🚀 go-pugleaf

Elliott Oti <e.oti@stud.warande.ruu.nl> wrote:


>I was under the impression, though, that the thread begun as a
>consequence of the philosophical (did someone mumble "moral"?)
>standpoint that the good from saving 75,000 people from starvation daily
>supercedes even the frightful horrors that result from welfare,
>handouts, subsidies, tax increases, and other satanic practices. 

Thanks for writing Elliott.

According to my accounts, the thread started with my memo,
'Science and the Internet' cross-posted to several newsgroups, 
suggesting that scientists waste less time hammering on religion 
or other non-science camps and turn inward to engage in the complex 
process of sorting out what's already in inventory, trying to give 
some shape and structure to the scientific enterprise as a whole, 
given that science is part of the human enterprise, and, like it 
or no, a lot hangs in the balance.

I indicated that this was no easy undertaking, given the 
specialization and compartmentation among the disciplines and
the tendency for each peer system to evangelize its own subnet's
contributions while refraining from supplying frank judgements
or assessments on neighboring disciplines, also within the 
'scientific sphere', meaning those coming from outside, looking
to assess what's most promising and likely to move us in a positive 
direction, and looking to qualified scientists to help provide such 
an overview, often hit a wall of noncommunication, because scientists 
find it easier to join against common enemies than to break ranks 
and start critiquing across interdepartmental lines.

I further advanced the thesis that science advancing under the aegis 
of regimes with institutional antipathy towards supernaturalism -- 
which might include antipathy towards some brands of religion -- had 
perhaps ironically encouraged the growth of scientific enterprising 
that had more to say about some of the same phenomena that are left 
to the more religiously minded in western cultures, where the state 
has tried a more hands off approach vis-a-vis matters spiritual.

I concluded with my own personal agenda, which included the assessment 
that science has crossed a threshold (I take 'the 1970s' as a rough 
estimate of when) whereby 'taking care of humanity' at sustainably 
high living standards is no longer futuristic science fiction ala 
24th century 'Federation Science' (aka Star Trek fantasy) but rather
is a doable proposition, and that this state of affairs casts our age 
under differently slanted lights, looking back from hypothetical 
future historian viewpoints, where continued inaction must be traced 
to the inability, on the part of scientists who share my assessment 
of the situation, to adequately impart their intelligence to the 
general public, which would surely demand action, and pronto, if the 
full scope of what I'm outlining, in all of its parameters, could be
sufficiently spelled out and shared via the media.

Kirby
Design Science Central
http://www.inetarena.com/~pdx4d/


----------------------------------------------------
Kirby Urner  "ALL realities are 'virtual'" -- KU
Email: pdx4d@teleport.com
Web:   http://www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/