I imagine STEVE SMITH looking something like this when shaved
Traitor. Hero. Scoundrel. Saint. Whistleblower. Disgruntled. Those who leak classified information are labeled and categorized before the impact of their revelations are even known. In essence, there are three views of a leaker (none of which are satisfying). The first view is that leaking is traitorous and wrong in every circumstance. These law & order types tend to say things like “they should’ve gone through proper channels.” The second view is that leaking is heroic and right in every circumstance. These anti-government types tend to say things like “governments shouldn’t have secrets.” The third view is that leaking is good when it benefits the person’s TEAM and bad when it exposes the person’s TEAM. These political neanderthals are worth no more electrons than have already been spilt on them.
I’m in a fourth camp, one that I have seen espoused by some other libertarians from time to time. I believe that the virtuosity of the leak is dependent on the information being leaked. To take a quick intellectual shortcut, the ends justify the means when it comes to leaks.
The distinction is clear when viewing Edward Snowden in comparison to Bradley/Chelsea Manning. On one side we have a person who collected and released targeted information about unconstitutional spying programs against US citizens with the intent to inform the citizenry for the good of the country. On the other side we have a person who collected and released a wide assortment of information without any particular rhyme or reason for the purpose of getting back at an employer who wasn’t providing the person’s preferred benefits. Snowden is a hero. Manning is a disgruntled traitor.
At the end of the day, I don’t think we can judge a leaker until we are able to assess the information being leaked. However, there is not enough nuance in the American political realm to allow such a subtle distinction. Either the leaker is good because they’re stickin’ it to the man, or they’re bad because ‘murica.
Meh unless lives are directly endangered I think a good allium cultivar is healthy once in a while. Then again most just confirm what many suspect, but do not know for sure.
It doesn’t seem like there’s much reaction from the general populace other than a collective shrug when information is leaked anyway. At least tech companies seem to take them seriously though.
Though this is the reaction of the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service to each leak:
We should recruit Hentai Kamen to do battle with them.
*powers up*
Not visiting ANY links
+1 Golden Power Bomb
View 4 is mine also, but its just a combination of 1 and 2, where whether it is 1 or 2 depends on the data being leaked.
And it isn’t an end justifies the means so much as whether the government has a legitimate reason for secrecy or is acting outside its constitutional bounds.
If you define the “American political realm” as the 24/7 news-opinion media cycle, then yes. However, I think the average American does appreciate the nuance and would ally himself or herself in the fourth camp.
The second and fourth aren’t entirely incompatible. Government shouldn’t have secrets, except about short term military operations. But that doesn’t make all leakers virtuous.
I think that’s a pretty good summation.
Well, there’s “secrets” and then there’s restricted information. I presume you’d prefer i not be able to browse your tax-returns, right?
in any case, they’re not very good at protecting the latter stuff either.
There shouldn’t be tax returns either.
i should have seen that coming.
… yes, but there *are*.
the argumentum ad utopium (*i just made that up; is that the Nirvana fallacy?) about what “should be” is sort of besides the point when we’re talking about what *is*
If you’re talking “The government shouldn’t have secrets” you’re already further down the road to utopianism than a tax reform that gets rid of self-incriminaton.
Well yes, it basically suggests government should be doing anything that necessitates keeping information secret.
but that seems ridiculous to me since i’d think if you allowed govt to do *anything* that collected people’s personal information, they’d at least have some info that should be compartmentalized. Even Census information is closely guarded until official releases are made to prevent unfair use of data by private parties.
Or are you saying the census “shouldn’t exist” either?
The census shouldn’t exist.
It’s been a tool of tyrants since 1650 BC.
BC? i thought the first “real” census was after the Bubonic Plague in Europe.
h/t Michel Foucault = he made the point that census-taking was the root of all modern tyranny; it enabled population-control, etc
but all utopianism aside – it *is* actually specified as a power of government in the constitution. Just saying, it aint going anywhere.
oh, the BC one was a ‘land’ census, right? in Egypt? i vaguely remember something like that. about determining how much arable land there was, and who got to farm it.
@Gilmore
I’m not sure what you mean by a “real” census.
No, I’m referring to how the ancient Egyptians annually counted the number of eligible fighting-age males for military service.
but all utopianism aside – it *is* actually specified as a power of government in the constitution. Just saying, it aint going anywhere.
Yes, for the purpose of counting residents to determine representation in congress. But, the Gov has completely overstepped with this as well. Anyone ever gotten that supplementary off-year survey? I forget what it’s called. It asks many very inappropriate questions, and they dog you to answer it and even come to your house and badger you. While saying it is an anonymous survey. They even called my parents trying to get a hold of me. Creepy shit.
If i recall the anecdote from Foucault correctly, the post-plague census was about tying people to locations and occupations for the purposes of establishing rigid class-definitions and to limit both social & geographic mobility.
prior census taking was more to get a rough-guesstimate about “how many people will starve this winter”, so they’d have enough people to fight the war come spring. It was about dealing with people as a general-mass rather than to exert control over individual socio-economic identity.
@Mike
Not to mention the counting of racial/ethnic data for gerrymandering (and or imprisonment in camps), and all the other bullshit.
Here are just some of the 130 surveys the U.S. Census Bureau conducts on an ongoing basis:
American Community Survey
American Housing Survey
Consumer Expenditure Survey
Census of Governments
Current Population Survey
Economic Census
National Hospital Discharge Survey
National Health Interview Survey
National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
National Crime Victimization Survey
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS)
National Nursing Home Survey
Survey of Income and Program Participation
Survey of Construction
Survey of Market Absorption
Survey of Program Dynamics
National Longitudinal Survey
National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, & Wildlife-Associated Recreation 2001
American Housing Survey
Residential Finance Survey
National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol Related Conditions
Annual Retail Trade Survey
Annual Wholesale Trade Survey
Annual and Quarterly Services Surveys
I never answer anything on any census other than name, address, and number of people in household. That’s all the info they need to carry out their sole legal/Constitutional purpose.
@Gilmore
I’m not sure where Foucault gets that argument from. The Roman census clearly attempted to tie people to location, profession, and social caste. Indeed, for the Greek and Romans, counting one’s property was how the state determined if one qualified for Equestrian status.
@HM. Ah yes, The American Community Survey. Some of the questions blew my mind.
What time do you leave for work and when do you return?
Is any one in the household suffer from clinical psychiatric problems?
There are others, but they elude me right now. It was a few years ago now that I went through it.
So, the law says you are bound to complete this survey under threat of federal prosecution. But, after some reading online I learned this: The Census Bureau has no law enforcement powers. So, in order to prosecute you, they’d have to report you to the FBI or some other police agency. But the same law states that they cannot share your information with any other government agency. So, I just waited them out and they eventually left me alone. No doubt I am on a “list” now, but that’s no worse than answering the questions they were asking.
Information is control.
i understand the anarchist’s aversion to allowing govt to collect information, but the point was that even the bare-minimum functions include things like census-taking, which if not provided a degree of control and compartmentalization in the process, can (+will) be misused. iow, even w/ entirely transparent information, stuff that is eventually disclosed to everyone, there is “secrecy” in the process.
That whole “Panopticon” chapter from Discipline + Punish is actually very germane to this whole “govt keeping secrets” thing.
Hey man, it was in the book. it was just my fuzzy memory
I think his point was less about “Who took the first census” and more “who used the information gathered to exert highly specified degrees of control” – down to the level of enforcing Quarantine on individuals, and splitting families apart on order of an administrator.
Indeed. And it bares repeating, though it risks becoming platitudinous itself.
The Romans conducted *real* censuses. They lived before the Bubonic plague.
I’ve gotten that stupid off-year census survey and have completely ignored it, even though they re-sent it with warnings I had to fill it out, I just tossed that shit in the trash.
Maybe the folks in my are are more zealous abut it, or maybe they have been told to cool it.
My experience started with letters. Then a local guy called repeatedly leaving messages. I finally called him back one day and told him to quit wasting his time because I wasn’t going to do it. He said, OK. Sounds good. He seemed like he was just going through the motions.
Then his boss started calling. I just ignored her messages. Then she showed up at my house one day unannounced. Tried to tell me how important it was. The conversation got so heated it ended with me yelling “get the fuck out of my house” two or three times before she finally left.
I was ignoring the long form version until the wife got pissed about the repeated contact and I was directed to just answer their survey.
Still pisses me off. And the Census Bureau’s PSAs about how important their work was. Without that data, communities won’t know where to build schools according to one. I dunno, how about they see how many students they have and if the numbers exceed the current capacity, build another? SLD applies.
They came to my door because I didn’t fill it out completely. I was not helpful and the guy was pretty cool about it. He could tell I wanted to tell him to mind his own business.
I’d prefer that no one be able to browse them, yes. But you wouldn’t be violating my rights by doing so.
Ethically, taxes are wrong. Practically, it would be better if they were all public, so that maybe people would stop supporting them.
zzzzzzzzzzz
Meh. Anarchy isn’t for everyone.
You need to rectify names.
Interesting article. Thanks. I hadn’t yet migrated here when that was posted. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be rectifying in this case though…
What I’m saying is that I find that people understand concepts better when you use their true names.
If people start getting cat butted for tame things like that then this will quickly devolve into a 10 person echo chamber
boredom with platitudes isn’t disagreement
Fair enough. We got off on the wrong foot with the whole female thing. I’ll make an effort to correct that.
I think my platitude was an important setup to the practical argument though.
no, its not that, and its not you. I just think there’s a tendency (which goes back many years @ H&R) for all discussions of specific issues to devolve into boring “anarchist vs. libertarian” dorm-room-philosophism.
in this case, we were like 3 comments in, and we went straight from “distinctions about whistleblowers” to “TAXES ARE WRONG”. I think way back when i used to post that as the *first* comment on any thread just to try and inoculate the discussion.
Gilmore,
Re: 11:05 and 11:31
You really do want the cat’s butt, don’t you? What makes you so snappish about every other day? Wait, don’t answer…I don’t care. Just don’t let it out in here.
Perhaps I should have left out that part. If we’re accepting taxes for the sake of argument, and accepting that public returns wouldn’t change anything, then yes, I would want my returns private. Same goes for a variety of other info.
But that seems like a boring argument to me. My order of preference:
1. No taxes on principle.
2. Public returns that lead to no taxes in practice.
3. Private returns.
We have number 3, and it will never change. Might as well have some fun talking about 1 and 2.
look swiss, i wasn’t snapping, and if i don’t know what rubs you the wrong way, its hard to avoid it. maybe i need to use more emoticons. (shrug thing) its just how i talk
i will go to my room now and pout.
Try not being an ass to people – argue strenuously, but stop turning into “John”. I am just trying to nip this in the bud.
John has none of my charm and wit
i will not live my life in fear of the Cat-Ass of Damocles
If somebody could browse your tax return – they would have access to your Social Security Number, along with those of your wife and kids. Your address, your employer, your income. Possibly your bank account number, email address, and phone number. That information alone would be enough to commit all kinds of fraudulent acts on your behalf – tax fraud, disability, medical, credit cards, cell phones…whatever a criminal can think of. And it would give somebody a platform to really go to town on your identity and do a full-blown impersonation.
Indeed. All the more reason that publicizing them would make people oppose taxation.
Hell, just get rid of withholding. People would be taking to the streets with torches and pitchforks if they suddenly had to write a huge check and mail it to the government in April.
That would never happen. Mostly because the government loves their interest free loan from the taxpayers and will never give that up.
The other issue is that by taking witholdings, the revenue hasn’t been debased by a year’s inflation.
Ethically, taxes are wrong. Practically, it would be better if they were all public, so that maybe people would stop supporting them.
Doesn’t work that way in Finland.
Third.
Partially disagree. In a previous life, I worked for a defense contractor on weapons systems. The technology was classified because, if you’re going to be in a shooting war, you want to shoot better than the other guy. I took seriously the need for secrecy and to this day won’t talk about the work I did. Though I am a strong advocate of non-interventionism, that’s not incompatible with a belief in strong and state-of-the-art defense.
Now one could argue that we should never be in a shooting war in the first place, but unfortunately, it is sometimes necessary.
But most importantly, you willingly signed a contract as a adult that circumscribed your behavior, which the counterparty has not abrogated either explicitly or in spirit.
Exactly. I was not asked to do something which violates the constitution.
IMO, Snowden should get a medal. If I leaked the stuff I was doing, I should go to jail.
I have complicated views about Snowdon, but on balance, he’s on the good guy side specifically for that reason.
There’s an implicit (and usually explicit) understanding unless you’re told otherwise, both parties will be abiding with the contract in accordance with applicable law, no matter how onerous or distasteful. If either side breaks that part of the deal, the deal is off.
You can win a shooting war even if the enemy knows how your weapons systems work. Just have more than the other guy.
The public paid for that work. If they want to disseminate it, that’s their prerogative.
Great if you don’t mind losing more people than you would have otherwise. Shit, we should have given Japan and Germany the plans for the A-bomb and relied on our abilities to produce them faster.
And if you don’t have more than the other guy?
Then work harder. If you don’t have better weapons, you have to work harder too. There’s no practical difference.
But there is a practical difference between being prudent enough not to let potential enemy combatants have the advantages you develop in the time before the fighting breaks out.
This is also known as “working smarter”
I don’t think there’s anything unethical about the government keeping secrets. It’s composed of individuals like OMWC, and I have no right to compel him to reveal his secrets. But I would encourage them to do so, because while there may be short-term (i.e. several years) benefits to secrecy about advanced weapons systems, I think the long-term effect of government secrecy is a net negative. It isolates government too much from the people who it’s supposed to represent.
There’s a massive practical difference actually. ‘Better weapons’ is just some arbitrary notion of warfare being about who has the superior weaponry, when it is far more complex than that. Even if your opponent has better missiles, say you have a computer virus that can shut them down. Or crash their command and control systems. Or even better, crash their financial and banking systems. Despite your opponent having the apparent superiority on the field, you can exploit that. It’s an ace in the hole. Knowledge of that ace neutralizes its effect.
Lack of knowledge is partial deterrent as well.
Deterrence is founded on fear. Which includes fear of the unknown.
The public paid for that work.
No, the government did. The government is not the public.
“Government” is just a name for the black hole where we throw all our money.
The government is very much the public. At least 99% of them. Government doesn’t have my consent, but it has the consent of basically every American I’ve ever met. If those Americans think they should lock each other up for revealing secrets, so be it. But if someone changes their mind, they’re free to withdraw that consent without notice.
The government is no more the public than Exxon is everyone who buys gas at Exxon. The government is a separate and distinct organization, just as Exxon is, from the broader public with which it interacts. “Consent” doesn’t matter; when I buy gas from Exxon, that’s a consensual transaction, but it doesn’t make me part of Exxon.
Now if only I can reduce my taxes by choosing what and what not to fund.
Just based on principle alone, only privately funded defense corporations should get the privilege of having secrets.
You can win a shooting war even if the enemy knows how your weapons systems work. Just have more than the other guy.
There’s this thing called ‘counterforce’. It’s intended to neutralize any advantage your opponent has by providing counters to known intelligence of your opponents’ abilities (term comes from eliminating nuclear silos based on knowledge of their location).
Replying to this: “I don’t think there’s anything unethical about the government keeping secrets. It’s composed of individuals like OMWC, and I have no right to compel him to reveal his secrets. But I would encourage them to do so, because while there may be short-term (i.e. several years) benefits to secrecy about advanced weapons systems, I think the long-term effect of government secrecy is a net negative. It isolates government too much from the people who it’s supposed to represent.” No reply button there though.
I think a good balance could be struck between short-term and long-term secrets if we had clearly defined war/peace states, instead of the sort-of but not really conflict state we seem to be living in now. It’s much easier to justify keeping something like the Manhattan Project secret if you’re in a constitutional and temporary war state, like WWII was. Not so much if you just use arbitrary terms like “War on Terror” and “National Security” as bugaboos to justify all forms of government overreach.
this has always been my view, and the people who seem to give me the most shit about it are the second type (or #2 types. resists urge to suggest numbered lists) A response they give is, “YOU JUST HATE OBAMA”. Which i’ve never understood because both Snowden/Manning dumped info on the ‘government’ – not the president. But i think they interpreted Manning as being more “anti-bush (policy)”, therefore Manning is sainted by default.
I have been told by ‘experts’ that Snowden is a coward because he fled the country rather than face trial whereas Chelsea is brave, because she was a he before, don’t you know. And that’s brave.
Martyrdom is anti-American, if you ask me.
-1 Nathan Hale, of course.
Well disregarding national security interests, these leaks concern vulnerabilities about every electronic type of device we all use directly or indirectly so it is of personal privacy and commercial and even saftey interests (like car hacking) to know about them and the fact that the CIA had lost control of them.
I’m kinda View 4, but I like to know the purpose of the leak as well. Its both what is leaked, and why. The why often drives the what, is why I think both matter.
If you are leaking for partisan political reasons, to damage your political enemies, you’re a dirtbag and your leak is likely crap. See, e.g., the leaking from anonymous intelligence agency sources attacking the Trump admin. You start from a bad “why”, and I don’t really trust the info you are putting out.
If you are leaking because you know that’s the only way to get information out that the public really ought to know, then I put you on the side of the angels. Snowden, for example.
If you are leaking because you are a disgruntled employee, then your leak is likely crap. Manning, for example.
Motives matter.
Sums up my view as well.
I think Obama’s treatment of Manning vs that of Snowden is telling, and I realize that sounds partisan. What I mean is, Manning basically aired secrets that had to do with Bush-era policies and was primarily focused on military stuff. Snowden outed ongoing domestic surveillance, among other things. So, Manning’s leaks could help make Bush look bad, while Snowden’s impacted the Obama administration’s ability to conduct intelligence operations, both domestic and foreign.
If you’re a supporter of all things Blue, or all things Obama, then you’re probably going to hate Snowden and at least be ambivalent about Manning. In essence, Manning attacked the military and Snowden attacked the state, and Obama (and most progressives) seem(s) to have no problem slagging the military but a huge, huge problem questioning the legitimacy of the state, particularly in the form of the so-called “fourth branch” of bureaucrats.
You can tell a lot about a relative stranger’s politics *simply* by learning their views (or lack of them) about Manning and Snowden, and to a lesser degree, Bergdahl.
True dat. A lot of good friends of mine are kind of your stereotypical yokeltarians/Trump Republicans, and a few are ex-military. Almost universally the opinion is that Bergdahl should be shot and Manning and Snowden should both be in prison for life. And sure enough, the argument is basically a combo of “There are appropriate channels”, “My country right or wrong,” and “The government keeps secrets to keep you safe.”
What Manning did was highly questionable at best. How he was treated was reprehensible, but he deserved to go to jail for it.
Snowden saw illegal conduct and did what he thought was necessary at risk to himself. In my book, he’s a hero.
Has there been a final verdict on whether Manning’s leaked information led directly to people being killed?
Top Men (serving under Democrats) have said it has, and based on the standard of proof the media now requires, that’s enough.
Exposing govt corruption and illegal activity: patriotism.
Exposing individuals to danger or for political purposes: criminal.
If the people exposing Trump now were patriots they would have been exposing the egregious behavior of O’s admin for the last 8 years (I am sure most of that will come out anyway)
They aren’t even exposing egregious behavior on the part of the Trump administration. I mean, I don’t really give a fuck about anything that’s been leaked.
I know it’s getting kinda self-congratulatory, but aren’t these discussions so much more danged civilized than at the old place?
Just sayin’
This is what Reason used to be like before the Trump coverage.
Dear god no, I remember the wayback times when Palin stalked the earth. PDS was almost as bad.
I don’t mind “salty”. I can get as saline as the next guy. It was the insanity, although I have to blame part of that on the articles; looking back, it seems even more to me that we were being thrown tainted ideological articles, just to set us off.
The R-place was always on my reading list, but I’m more of a Samizdata.net guy who prefers long-form pieces, and I think I’d pigeonholed the R-place into the MST3K of libertarian thought, except Tom Servo owned a functioning flamethrower, and Joel was a Bircher.
Anyway – just indulging my sense of awe.
Carry on.
I’ve seen it get salty at times, but it usually only lasts for a few posts, not entire threads.
The notable absence of a few select posters from the Auld Country makes all the difference.
I’d add in the notable absence of bone-crushingly stupid posts, which tend to rile people up.
Quite right, I should have added that in as well.
If the old place were to exile a few select posters to an island somewhere, I might be willing to go back.
The only person I’d ban would be Addition Myth/Dajjal who simply floods the comment section.
I have a far bigger issue with Reason carrying out dishonest, hypocritical, and disingenuous hit pieces and their willingness to waffle or host writers who at least waffle on pretty core libertarian shit.
So, for instance, the series of articles that attacked Milo really pissed me off. They weren’t a one time thing, either. It’s not about loving Milo, either. It was just sickening and dishonest on so many levels. And it corresponded with things like Shikha’s insane tweets. Hell, Richman is even back from what appeared to be a hiatus.
Say what you want about Richman, at least his columns tend to actually be coherent libertarian arguments. Yes, he’s dramatic and his foreign policy analysis is terrible, but his other work isn’t that bad. Dalmia is consistently terrible.
The Milo stuff was execrable. Even factoring out my appreciation of masterful trolling, and the fact that Milo is tactically “on our side” at the moment in many of his positions, the articles were a redefining moment for me.
He’s almost a living, breathing libertarian purity test, given that his position on muslim immigration is one that we as a group are divided over. So much of what was written about Milo could have been replaced with some content that would have elevated the pieces out of the sub-sophomoric stuff we were fed.
Replaced with content like a certain Heroic Mulatto article, you mean.
TL;CRATM, but I promise I will.
Don’t mean to belittle your efforts but you’re not even a credentialled journalist, and you have the nerve to pump out something like that? I’m sure there’s a law ….
OK, couldn’t resist.
Excellent article, bring new information and new analysis to the subject. For the less informed, I would have pointed out that the Iron Cross predates and is independent of Naziism, its use as a military decoration predating Hitler’s birth by decades, and was awarded first during Prussia’s conflict with another dictator, Napoleon, the first award being to Queen Louise of Prussia,
Thailand
*Ponders blind link from HM, passes*
No offense, but “Thailand” and “HM” is not a combo I will roll the dice on at work.
You owe it to yourself to see an example of excellent parenting.
*Hovers over link, copies and emails to secure account*
OK, I’ll give it a go when I’m in my safe space.
Reality or viral marketing for Leon: The Professional Part 2?
It’d have to be an undead/zombie mashup, wouldn’t it?
He can appear in dream sequences as grownup Natalie Portman tries to live her ordinary life as a housewife.
Zombie Gary Oldman sez “Hi!”
Cool story. Great example of a youngster learning a trade from a parent.
I wonder how much she’d charge me for a trigger and sear job on this WWII 1911 I have here ….
Had to check if that wasn’t OMWC posting a euphemism…
“The pint-sized pig-tailed youngster can dismantle, clean and reassemble the arms with incredible precision that normally takes decades to master.”
*facepalm*
Guns are mysterious, magical, complicated things to a journalist.
Well, a lot of US military personnel never seem to event attempt to master it. Lemme tell you about an M9 surplus gun I bought one time … blah blah blah …
event == even
OT: Dilbert explains how to persuade skeptics to stop worrying and love the climate change.
An excerpt: “Anyway, to me it seems brutally wrong to call skeptics on climate science “anti-science” when all they want is for science to make its case in a way that doesn’t look exactly like a financial scam.* Is that asking a lot?
People ask me why I keep writing on this topic. My interest is the psychology around it, and the persuasion game on both sides. And it seems to me that climate scientists are the Hillary Clinton of scientists. They think facts and reason will persuade the public. Even though science knows that doesn’t generally work.”
I have a lot of issues with the notion that climate zealots and progressives use facts and reason. In the case of climate in particular, the issue isn’t that the public has been fed too much bland facts and reasonable arguments, but the opposite. They’ve been fed so much hysteria and ridiculous predictions (many of which have not come to pass) that they’ve tuned it out. I’d argue that these people were already engaging in the sort of hysterical ranting ‘Dilbert’ is speaking of here. But he misses a key difference between Trump and climate change hysterics. The shit Trump says? The average American has a connection to it. They don’t give a shit about the hyperbole or if he’s wrong on key facts because it feels right to them. It matches up with how they feel about their everyday life and what they observe. Climate change? Not so much. It’s an issue for the disconnected and wealthy progressive elite.
It’s also an issue for scientists who view data and the scientific method in the same way lawyers are meant to view evidence and the legal process.
I hope we do better than that- lawyers are NOT supposed to try to publicly poke holes in and expose the weak points of their own arguments. Good scientists ALWAYS do.
So much this^ And I don’t see that happening in climate research.
I am vaguely recall a comment by Einstein. Something to the effect of, as soon as he finalized his theory of relativity, he immediately set about to prove it wrong.
My inept phrasing – I was attempting to convey the concept that there’s content (data/evidence), PLUS a subject-specific process with an underlying rationale which laymen should be able to trust from the specialists – even if the laymen don’t appreciate the details of how that process works.
FWIW, and IANAL, I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all for a lawyer to challenge the weak points in their own arguments in their own chambers, and correspondingly, I don’t see any reason why a scientist publishing a paper needs to point out deficiencies in their own model. What has happened in the last 50 years is that for some “scientific disciplines”, the participants become outraged when any deficiencies are pointed out.
In law, that’s called “another day at the courthouse”.
Any ethical scientist will absolutely point out the weak points in their arguments. Competent ethical scientists will try to design experiments to prove themselves wrong.
Here is a great explanation of that concept.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all for a lawyer to challenge the weak points in their own arguments in their own chambers, and correspondingly, I don’t see any reason why a scientist publishing a paper needs to point out deficiencies in their own model
Interesting. Both lawyers and scientists are both supposed to engaged in a process that discovers the truth. Lawyers use an adversarial process, where there are two sides that attack each other’s “truth”. But, lawyers are only looking for the truth in order to achieve a particular outcome for a particular person. The truth is one element of a final decision that also includes the law.
Science isn’t looking for a particular outcome after the truth is filtered through the law. Science is just looking for the truth and isn’t really an adversarial process in the sense that there are two competing sides, each trying to produce a particular outcome, so I think scientists should be publicly self-critical in a way that lawyers aren’t
The quasi-religious nature of the ‘culture’ around environmentalism tends to be the big thing that turns everyone off, or at least smell a scam. The repeated calls of the end of the world that don’t come to pass, the obvious original sin concept behind the entire popular movement, the demands to accept doctrine unquestioningly and the smears of ‘heretic!’ if you do challenge it, the only solution being to surrender as much power as you can to the people in charge, etc.
The broader argument isn’t “here’s some data that indicates the planet is warming, and it may be a product of human activity, so we should work to find energy solutions that negate the problem, I suggest nuclear and natural gas to reduce emissions”, it’s “REPENT, FOR YOUR SINS ARE DAMAGING MOTHER GAIA, ONLY THROUGH PENANCE AND GRANTING US CONTROL WILL WE BE ABLE TO STOP THIS DISASTER.”
ExFUCKENcactly.
Look at how, if I may add, they react whenever there’s good news about climate not being as dire as they claim.
You forgot all the people who demand we do something IMMEDIATELY about global warning and then fly off in a private jet halfway around the world so they could get their nails done by their manicurist who they also had flown in a separate private jet.
The comment section is hilariously choc full of cultist.
Also, is he actually a libertarian or do people just call anyone that uses logic to critique progressive shiboleths that?
Oh, it’d be hard to label Adams “libertarian” without laughing so hard you’d cough up your lungs.
From what I remember of his political commentary (which he has largely avoided for the last decade and even then, tended to be pretty gentle reproofs) he’d be most comfortable in a Bill Clinton America. He may have changed, but I’ve seen no comments from him that would indicate a change of heart.
The saving grace is that it seems as though he realizes that having a “political stance” will simply drive off subscribers and that “taking sides” is a game for idiots.
I can’t believe no-one cited “Yes, Minister”, which provides the definitive take on this issue (as on so many others.) To wit :
I give off the record briefings to selected journalists.
You leak.
He is in violation of the Official Secrets Act.