communism and neoliberism are quite different. China, the largest communist state to their credit, has thwarted neoliberism. I am not saying that communism is superior to neoliberalism, both are seriously flawed.

 

[J_B_]

This thread is slightly inspired –or is at least becoming more urgent due to Pitabread’s thread about the dangers of creationism.

Creationism is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of science denial. You have climate change denial, antivaxxers, body positivity movement that slides into denial of any health consequence of obesity. In the nineties of the previous century I remember people denying or mocking the existence of the ozone depletion above the Antarctic.

When the Obamas (especially Michelle Obama) launched a campaign for healthy nutrition for children there was a huge backlash. Somehow it is bad to care for healthy food for children. The argument? “Unelected experts don’t know what my kid needs”. Well, no. That’s exactly the very definition of being an expert. Someone who knows better.


And here we are at the core of the issue. Too many people seem to think that reading one or two Facebook posts equals years and years of study and practical experience and make someone an expert on whatever subject. Any idiot with a keyboard and an internet connection can produce whatever text he wants and is put on a par, if not higher, than leading experts and Nobel prize winners.


How do we restore the notion that no one knows everything? That experts are – yes people who know a lot more and better – about a subject that the layman?

How do we restore a willing ear again for knowledge science and expertise again? It’s not a fanciful question. It is a matter of life and death. Whether it is about obesity, climate change or vaccinations, taking the wrong decision implies taking huge risks.

Any thoughts?

I think people are looking in the wrong place. Most here blame it on religious extremism, but I don't think that's the root cause. Rather, it's the fulfillment of a prediction made long ago by Alexis de Tocqueville: the result of full democratization is mediocrity in all things - the lowest common denominator.

This is something churches have been battling for a long time. The democratization of religion means a dilution of theology into a muddy mess. The unbelievers here celebrate that, but it's an equal opportunity phenomena. The democratization of science likewise means a dilution of theory into a muddy mess. Those peer-reviewing institutions so often trumpeted here can no longer control what is said about science.

Going one level deeper, the enabling mechanism for all this is America's extensive wealth. Few are bound by economic need to submit to what institutions demand. People do what they please. In more modern terms, republicanism has shifted toward anarchism.

If history serves as the model, at some point current institutions will collapse, people will realize they've been living on borrowed time - that they need community cooperation, and there will be a reaction of dictatorial forces to restore order. Whether that happens in a year, a hundred years, or a thousand years no one can predict.

 

[timothyu]

@timothyu does not understand the dismal failure of the US response to the Covid pandemic.

That dismal failure is on the heads of the self serving people, not any government.

 

[timothyu]

But communism and neoliberism are quite different.

Yet they are both members of the WEF.

 

[Frank Robert]

Yet they are both members of the WEF.

They have things in common such as being billionaires. In the EU/UK/US the government policy is neoliberism where the corporations and the billionaires come first. In China the government allows billionaires to a point but government comes first. If you still believe communism and neoliberalism have much more in common check out what happened to China's Jack Ma and the ride hailing Didi.