leicsmac

That's a key part of it all too, yes. I know I keep saying it, but anyone really aware of the pathway we're going down as a species outside the most ardent nihilist really should be terrified.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxq37nxl55o US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that aims to overhaul US federal elections, including by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship and limiting when states can receive mail-in ballots. Experts warn the move could disenfranchise millions of Americans who do not have easy access to a passport or other legal documents proving they have the right to vote. It is unclear how enforceable the order is, given US states have wide legal leeway to determine how they run their elections. It is expected to be challenged in court. The logical next step, I suppose. Why risk rigging an election when you can suppress the vote to win it instead? And the following one, and the one after that...

I'll happily confess to being surprised by the speed and the vehemence of the change. Since then, it would appear that the ideological conflict has only intensified, and the stakes continue to rise (in fact, they may end up being absolute.)

I still maintain that the year 2016 broke something in the space-time continuum.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgwjllld1ro US Vice-President JD Vance will join his wife Usha in travelling to Greenland on Friday, a visit that follows Donald Trump's threats to take over the island. The couple will go to the Pituffik Space Base to receive a briefing on Arctic security issues and meet members of US forces stationed there, according to the White House. Usha Vance had planned to travel to the Danish territory on a cultural visit before her husband announced his plans. Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Waltz is also set to visit this week on a separate trip. Officials in Greenland have fiercely criticised the planned visits as disrespectful. I hope that the Greenlanders make their feelings clear while he's there. Preferably in the form of an accurately thrown snowball or two.

Yeah, this plays into what I said earlier about while the method and the way it is executed can be flawed because it is human, it's also self correcting. People can raise legitimate noise about the topics you mention here but when that is then used to go further and craft policy that ignores legit scientific consensus and bad things happen as a result of it (and they almost always do), that's on the people that took it too far, no one else. We've talked in person about this before, and we both know what's out there in the future if ideas not derived from the scientific method are used for critical decision making at a high level.

I hear that. Allow me to clarify below. That is exactly what the scientific method is, yes. However, what is happening now is questioning of people using that scientific method by people not using it themselves (or not rigorously, anyway). They have the right to do that, but that comes hand in hand with the responsibility to take the consequences for decisions made based on that mindset. And there are some, there will be some, and some of them are and will be rather serious. Sagan knew that politics could be important in making sure necessary scientific progress occurred, yes, but see above. Additionally, I think his thought about ignorance having equal weight to knowledge in the future is sadly becoming prescient. Certainly the study of the mind is an inexact science and it, like other areas, are open to question and discussion. However, again, if you're going to discuss and raise questions about such expert testimony, it would be a good idea to have solid evidence as a basis for it. Hitchens Razor applies. There has to be a distinction made between legitimate questioning of expertise and that expertise being sidelined entirely in decision making. There's an awful lot of the latter occurring right now, and all that shows is that free choice includes the right to choose disaster. If there are corruption issues within the scientific community as is inferred here, they will be rooted out by other scientists. Scientific fact cannot be bought, not for long, anyway. If that's not true and the whole method is in fact corrupt, it would be nice to have some proof of that beyond mere assertion, before libelling decent people who are legitimately trying to make the future a better place. I agree, the method is human and therefore imperfect, like anything else human. However, it remains the best method we have for divining facts about the universe around us, and is self correcting. Critique of it is welcome, but in the absence of showing a better way, rather hollow, IMO. I guess the thread of my thoughts throughout this response is pretty much this; people can be and have the right to be sceptical about the scientific method and the results it gives, but they should be warned that if that then leads to a world where the viewpoint of the layman has as much pull as the expert on scientific matters in terms of policy making, that will be punished by the Earth. It has been in the past, it will be in the future, and that punishment will be severe. And the responsibility for the depth of trouble caused by that punishment will lie, solely, on the shoulders of those who thought it would be a good idea for those with little scientific knowledge to steer policy decisions on matters of science.

There's no easy solution. There's the Chinese solution, but that's not easy. It's long past time crimes purely based on power and humiliation (like this one is) were taken more seriously.

And it's reasonably obvious how such "death of expertise" ends.

I guess such things are subjective, as a lot of things are. Which brings it back to the policy platforms of such individuals and how they're applied, which can often be much more objective.

... ten points to anyone who knows what happened roughly around the last time the "hard right" had the same figures as today.

It would also be interesting to see how this translates to projected seats.

Perhaps. It's either incompetent or deceptive whichever way it comes out, though.

Trump denying any knowledge of the group chat and what happened within it. So... government officials are making unilateral discussions on military operations without the knowledge or consent of the commander-in-chief of those military forces, then? That's a good look.

I'm not sure that all of them are idiots, to be honest. At least some of them are power hungry and willing to go to serious lengths of malice to exercise that power, IMO.

Yep. Gaslight and disparage the reputation of the journo involved to make it look like no big thing. The worst thing is the amount of people who will actually believe that is the case despite the evidence to the contrary.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cg70xgxl3vmt The White House confirms that a journalist was inadvertently added to a group chat where senior US officials discussed plans for a strike against the Houthi rebel group Whoops. "At one point in the thread the JD Vance account, the name of the vice-president, griped that the strikes would benefit the Europeans, because of their reliance on those shipping lanes, adding: "I just hate bailing Europe out again." The user identified as Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, responded three minutes later: "VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."" As if there was any more proof needed of what this administration thinks of Europe and the UK.

And unfortunately that's the road we've gone down now. It begins with criticism of the assessment of a political figure (whether valid or not), simply because that figure is political, and it ends with the entire idea of expertise and the scientific method on every matter being called into question, as Sagan predicted. I get the idea of being sceptical of personal bias from an expert towards a divisive political figure, I do. But the death of trust in scientific expertise that starts there ends nowhere good.

Speaking personally, I think that the damage of the actions caused by the current US administration - both present and over the next couple of years - matter far more than the reasoning behind why they're happening anyway. The fact that the very idea of truth is being subverted and that is deeply consequential for our future is the big thing.

" If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

No idea. In any case, it's good to see that the Greenlanders, Danish and most other folks outside a particular breed in the US not buying into any of it.

They would be well within their rights to refuse them permission to land.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g0718g3jwo Greenland's politicians have condemned plans for high-profile US visits, in the wake of President Donald Trump's threats to take over the island. Second Lady Usha Vance will make a cultural visit this week, and a separate trip is expected from Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. Outgoing Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede described the plan as aggressive, and said the duo had not been invited for meetings. Meanwhile, the island's likely next leader accused the US of showing a lack of respect. Those last three words pretty much sum up the current US administration.

And to add to this, that form of government and action is utterly incompatible with the survival of civilisation in the longish term anyway.

Didn't you get the memo? Because science has become "politicised", the viewpoint of a decades-long expert in the field and someone with a slick manner and a YouTube channel are equally valid. See vaccines, climate change etc.