I’m familiar with Kerry Thornly from Adam Curtis’ film Can’t Get You Out of My Head, where it’s made pretty clear that Thornly suffers from pretty severe paranoia in his later life, and succumbed to the very same wild conspiracies he unwittingly created as a parody earlier in life in Playboy magazine. I would actually point to him as a prime example of what Sagan was warning against. To go down that road earnestly, in my experience, leads only to an endless spinning of wheels, no conclusions, and a very confusing self-delusion with no useful end in sight.
I think it’s good that Thornly and RAW were anti-authoritarian and leaned toward Anarchism, but their mental states and delusions are far too offputting for me to give them any significant merit. I’ve lived in that world before where reality is based on fantasy and not hard fact, and it did me no good, only harm.
To each their own then, I find a lot of value in the things uncovered by the four of them, specifically Greg Hill. I myself think reality is too vast for anyone to grasp completely and point to RAWs illustrations about the contrast between our scientific understanding of general relativity and quantum mechanics. Which to my knowledge are irreconcilable but are what we observe the universe to be. Those lenses are both useful but don’t describe the full truth of how the universe works by themselves.
Seriously you and I are not going to agree here. I do wish you the best. But could never agree with your rigid understanding of reality
RAWs illustrations about the contrast between our scientific understanding of general relativity and quantum mechanics. Which to my knowledge are irreconcilable but are what we observe the universe to be. Those lenses are both useful but don’t describe the full truth of how the universe works by themselves.
That just shows our understanding is not complete, and more investigation is necessary. The entire field of scientific inquiry is to give us a more filled in understanding of what the universe is, in terms that are able to be universally understood and built upon. Richard Feynman gives a wonderful response to that point.
Edit: just to address your critiques, you can make any ideology or worldview into eugenics without much effort. ‘Maybe logic’ doesn’t encourage it any more than any other ideology.
I would argue a worldview that lets an individual consider any point of view or theory to be plausible or correct, regardless of hard evidence, is more able to construct a justification for eugenics to be a worthwhile endeavour, compared to a worldview that is able to take a hard stance against it due material and historical evidence demonstrating its extreme harm and lack of humanity, and dismiss it entirely.
And I just find it hilarious that my original criticism was that it was a waste of time to criticize astrology, which you never addressed in your comment back that undoubtedly took away a lot of your time
I responded by asking who or what determines what is or is not a waste of time. I fundamentally disagree that it is a waste of time. I would also say that this conversation was fruitful, as it provides a good contrast between our points of view for any third party reading along.
Seriously you and I are not going to agree here. I do wish you the best. But could never agree with your rigid understanding of reality
I’m familiar with Kerry Thornly from Adam Curtis’ film Can’t Get You Out of My Head, where it’s made pretty clear that Thornly suffers from pretty severe paranoia in his later life, and succumbed to the very same wild conspiracies he unwittingly created as a parody earlier in life in Playboy magazine. I would actually point to him as a prime example of what Sagan was warning against. To go down that road earnestly, in my experience, leads only to an endless spinning of wheels, no conclusions, and a very confusing self-delusion with no useful end in sight.
I think it’s good that Thornly and RAW were anti-authoritarian and leaned toward Anarchism, but their mental states and delusions are far too offputting for me to give them any significant merit. I’ve lived in that world before where reality is based on fantasy and not hard fact, and it did me no good, only harm.
To each their own then, I find a lot of value in the things uncovered by the four of them, specifically Greg Hill. I myself think reality is too vast for anyone to grasp completely and point to RAWs illustrations about the contrast between our scientific understanding of general relativity and quantum mechanics. Which to my knowledge are irreconcilable but are what we observe the universe to be. Those lenses are both useful but don’t describe the full truth of how the universe works by themselves.
Seriously you and I are not going to agree here. I do wish you the best. But could never agree with your rigid understanding of reality
That just shows our understanding is not complete, and more investigation is necessary. The entire field of scientific inquiry is to give us a more filled in understanding of what the universe is, in terms that are able to be universally understood and built upon. Richard Feynman gives a wonderful response to that point.
I would argue a worldview that lets an individual consider any point of view or theory to be plausible or correct, regardless of hard evidence, is more able to construct a justification for eugenics to be a worthwhile endeavour, compared to a worldview that is able to take a hard stance against it due material and historical evidence demonstrating its extreme harm and lack of humanity, and dismiss it entirely.
I responded by asking who or what determines what is or is not a waste of time. I fundamentally disagree that it is a waste of time. I would also say that this conversation was fruitful, as it provides a good contrast between our points of view for any third party reading along.
I wish you the best as well.