Reason in our dark time

[Nearly Sane]

This is a good interview about the problems of dealing with the complexity of the world we have created.



http://tinyurl.com/zn4xl3m

[Walt Zingmatilder]

This is a good interview about the problems of dealing with the complexity of the world we have created.



http://tinyurl.com/zn4xl3m

Times might look less dark if he took those shades off.

[Nearly Sane]

Strangely just after posting the first link the next thing I read was this which echoes an amount of it but through the prism of Trump


http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/trump-the-first-demagogue-of-the-anthropocene/504134/

[Aruntraveller]

Strangely just after posting the first link the next thing I read was this which echoes an amount of it but through the prism of Trump


http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/10/trump-the-first-demagogue-of-the-anthropocene/504134/

What a good article NS. Thanks for posting. Will re-read later to take in more detail.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

Like Trent I will reread it, or maybe I will just watch an episode of Dads Army and listen to Frazier telling us "we are doomed, all doomed".

DJ: When it comes to climate change it’s all the usual barriers: greed, mendacity, ignorance, short-sightedness and so on, manifest in the extreme power of corporations, the weakness of government, and the indifference of citizens. But it’s also true that climate change is an unprecedented problem so it’s not surprising that it’s so difficult to address. Our traditional systems of decision-making are just not up to preventing changes in fundamental earth systems that are driven by a constant barrage of individually negligible emissions of an invisible, odorless gas, by billions of people all over the world.

Well I never!! Who would have thunk it does this mean I am a great philosopher But thank you old son, I will read it in greater depth later.

Gonnagle.

[Brownie]

I understood this bit:
One of the real dangers of our time is people’s indifference to history. Let’s just be blunt: People with long memories and a vivid sense of the past have an immediate understanding of politicians like Trump. They are not surprised by the behavior of Google, a corporation that notionally (until recently anyway) espoused the slogan “don’t be evil” and then runs over individual people and even entire nations in the pursuit of profit. Even our own discipline has become dehistoricised.‘

Will have to read it all again and look up a couple of words unfamiliar to me.
Interesting NS, you sure is a bod ! .

[Walter]

It sure was a lot of words. If you cant make your point in one paragraph.
I cant be bothered.

[Jack Knave]

I understood this bit:
One of the real dangers of our time is people’s indifference to history. Let’s just be blunt: People with long memories and a vivid sense of the past have an immediate understanding of politicians like Trump. They are not surprised by the behavior of Google, a corporation that notionally (until recently anyway) espoused the slogan “don’t be evil” and then runs over individual people and even entire nations in the pursuit of profit. Even our own discipline has become dehistoricised.‘

Will have to read it all again and look up a couple of words unfamiliar to me.
Interesting NS, you sure is a bod ! .

It is just people being people. They only have the experience they have had and so only have the wisdom that that provides or not as the case may be. This is why the USSR failed and why the EU will, soon. Those running it now have not the experience and fears of those who formed it. They follow rules that they don't really understand in their hearts.

[Nearly Sane]

It is just people being people. They only have the experience they have had and so only have the wisdom that that provides or not as the case may be. This is why the USSR failed and why the EU will, soon. Those running it now have not the experience and fears of those who formed it. They follow rules that they don't really understand in their hearts.

Which therefore being true for you means your statements are just the rules you are following?

[Jack Knave]

Which therefore being true for you means your statements are just the rules you are following?

Yes, based on my expansive experience of human nature.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, based on my expansive experience of human nature.

So therefore your point is a truism for you, and have the same value as everyone else, I.e. none

[floo]

Yes, based on my expansive experience of human nature.

But that doesn't mean your conclusions are the correct ones.

[Aruntraveller]

But that doesn't mean your conclusions are the correct ones.

Ah but maybe he's like you Floo.

Always right even when he is wrong. 

[torridon]

It is just people being people. They only have the experience they have had and so only have the wisdom that that provides or not as the case may be. This is why the USSR failed and why the EU will, soon. Those running it now have not the experience and fears of those who formed it. They follow rules that they don't really understand in their hearts.

which is why we need history and historians to remind us of the lessons of the past. Few of the voters in the Referendum had personal experience of world war in Europe and had lost sight of the rationale underpinning the need for unity in Europe.

[Jack Knave]

So therefore your point is a truism for you, and have the same value as everyone else, I.e. none

How can people use experiences, to guide their lives, that they have not had?

What I say is true, and shown to be true, because we see on TV things like Syria, say it's awful and then go down the pub for a laugh. We haven't lived through a war and so it doesn't really hit us in the way if we had. You can't learn (experience it) what it is like by being given an account of it personally, face to face, from someone who has lived through a war. The only way is to have lived through a war. This is just common sense.

[Jack Knave]

But that doesn't mean your conclusions are the correct ones.

See #14

[Jack Knave]

which is why we need history and historians to remind us of the lessons of the past.

See #14 to why history doesn't really help us with this.

Few of the voters in the Referendum had personal experience of world war in Europe and had lost sight of the rationale underpinning the need for unity in Europe.

Or the USSR and the madness of absolute power from an elite in some city called Brussels Moscow.