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politics and all that jazz



Conspiracy culture & the anti-science agenda

1/7/2020

0 Comments

 
Are you contributing to the anti-intellectualism and anti-science movements?
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These movements are gaining power, my friends.
Not just among right-wing fundamentalist Christians in the US either... but also among many lefty well-meaning people from hippy or alternative backgrounds. I don't presume that any amount of writing or reasoning or evidence will ever be able to change the minds of the kind of right-wing Trump supporting Christians in the south of US, and this article is not directed at them. But I do believe that some of my hippy-leaning friends are still open to changing their minds, if presented with the right information.

​And so I keep trying.

One of things I hear a lot from lefty-liberal folk (who tend not to be tertiary educated) is that we should just respect all points of view, and that the way to fight the misinformation war is simply to be kind and not to try to be right. A lot of good-hearted people are baffled by the confusing array of different points of view that gets, shoved at them and their instinctive reaction is "how can both sides be right when they are both claiming scientific backing"? They come away from conflicting media reports feeling like the only way forward is to just accept that everyone has their own perspective and that's okay. They say "let people have their own whacky views - it's not harming anyone! By trying to refute people and tell them they're wrong you are just contributing to all the hate and division out there."
While this is an entirely understandable perspective to come away with, I don't think it's a helpful one.  I actually think the fact that so many lefties think like this, is one of the reasons we have the current misinformation maelstrom.

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The more we take a back seat, as lefties, and sit on the "pacifist" fence, refusing to stand up for facts, the more we are in effect  enabling the right wing anti-science agenda, which relies on the spirit of anti-intellectualism and the degeneration of the education system for its propagation.
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In order to successfully challenge power structures, you need to be able to think and discriminate between what's real and what's not. In order to develop systems that can solve problems, you need education, and you need verified data to work with. A tertiary degree provides you with a set of tools - in the Arts where you get to study things like philosophy, critical thinking, communications, anthropology, political discourse, social science, and in the Sciences, where you learn all about the rigours of the scientific method and data analysis. Among other things, you learn how to carry out effective research, analyse statistics, critique conceptual frameworks, question politic rhetoric, and understand the dynamics of historical polemics and inherent power systems and how they manifest. Education really does make a massive difference when you are presented with an enormous amount of conflicting information (as we are these days). It does help you to discriminate between bullshit and genuine facts. It arms you with a way to articulate forms of resistance to the power structures that are out there. When you don't have an education, no matter how intuitively smart you may be, you just haven't had the same kind of training in how to organise and evaluate narratives of truth. Sure, there are some very bright hippies out there who have taught themselves these skills - and cudos to them! But there are also many hippies out there who think they have taught themselves these skills, when in actual fact they have just been reading a plethora of echo chamber sites on the internet.

It is no wonder, then, that conservative governments consider a tertiary educated population to be a threat to them.  This is not something new. In almost every fascist or tyrannical regime, the intellectuals are the first to be exiled or killed and education is always stifled.  Trump is a great example of someone who is innately anti-intellectual. He pays no regard to truth whatsoever. He sneers at any journalist who attempts to present him with any kind of intelligent analyses or challenge. He is the champion of the uneducated and is King in a realm where truth, intellectual rigour, and the difference between bullshit platitudes and verified data, all means nothing. The Murdoch media empire is another example of where those in positions of great power know that the more ignorant the masses, the more their power goes unchallenged.. You can see this in action in Australia, with the defunding of the ABC and the Arts and the decrease in academic standards in Australian universities.  These trends are direct political manoevres to keep the population as helpless pawns in a game where the uber rich and powerful stay uber rich and powerful, because the people are too stupid to be able to understand what is going on and to challenge it.
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The Misinformation war is real

So to all my lefty, alternative, soft-hearted friends you need to unequivocally understand that the less educated we are as a population, the more vulnerable we are to fake news, and the more we are able to be manipulated by political forces who are only out to hoodwink us and who couldn't give a shit about our best interests.


So every time you say that all opinions are equal, and that someone with a tertiary degree shouldn't have any more authority than anyone who can read the internet - you are literally playing into the hands of people like Trump and Murdoch, and you are actively supporting their agenda.

The misinformation war is not some harmless problem we should be tolerant of. It's a really serious, destructive problem - socially, politically and environmentally.  Just look at the climate-change denial machine and the impact of that on our future survival as a species.  Look at the power of the Murdoch media empire and its capacity to manipulate the democratic process. Look at the power of social media sites to persuade people to side with specific political agendas. You can see the combined effect of these forces very clearly in what is happening in the US at the moment.
​Fake news and misinformation are actually winning the fight.
This is really serious. It could not only mean the end of democracy, but also the end of our species.

Being able to get a good education is something we should still cherish. If our society gives up on educating its people and encourages the notion that bullshit information is as valuable as hard- fought-for scientific data, then you have what's going on in the US: people who think wearing a mask is the devils work, who think climate change is a hoax, who think black people are inferior and who think Trump is a messiah. Ignorance is incredibly destructive and dangerous. Women like me stopped being burnt as witches because of education.

And please don't give me that bollocks that "knowledge without wisdom and compassion is only a tool for hate"... of course it would be great if we all had wisdom and fierce compassion too! But knowledge IS the gateway to developing genuine compassion and wisdom. Compassion without knowledge is idiot-compassion. It achieves nothing.  
You can try hugging someone who's coming at you with a pitchfork or a gun...you can try hugging someone who refuses to wear a mask to protect you from covid... you can try hugging people who are tearing down forests because they don't understand the link between trees and climate charge...good luck with that!
It's a fact - the less educated people are, the more irrational, bigoted, intolerant, hateful, violent and war-mongering they are.  You can try remedying that with  love and compassion. I'm not sure how far you will get with that alone.  But if you add education to that mix, you can really start to change these kinds of views from the ground up.
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Fierce compassion is not only about understanding and caring, it's also about taking action with a sharp, clear mind.  Helping people discriminate between truth and bullshit IS a way to protect wisdom and can be genuinely coming from a place of fierce compassion. It's not about being right. It's about trying to save a dying planet and a dying society. Standing up for education and scientific method and valid data goes hand in hand with standing up for compassion, truth and peace and a viable future. In fact,  research suggests that there is a strong connection between people who have higher empathy and liberal lefty progressive political views.
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​How anti-intellectualism fuels conspiracy theories

I have so many friends who buy into conspiracy theories - such as the evils of 5G and anti-vaccination.  I cannot count the number of times I have been sent what friends consider "verified research" to support their alarmist views, where that "research" is nothing but links to discredited new-age websites full of pseudo-science bollocks. This is why scientific research, or academic research is entirely different from random internet "research". Valid data matters. The scientific method matters. Peer review matters. All of these things have been put in place in academic institutions over the centuries for the very purpose of differentiating between data we can rely on, and data we can't rely on.  The scientific method is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. It’s the best system we have for analysing the nature of phenomena and how it functions. It’s not mere conjecture. It’s the result of a lot of hard work and an admirable collective attempt to differentiate between that which is empirically cognizable and that which isn’t; between the way things validly function and the way they don’t. All of the technology we rely on every day, is founded on hard work done by people dedicated to championing that distinction.

If we say the scientific method of establishing empirical truth is of no more value than people’s own uneducated florid beliefs then you do end up with a situation where people think the earth is flat and ignore any attempt by anyone else to prove otherwise. Truth does matter – if you want a functioning society and technology that works.

The ravings of someone who has no tools to evaluate empirical data should not be given the same credence as a scientist who has spent a lifetime studying and testing how phenomena works. In the same way that someone who knows how to bang a triangle should not be given the same respect as a symphonic orchestra soloist… or a Byron Bay hippie who has delved momentarily and superficially into the power of crystals should not be given the same credence as a hermit who has spent a lifetime studying and experiencing the elaborate complexity of the nature of mind. It is important to differentiate between utterly false “truths” and tried and tested truths. Expertise, knowledge and understanding does make a difference.

Mere belief shouldn’t have the same status as scientific facts. When it does, you get the kind of situation we are in now - where people like Trump or climate-change-denying evangelical Christians have a lot of power and make decisions that have devastating consequences for the planet. If anti-vaxers had their way the world would be rife again with polio, smallpox, tetanus etc and if antibiotics weren't around life-expectancy would be reduced to 35 again.

I’m not saying science is a perfect methodology or that it holds all the truths or that it’s infallible. And I’m also not saying it can’t be used to do terrible things to humanity and to the planet…especially when it is institutionalised and enmeshed in a capitalist, materialistic political narrative. I think it does need to be made more inseparable from altruistic intention and a wider philosophical framework that distinguishes between benefit and harm.

I also think there are large areas where science has not yet made much progress – such as in examining the nature of consciousness, or in establishing what happens after death, or in deconstructing subjective experience and challenging the mind’s habitual ways of projecting reality, or in understanding the importance and power of intangible things like poetry, music, love, silence and the importance of our relationship to nature as a whole. And yes - I guess in these areas, one’s own experience and belief system and the wisdom of certain philosophical analytic traditions is all we have. But that doesn’t mean we get to throw all the progress science has made so far out the window.

Yes – it’s a constantly evolving method – but it’s also the source of an amazing, wonderful, rich tradition of knowledge about the material world we live in that has had enormous benefits in areas such as health, material comfort, and understanding the building blocks of this world. The logic and method it’s based on should be respected.

​Once we stop valuing this - we get the situation we are in now - where lefty new age alternative kind of people are actually actively peddling conspiracy theories and contributing to the anti-science agenda and anti-intellectualism of the conservative far-right.

And so against this background - let's have a closer look at the 5G conspiracy.

Is 5G going to give us all cancer?

Firstly, please understand that when you spread hype about 5G giving us cancer, what you are doing is EXACTLY the same as the anti-science, right-wing Republican fundamentalist idiots who deny that there is such a thing as climate change.
You are both basically undermining the validity of science, turning conspiracy theories into "facts" and taking crucial time and energy away from the real problems that actually exist that need our attention. You are both contributing to exactly the same devastating increase in ignorance in the world.

Even the most hard core anti-science new age hippy would have to agree that on the whole, science has done a pretty good job so far in figuring out how phenomena works. It has given you your car, your electricity, your fridge, your clean drinking water,  your healthcare, your mobile phone, your flights overseas, your LCD screen, your sound system, and the source of so many problems - the internet itself. You rely on these things working every day - but perhaps you don't think too much about the incredible amount of science and research that has gone into making these things work.  The scientific method is not perfect or full-proof, but it's cured a shit-load of diseases, flown people to the moon, given you your modern life-style that provides the basis of almost everything you do and use. So let's not overlook or take for granted the incredible strides science has made working out the nature of things like cells, atoms, sound waves, light waves, force, speed, chemical reactions, and anatomy.

Of course there's still a lot of stuff science doesn't know and hasn't figured out.
But the functioning of the electromagnetic spectrum is not one of them.
So for us non-scientists - let's educate ourselves.

The electromagnetic spectrum and radiation.

Firstly, I think a lot of non-scientifically trained anti-5G people have this fuzzy notion that "radiation" is some special inherently kind of destructive energy that is always bad for you and that it is somehow different from "normal" energy. There's this bizarre misconception that radiation is "toxic" - whereas energy that occurs naturally is "pure".

This is a total fallacy.
In actual fact it's all the same energy.
Energy is the property that must be transferred to an object in order to perform work on, or to heat, the object. 
Radiation is the transmission of that energy via waves or particles. 

All electromagnetic waves -  from wifi waves, to heat waves, to light waves to ultraviolet waves to ionizing waves - are all the exact same energy just travelling at a different frequency with different wavelengths. The longer the wavelength and lower frequency, the lower the amount of energy coming at you. It takes high energy waves to penetrate the skin. 

Radiation is everywhere... it just depends on the force and power (wavelength and frequency) of how it hits you that determines whether it can damage you or not. And light that you can see and heat that you can feel are waves that have much more force (a much higher frequency) and potential to harm you than wifi waves. In fact the waves coming off a banana are more "radioactive" than the waves coming from your phone...(ie. the waves of energy emitted from a banana are of a higher frequency and shorter wavelength and hit you with more force).

That's all "radiation" is. It's wavelength and frequency of energy that can be measured and observed and replicated to see what it can or cannot travel through/ impact etc. It's not inherently toxic or bad juju in any way.

So in the electromagnetic spectrum there are two kinds of radiation: (see picture below)
  1. ionizing radiation; and
  2. non-ionizing radiation. 

Only IONIZING radiation can produce enough energy to break apart the chemical bonds of DNA and cause cancer. 
The sun is an example of ionizing radiation that can cause cancer. So are X-rays. 

Non-ionizing radiation has lower frequencies and bigger wavelengths. It doesn't produce enough energy to even penetrate the skin!  Things such as Wi-Fi routers, airport security scanners, mobile phones and visible daylight are all examples of non-ionizing radiation.


Because we can't see radiation or wifi waves  and we don't understand how it works, we think it must be extra bad.
But the energy you can see or feel such as sunlight, or the heat coming off your own body, are all much higher/ stronger radiation waves than the waves coming off your phone or from wifi. 
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The microwave and millimeter wavelength radiation that 5G will use, is non-ionizing and doesn't produce the kind of energy that directly damages cells.
The reason microwaves can cook food is because the waves in a microwave get transformed into heat energy through being powered by thousands of watts which just happen to make water molecules move fast ... which creates heat.
But  the waves that wifi, microwaves and mobile phones give off aren't even close to the part of the electromagnetic spectrum of radiation that can cause cancer.
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Ionizing radioactive waves in things such as xrays and sunlight are capable of causing cancer because they have a certain wavelength and very high frequency which enables them to penetrate the skin and break DNA chains.
The non-ionizing very low energy wavelength and frequency of wifi simply cannot do this.​
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Learn more about how it works here:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/is-5g-safe-for-humans-heres-what-scientific-consensus-says.html?fbclid=IwAR0UuVyEPcoQSjpp8taqVAhrI5m3u-99j11Us-uRY-LvLXAUaRZoQrYpPWU

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Owning a television or travelling by aeroplane gives you a much higher dose of radiation than years of mobile phone use ever could.
The only possible way wi-fi technology could negatively impact your health is by possibly increasing inflammation in a minor way (through oxidative stress)... but so many things do this - in fact almost everything we eat and do in the modern age causes an increase in inflammation!
You are much more statistically likely to die in a car crash than by any medical effect of radiation from mobile phones or wi-fi.
Cars are really dangerous. they are thousands of times more unsafe than wifi.

Yet people have no qualms about driving in cars.
There's a total illogicality there!

In fact, worrying about things like 5G just distracts us from the things we really should be worrying about - such as global warming and climate change - which have truly terrifying ramifications for the world, all humans and our health.
We should be concentrating our energy on problems that are actually real and imminent, don't you think?

The whole 5G scare started as a result of one doctor posting a graph that completely got the radiation scale wrong. It has become a big conspiracy theory but isn't based on verified science.
You can read about it here:
https://www.nytimes.com/…/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/…/here-are-the-true-radiation-d…/
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/5g-health-risks-concerns
https://www.realclearscience.com/…/is_5g_wireless_dangerous…

Now I can hear many of my hippie friends saying "but there are things that science thought were harmless which later on were discovered to be really harmful... so how do you know wifi isn't one of those? And isn't it better to be safe than sorry?"
There are a lot of you out there who think that, right?
Sure.
There is a small possibility that at some point in the future they may discover some form of energy unlike any other energy in the world that maybe wifi has something to do with. There's a very small possibility that could happen. But that could also happen with absolutely anything!!

There is just as much chance for electricity, or petrol engines, or tar, or the internet itself to have some undiscovered property that might turn out to be harmful 50 years down the track. So why pick on wifi?
Don't you think it is more sensible to actually focus on the things that we know are harmful right now?
Like sunlight, fast food, excess sugar, alcohol, smoking, stress - all these things have been proven to cause cancer.
Or like pandemics and viruses.
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Many of my friends say: "look what happened with tobacco. Everyone thought it was harmless and the scientists only discovered it caused cancer when it was too late". But that's not what happened. If anything, the history of tobacco supports my argument. It was the anti-science lobbyists that tried to suppress the evidence and scientific research that said tobacco was dangerous. It wasn't the scientists who were lying, it was the tobacco companies who were trying to pretend the science wasn't reliable. The same thing is happening with climate change now. 
But this is totally different from people saying that 5G or vaccines are dangerous - where the scientists are the ones saying very clearly that they are not!
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The Anti-vaxxer conspiracy

Similar to 5G alarmism is the anti-vaccination movement.

Vaccines work by stimulating the body’s natural defence mechanisms against infection. These defence mechanisms are collectively referred to as the immune system. Vaccines mimic and sometimes improve on the protective response normally mounted by the immune system after an actual infection. The great advantage of immunisation over natural infections is that immunisation has a much lower risk of adverse outcomes.
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​​The anti-vaccination movement was started by a quack doctor called Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield used to be a doctor until he was disgraced and forced out of the profession for making stuff up with no scientific data to back it up. He published an article in a medical journal  stating that he had discovered a link between autism and vaccines.
​And then:

"After years of controversy and making parents mistrust vaccines, along with collecting $674,000 from lawyers who would benefit from suing vaccine makers, it was discovered he had made the whole thing up. The Lancet publicly apologized and reported that further investigation led to the discovery that he had fabricated everything.
In the intervening years, millions have been spent on studying this further to see if there was anything that could connect autism and vaccines. This is what they found: "
https://www.upworthy.com/20-years-ago-a-doctor-published-a-study-it-was-completely-made-up-and-it-made-us-all-sicker

Wakefield's claims were falsified and based on unverified pseudo-science methods that were shown to be utterly bogus.
He has since then made an enormous amount of profit form his claims and caused a whole lot of grief in the world.
Since Wakefield first spread such  claims about, there have been many independent studies about links to autism etc and not a single one has shown any causal link between the two.  In addition to this Andrew Wakefield is a renowned Trump supporter and is doing his very best to undermine the authentic scientific establishment, thereby contributing to the far right anti-science fundamental christian agenda is in itself a very clear warning sign about the politics and ignorance that lies at the basis of his claims. 
Yet despite this, people still listen to him.
And even worse, people also listen to Dr Mercola who took Wakefield's claims and made them even bigger.

​(read about him here) Dr Mercola is as much a fraud and millionarie conman as Wakefield. Please never take anything that either of these men or their acolytes say as being anything to do with truth or science backed "evidence". These men are charlatan quacks who are using you and your fear and ignorance to make money and spread anti-science hysteria.

I just recently had a dear friend send me a link to Wakefied's recent film Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe  as evidence that vaccines are unsafe. This film is nothing but a harmful blend of misinformation  and yet people are still watching it and believing the false claims in it and using it as fuel  for their alarmism. I find it utterly extraordinary and bewildering that people still use material put out there by Wakefield - a renowned  conman and charlatan - as "evidence" to support the anti-vaxxer movement.
 The very fact that the VAXXED film has this as their video description: "Your Mother has ALL the anibodies in her , that put there BY God himself , that you will ever need YOU DO NOT NEED TO VACCINATE YOUNG OR OLD FOLKS !!" must surely make you think twice about believing anything it says?
Even hippies surely know enough science to realise that our mother's milk certainly does not contain antibiodies to every disease. Only to the ones she has been in contact with. Every child has to develop their own immune system from exposure to diseases.... otherwise how do you think diseases like smallpox or polio ever spread in the first place?
For those of you who are watching this film and spreading it around - know that you are propagating information that has been shown to be false by loads of experts in the field, you are directly undermining the validity of the scientific method for discerning between what is true and not true.

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Vaccines, without a doubt, have benefited humanity enormously and saved the lives of literally millions of people. It's such a bizarre thing that they are been focused on and demonised in this way.  Vaccines have eradicated horrific diseases such as smallpox, tetanus, polio etc which used to kill millions of people. Even from a layperson's perspective when you actually understand what a vaccination does (mimics an illness so the body develops its own immune response) and when you see the undeniable enormous benefits to the world that vaccines have brought - I simply cannot understand why this kind of myth has gained as much ground as it has. 

Of course, like most things,  vaccines aren't 100% safe. There is some risk and a very small percentage of the population can have adverse effects  But vaccines are rigorously tested and monitored and are among the safest medical products we use. Millions of vaccinations are given to children and adults around the world each year. Serious adverse reactions are rare. However, because of the high volume of use, coincidental adverse events including deaths, that are temporally associated with vaccination, do occur. When death occurs shortly following vaccination, loved ones and others might naturally question whether it was related to vaccination. A large body of evidence supports the safety of vaccines, and multiple studies and scientific reviews have found no association between vaccination and deaths except in rare cases. 

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The only potentially harmful ingredient in vaccines used to be Thimerosal, which has since been removed from all vaccines for children since 2001. Numerous independent studies and tests have been carried out by reputable scientists to ensure their safety. 
(Click here to see the ingredients of vaccinations and the effect of each ingredient).

But again getting in a car, an airplane, exposing yourself to sunlight, or even crossing a busy road are all far more dnagerous than vaccination could ever be. And the benefits vaccination brings far, far outweighs any risk factors.

So please let's stop deomising vaccines! It's not some kind of black magic or part of some malevolent global conspiracy of mind control ... it' one of the greatest medical achievements in history!

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So anyway PLEASE don't contribute to the anti-science, fake"facts" camp. It's not useful.

Do your research properly.
​Don't visit or share links from websites that are obviously new age or propagating conspiracy theories... (do you have any idea how much money they make of you every time you click and share?)

Science does need to do a better job at getting the message out and at educating people. But social media and people who are carelessly anti-education make that job really hard. Unfortunately social media and clickbait trends mean that we're often all existing in echo chambers and only see what affirms our own biases.
But we need to support and help the expert scientists out there not undermine their good work.
Contrary to what you might think - most scientists are not in the pocket of big business. 
There are so many independent incredibly smart scientists out there doing independent research. 
Of course there are pharmaceutical companies that have put profit ahead of benefiting humans - all companies do this. That's the crazy capitalist system we are in. But to assert that all the academic researchers, medical profession and scientists are in their pockets is just ridiculous.  ​All the scientists I know are actively trying to find solutions to real problems - they're trying to help the environment, trying to advocate for climate change action and trying to make progress in areas like medicine. They're not the enemy. It's people pretending to be scientists (who have been utterly discredited by all their peers for fraudulent behaviour) that we need to be concerned about and take what they say with a grain of salt, don't you think? Listen to real scientists instead and learn how shit actually works.

Conspiracy theories  also presuppose a level of international political secret collaboration that just doesn't exist. The world is an incredibly volatile chaotic place and nobody is in control. Bill Gates is not controlling the world. The only companies really exerting influence on world events are the media moguls like Murdoch and the social media giants like facebook. They are the only powers that be that you really need to be worried about and trying to fight. Because they are actively undermining our democratic process and don't care about the truth at all. They care only about manipulating people so they can get richer and more powerful and absolutely ruin the planet. They are actively trying to undermine science and all the progress we have made in working out methods to prove things that are actually real.

If they win, any charlatan will be able to come up with outrageous claims and convince people that what they are saying is true and get millions of clicks and make millions of dollars and undermine all the good work done by serious experts in trying to do things like develop medicine that can save millions of lives.


So you need to know you are in cahoots with a very cold, cynical, right wing force when you support this kind of movement.
​It pretends to be anti-establishment and radical... but it's not. It's actually just geared to undermine knowledge and education. Because ignorance and fear combined will always benefit right wing governments. And all they're interested in is money and greed and ruining the planet in the name of fundamental Christianity. It breaks my heart when I see my friends helping them do that.
It's such a waste of peoples' energy and anxiety when there are very real and pressing problems we could all be finding solutions for.

So let's dismantle the capitalist share-holder-profit-tyrannical system instead! Let's demand massive taxes for large corporations and demand stronger transnational corporation regulation!
Also let's make sure our children get a really good science education as well as a really good ethical, compassionate outlook.  Then we can all start working together to fix the shit that actually needs our dire attention and make the world a better place.
Scientists and hippies together. ☺️


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Dogmas and Scapegoats - blame and blameability

17/1/2015

1 Comment

 
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I have a lot of atheist friends who enjoy tossing around opinions about how religion is to blame for much of the warfare, terrorism and violence in the world.

(“They’ve all got imaginary deities and kill for their beliefs”… said one friend recently in her hasty critique of Buddhism, citing the Burmese oppression of the Rohingya people, as an example of the “long and bloody” history of Buddhists. “Buddhism is not a religion of peace” she protested.)

However, I beg to differ. Frankly, the notion that religious indoctrination is responsible for most of the heinous acts of political repression and violence in history, is short-sighted and misguided.


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For one, it ignores the obvious truth that there have been many more wars and acts of genocide perpetuated due to territory disputes and economic and political power struggles, than due to religion.

And secondly, it ignores the fact that the genuine, original teachings by the founders of the major religions are usually completely distinguishable from the manifestation of the institutionalization of that religion. Why is this? This is because human beings appropriate ideologies and manipulate the tenants of religion to suit their very secular, political and economic interests. There is a very big difference between a religion authentically practiced by a devoted individual, and a religion usurped by political or military leaders, or terrorists, who simply bend the religion to whatever suits their agenda. The difference between the "religious" practice St Francis of Assisi and the Borgia Pope Alexander VI is gargantuan and one should not be judged by the other.  Yes – religion has been used as an excuse to commit atrocities the world over. There is no denying that. But whether the religion in question actually advocates harm done to others in its name, is a totally separate question and should be treated as such, if we wish to avoid being bigoted and uninformed.

Thirdly, it ignores the greater political, socio-economic and historical factors that play a huge role in driving any kind of “religious” warfare. For instance, it would be careless not to consider the greater context influencing the Algerian gunmen brothers at Charlie Hebdo, such as the atrocious history of France’s oppressive relations with Algeria. It would be sloppy, not to take a moment to understand the greater context influencing many of the terrorist acts committed in the name of Islam – such as the deplorable treatment of Palestinians by Israel and the fact that the western world does nothing about innocent Muslim children being killed in their beds, yet with barefaced hypocrisy doesn’t hesitate to go to war in Iraq, when its oil interests are being threatened. Or the incredible disparity of wealth and power in the process of globalisation that leaves developing countries exploited and ravaged by poverty and famine, while the west squanders away the world’s resources and lives blithely at a level of luxury that is simply unsustainable and completely unsharable.


These factors (and many more) are key to understanding the brewing discontent and escalating violence that we are seeing from the Muslim world. The religious factor in this discontent provides a unifying force and a sense of identity and some sort of external justification, but is religion the real issue? Are the underlying historical (and secular), political and economic factors a more prominent cause? These are questions that we should be asking to understand the historical complexity of global cause and effect and to appreciate our role in the bigger picture. With this kind of perspective you might well ask yourself, the next time you go and buy a second laptop or another new car, could capitalism and global inequality be as much to blame for war and terrorism as religion?


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The fact that human beings are very good at distorting philosophies (whether religious, political or sociological) to fit into secular, disturbing, and sometimes diabolical, political schemas is nothing new. It is accepted that Trotsky’s socialism has very little in common with its manifestation as the fanatical brutality of Stalin, Pol pot or Mao. These three atheist despots between them, were responsible for the massacre of over 100 million people, as well as the decimation of three exceedingly rich cultures. In all three cases, religion played no part as an inspiration to the horrors these men wrought; political theory did. A political theory that specifically rejected religion. A political theory that started out as an antidote to injustice and inequality.  Wouldn't it be narrow-minded to blame Lenin or Marx for the actions of these totalitarian tyrants and the particular way they distorted communist discourse to suit their ends?

The point is that any charismatic madman can take a perfectly good ideology, manipulate it until it is a mere shell (or even travesty) of itself, and use it to justify horrific violence in the process of achieving ultimate power, economic wealth, or the unchecked rampage of racial vendetta. Hitler did this. Jean Kambanda did this. Idi Amin did this. A number of catholic Popes did this. ISIS does this. George Bush did this. These are all men driven by greed, or megalomania, or unfettered sadism who would bend whatever ideology happened to be available to them, to manipulate the masses and carry out their own despicable agendas. These are not men acting from religious inspiration. These are men driven by very worldly, very human, and very secular motivations.
And an important thing to keep in mind is that the seed of those motivations is in all of us – religious folk or atheists alike. The capacity to be selfish, greedy, to enjoy power and wealth, to indulge an “us and them” kind of attitude, are all infinitely human characteristics. When these traits are left to grow unchecked and given an opportunity to express themselves in someone with a position of power, they can become tyrannical, cruel and bloodthirsty. That is what enables people to hate and harm and slaughter others who view the world differently from them; these same tendencies that we all have, but in an unrestrained context. The irony is that all of the major religions in the world were actually instigated by extraordinary pacifists who were trying specifically to address these tendencies in human beings and transform them.

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Of course some religions lend themselves to variants of interpretation more than others. There is no denying that Islam with its notion of jihad is not the most peaceful of religions. The Quran has some very inflammatory verses that can easily be interpreted by fundamentalists to condone the random killing of infidels. However, many Muslims (such as the Ahmadiyya and Sufi sects) only interpret the Quran as being a book of love and peace, and claim those verses have esoteric meanings and not a literal one. They say the real Jihad is fought inside one's soul to control negative instincts. They say Muhammad only considered taking up arms as an absolute last resort if it was necessary to defend religious freedom. Interpretation is the deciding factor, and that changes over time.

 Religions have their core values, their non-negotiable truths, but they also surround themselves with many stories not essential to the message. Any religion that exists over long eras absorbs many of the ideas and beliefs of the community in which it finds itself, and reflects those in its writings. Over time, thinkers and theologians reject or underplay those doctrines and texts that contradict the underlying principles of the faith as it develops.

Yes, Sharia law is sexist and violent compared with the European rule of law, yet sharia law has changed over time and has been largely shaped by changes in Islamic society. A patriarchal society with a history of bloody territorial conflicts. Is it any wonder that the interpretation of their religion is shaped by and reflects these (secular) factors?

The Bible also has some pretty violent sentiments in it, especially in the old testament. Yet the gist of Jesus’ teachings is uncontroversial -  do good, love thy neighbor as thyself and to turn the other cheek. His creed was all about overcoming hatred and greed with love and charity and forgiveness. The fact that his words and actions have been institutionalized as various churches and at times used as an excuse to do the exact opposite of what he preached, is not Jesus’ fault. It is not the fault of Christianity per se, that Catholic priests enjoy sexually exploiting young boys. It is the fault of peoples’ tendency throughout history to turn everything into a grab for power, wealth and gratification at the cost of others, under the guise of religion or ideology or ethnic identity, or whatever it happens to be.

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In fact, is quite astounding  - our capacity to turn even the antidote into the problem. It is the one constant throughout history – in pre-Christian Roman times (see the Gracchi brothers for example), in post-Christian times, in the crusades (which were actually a political grab for trading routes and land and wealth and had very little to do with religion), during the reformation, and especially over the last 200 years. As the bard said long ago – “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Human beings have been violent, factional and blood thirsty since beginningless time, whether or not they believed in a god, or many gods, or no gods at all.

To blame religion for the existence of this tendency is, frankly, utterly absurd. The seeds for our repeated history, like I said, lie within each of us, no matter what we believe. And no amount of scientific rationalism will provide humankind with the antidote to this. In fact, a Darwinian view can be seen to advocate for the natural prevalence of such characteristics even more, with its survival of the fittest law. Nature is violent and cruel and the survival of the fittest instinct ensures there will always be an “us and them” attitude inherent in us, which ensures we place ourselves and our kin’s wellbeing and survival ahead of any “others”.

Religion is not responsible for this instinct, (although it may reflect this instinct in the way it gets institutionalised). In fact, religions, such as Christianity and Buddhism, have attempted (and largely been completely unsuccessful, I might add) to interrupt this natural order and to inject a completely un-natural, and some would say more evolved, consciousness into human society. They have introduced the extraordinary notion of caring for others, no matter what colour or creed, more than for yourself.
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  The Buddha, in particular, taught that no human being is worth more than any other. That we all have the potential to break free from our habitual tendencies and that we are not necessarily bound by our dog-eat-dog experience of the world. He taught that we are all responsible for our own perceptions and that they can be changed through examining and deconstructing how we have been indoctrinated to relate to phenomena. He taught that through cultivating love and altruism to the point that our love for all beings is unlimited and our notion of self is no longer something we have to protect, we become completely harmless. The Buddha taught the Buddhist path as a complete antidote to violence, greed, hate and aggression. There is absolutely nothing in the teachings of the Buddha which could possibly be used to advocate harming others. His entire doctrine revolves around not harming others and discovering how to benefit all sentient beings instead.  Since the whole thrust of the Buddhist teachings is to eliminate the notion of “us and them” completely, in a deep experiential way, and to cultivate empathy and compassion to the point of becoming nothing but love and awareness (which is essentially what enlightenment is), how could Buddhism justify killing or harming or oppressing others?

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The fact that some so-called Theravadin Buddhist countries have been subjected to political regimes which have slaughtered non-buddhist people, or the fact that there exist plenty of corruption and power struggles in many “Buddhist” monasteries, is yet again an example of the secular play of power and politics under the guise of religion. Such historical episodes have nothing to do with the authentic teachings of the Buddha. Buddhism is nothing other than a religion of peace. The societies in which Buddhism has flourished and been shaped, however, are full of instances of so-called "buddhists"  committing acts of violence and aggression for socio-economical and political reasons. To judge all Buddhists by the behaviour of some people (who may wear the robes and shave their head, yet who couldn’t be further away from embodying or practicing the actual teachings of the Buddha), is illogical and myopic. It would be ridiculous to blame all atheists and say their belief in scientific rationalism is inherently flawed and harmful, simply because people like Nazi war criminals, or Ted Bundy, or Mussolini, or Kim-Jong II, who happen to be atheists, also happen to be sadistic sociopaths.

The Buddha taught different levels of teaching in accordance with the differing capacity of beings. This, and the differing cultural milieu of the time and place in which it flourished, has meant the kinds of Buddhism that exist in the world have different flavours and emphasies. In the Theravadin tradition the emphasis is on discipline, morality and meditation. In Mahayana Buddhism the emphasis is on Bodhicitta (compassion and selfless altruism) and recognizing the compounded nature of phenomena. In Vajrayana Buddhism, the emphasis is on an all-embracive approach to transform all of phenomena into a means for developing insight and loving kindness. Theravadin Buddhism has historically been quite sexist and strict and women are considered inferior to men. In Vajrayana Buddhism, by contrast, it is said that the women are superior to men in their capacity for enlightenment and there are numerous female Buddhas as inspiring examples. However these different kinds of “buddhism” manifest is entirely dependent on the nature of the culture it flourished in, and the time in history.

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Religions and ideologies are shaped and influenced by the characteristics of the society they develop in.  Sometimes the so-called tenants of the religion have more to do with the social mores of the time, than with the genuine words and teachings of the religion’s founder. Both the Koran and the Bible were written after their instigators passed away. It takes dedication and study and the right motivation to separate the pith of the religion from the cultural artifacts. The key to this is education and authenticity of the teaching lineage. When these are missing, a religion can become a hodgepodge of contradictory elements. The trick is to go back to the original purpose of the teachings and have enough discrimination to recognize the essence from the chaff. And the original purpose of most religions is to provide a transformative antidote to the troubles and torment of the world and to bring about peace and ultimate happiness.

I know many atheists who are wonderful, loving, kind, compassionate human beings and who have identical goals to the religious people I know. They derive for themselves some meaning from their atheism or rational scientific creed that enables them to seek to improve themselves, to engender empathy and care for others, in furtherance of a more peaceful world. Whatever ideological means they use to do this, is commendable. In the same way, the essential teachings of the major religions are just as commendable, for attempting to achieve this and go against the tide of human folly. The only difference in the two is that the major religions have been institutionalized over history into becoming forces that achieve the opposite of their intention – due to the secular appropriation of the ideology and its distortion through the machinations of the pursuit of political and economic power.

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So to all you atheists who blame religion for the corruption, war and terror around you, I say, look inside yourselves. For you have the causes for both altruism and selfishness within you. The battle between these two is played out whether you are “religious” or an “atheist.” The outer ideological garb or cultural association is irrelevant. You are either an unwitting pawn in the endless repetitive history of bloodshed and prejudice, or you can decide to take responsibility to do something completely different and cultivate the antidote to the mess, deep within yourself. This is all the Buddha was trying to get us to do. Whether you call yourself a Buddhist or an atheist, the Buddha couldn’t care less about such labels! If you are trying to cultivate the antidote to hate and ignorance inside yourself in a genuine and daring way, then you are actually more of a genuine Buddhist than anyone who wears robes and thinks it’s okay to kill, torture or harm others.

What we need to do is prioritize the quest for self-knowledge recognize the labyrinth of preconceptions and prejudices within us – that feeling that we are right and everyone else is wrong. For it is only in understanding the root cause of human aggression and stupidity, and taking responsibility for that seed within ourselves, that we can develop the humility, empathy and perspective necessary to effectively apply an antidote and protect it from the dangers of appropriation and distortion.

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hebdo and media hypocracy

12/1/2015

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Great article by Rabbi Michael Lerner which reminds us of an important perspective on this brutal tragedy.


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Mourning the Parisian Journalists Yet Noticing the Hypocrisy
As the editor of a progressive Jewish and interfaith magazine that has often articulated views that have prompted condemnation from both Right and Left, I had good reason to be scared by the murders of fellow journalists in Paris. Having won the 2014 "Magazine of the Year" Award from the Religion Newswriters Association, and having been critical of Hamas' attempts to bomb Israeli cities this past summer (even while being equally critical of Israel's rampage against civilians in Gaza), I have good reason to worry if this prominence raises the chances of being a target for Islamic extremists.

But then again, I had to wonder about the way the massacre in Paris is being depicted and framed by the Western media as a horrendous threat to Western civilization, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, I wondered about the over-heated nature of this description. It didn't take me long to understand how problematic that framing really is.

When right-wing "pro-Israel" fanatics frequently sent me death threats, physically attacked my house and painted on the gates statements about me being "a Nazi" or "a self-hating Jew," and called in bomb threats to Tikkun, the magazine I edit, there was no attention given to this by the media, no cries of "our civilization depends on freedom of the press" or demands to hunt down those involved (the FBI and police received our complaints, but never reported back to us about what they were doing to protect us or find the assailants).

Nor was the mainstream or Jewish media particularly concerned about Western civilization being destroyed or freedom of thought and association undermined when various universities denied tenure to professors who had made statements critical of Israel, or when the Hillel association, which operates a chain of student-oriented "Hillel Houses" on college campuses, decided to ban from their premises any Jews who were part of Jewish Voices for Peace. Nor was the media much interested in a bomb that went off outside the NAACP's Colorado Springs headquarters the same day as they were highlighting the attack in Paris. Colorado Springs is home to some of the most extreme right-wing activists. It was a balding white man who was seen setting the bomb, some reports claim, and so the media described it as an act of a troubled "lone individual," rather than as a white right wing Christian fundamentalist terrorist. Few Americans have even heard of this incident.

And when the horrific assassinations of 12 media people and the wounding of another 12 media workers resulted in justifiable outrage around the world, did you ever wonder why there wasn't an equal outrage at the tens of thousands of innocent civilians killed by the American intervention in Iraq or the over a million civilians killed by the U.S. in Vietnam, or why President Obama refused to bring to justice the CIA torturers of mostly Muslim prisoners, thereby de facto giving future torturers the message that they need not even be sorry for their deeds (indeed, former Vice President Cheney boldly asserted he would order that kind of torture again without thinking twice)?

So don't be surprised if people around the world, while condemning the despicable acts of the murderers in Paris and grieving for their families and friends, remain a bit cynical about the media-circus surrounding this particular outrage while the Western media quickly forgets the equally despicable acts of systematic murder and torture that Western countries have been involved in. Or perhaps a bit less convinced that Western societies are really the best hope for civilization when they condone this kind of hypocrisy, rather than responding equally forcefully to all such actions repressing free speech or freedom of assembly. I could easily imagine (and regret) how some Islamist fundamentalists will already be making these points about the ethical inconsistencies of Western societies with their pomposity about human rights that never seem to constrain the self-described "enlightened democracies" from violating those rights when it is they who perceive themselves as under attack.

Yet there is a deeper level in which the discourse seems so misguided. As Tikkun editor-at-large Peter Gabel has pointed out, there is no recognition in the media of the dehumanizing way that so much of the media deals with whoever is the perceived threatening "other" of the day. That media was outraged at the attempt by some North Korean allied group to scare people away from watching a movie ridiculing and then planning to assassinate the current (immoral) ruler of Korea, never wondering how we'd respond if a similar movie had been made ridiculing and planning the assassination of an American president. Similarly, the media has refused to even consider what it would mean to a French Muslim, living among Muslims who are economically marginalized and portrayed as nothing but terrorists, their religious garb banned in public, their religion demeaned, to encounter a humor magazine that ridiculed the one thing that gives them some sense of community and higher purpose, namely Mohammed and the religion he founded.

To even raise this kind of question is to open oneself up to charges of not caring about the murdered or making excuses for the murderers. But neither charge is accurate. I fear those fundamentalist extremists just as much as I fear the Jewish extremists who have threatened my life and the Christian extremists who are now exercising power over the U.S. Congress. Every form of violence outrages and sickens me.

Yet the violence is an inevitable consequence of a world which systematically dehumanizes so many people who are made to feel powerless and despairing and deeply depressed about the possibility of finding the milk of human kindness anywhere. The representation of evil dominates the media, and becomes the justification for our own evil acts. And that evil is made possible because so many among us avert our eyes and shut our ears to the cries of the oppressed.

The U.N. estimates that some 10,000 children will die of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition today and every other day in 2015. 2.5 million live on less than $2 a day, 1.5 million on less that $1 a day. Every day thousands of young women are sold into prostitution or "voluntarily" join it in order to raise enough money to help feed their families. Tens of millions of others work in horrendous "sweat shop" conditions. When some of them and some who know about them and feel outraged turn to various forms of nationalist or religious fundamentalist extremism, their violent actions rightfully get condemned. But the silence at the violence that is structural and a pervasive consequence of the globalization of capital is rarely brought to anyone's attention.

All of us absorb this global reality into our unconscious, just as we absorb the violence, hatred, and demeaning of others. We tolerate the kind of endless put-downs that the "humor" magazines and even supposedly liberal comedians like Bill Maher perpetrate, not realizing how much damage all of this does to our souls. The spiritual consequences are all around us: people despairing of ever being understood by others, growing distrustful of others, and feeling that no one really can be trusted. A collective and global emotional depression makes so many people withdraw into themselves, sometimes in relatively harmless ways, but often in ways that undermine the possibility of any human community emerging that would be capable of dealing with the social and environmental problems that face the human race, thereby giving freedom for the global corporations and their hired guns in the media and politics to continue to run the world for their own narrow interests and without regard to the wellbeing of other people or the environment.

"But they ridicule everyone's religion, not just the Muslim's, so isn't that fair?​" we are reassured. But the reassurance isn't reassuring. That they ridicule everyone is exactly the problem -- the general cheapening and demeaning of others is destructive to everyone. But of course not equally destructive, because people who are already economically and socially marginalized are in far greater danger of having this demeaning sting rather than feel funny.

"And shouldn't free speech and individual human liberties be our highest value? This value that is put into danger if you ask for some kind of responsibility from comedians." Two responses: 1. No, individaul human liberties is not our highest value. Our highest value is treating human beings with love, kindness, generosity, respect and see them as embodiments of the holy, and treating the earth as sacred. Individual liberty is a strategy to promote this highest value, but when that liberty gets abused (as for example in demeaning women, African Americans, gays in public discourse) we often insist that the articulators of racism, sexism and homophobia be publicly humiliated (not shut down, but using our free speech to vigorously challenge theirs). 2. Free speech is not defeated when we use it to try to marginalize hateful or demeaning speech. So lets call demeaning speech, including demeaning humor, what it really is -- an assault on the dignity of human beings.

None of this is reason to stop mourning the horrific murders in Paris or to excuse it in any way. But it is reason to wonder why the media can never tell a more nuanced story of what is happening our world.


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Everyone needs to watch this

30/9/2014

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Until you watch this video, you may think you have an idea about wealth distribution in the United states and about how fucked up a capitalist society can be. But I promise you, watching this video will leave you more informed, more horrified and more blown away than you can imagine. It is essential viewing and needs to be shared around.
From Working America, uploaded by Upworthy.
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ban climate skeptics

1/9/2014

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Shutter stock/ Alpha Spirit
Reddits Science forum banned all climate change deniers.
How cool is that!
I think all newspapers should do the same.
But unfortunately the opposite is happening in Australia where the only official people allowed to go to the climate change meetings that matter are climate skeptics!
It's enough to make me scream.

Read about Reddit in an article by Nathan Allen here:

In addition to my career as a PhD chemist, I am one of a select few who enjoy the privilege of moderating content on reddit.com’s science forum. The science forum is a small part of reddit, but it nonetheless enjoys over 4 million subscribers. By comparison, that’s roughly twice the circulation of The New York Times.

The forum, known as /r/science, provides a digital space for discussions about recent, peer-reviewed scientific publications. This puts us (along with /r/AskScience) on the front line of the science-public interface. On our little page, scientists and nonscientists can connect through discussions on everything from subatomic particles to interstellar astrophysics.

As a moderator of this discussion, I’ve observed scientific discourse across a wide variety of disciplines. I consider it a microcosm, representative of the vast range of views that can be supported by empirical evidence. Importantly, it provides the same window for those who are not scientists, who do not regularly talk with PhDs, and who may be unfamiliar with how science is discussed by scientists. In essence, it is a window into the Ivory Tower.

Given that our users are mainly academics (and all are nerds), the discussion generally resembles any scientific debate. That is, there are always numerous links to peer-reviewed science to support positions, people don’t deliberately mislead or misrepresent content, and there is a basic level of respect shared regardless of position. When a user strays from such decorum, they are kindly warned and, if necessary, the comment is removed.

Some issues, however, are particularly contentious. While evolution and vaccines do have their detractors, no topic consistently evokes such rude, uninformed, and outspoken opinions as climate change.

Instead of the reasoned and civil conversations that arise in most threads, when it came to climate change the comment sections became a battleground. Rather than making thoughtful arguments based on peer-reviewed science to refute man-made climate change, contrarians immediately resorted to aggressive behaviors. On one side, deniers accused any of the hard-working scientists whose research supported and furthered our understanding of man-made climate change of being bought by “Big Green.” On the other side, deniers were frequently insulted and accused of being paid to comment on reddit by “Big Oil.”

After some time interacting with the regular denier posters, it became clear that they could not or would not improve their demeanor. These problematic users were not the common “internet trolls” looking to have a little fun upsetting people. Such users are practically the norm on reddit. These people were true believers, blind to the fact that their arguments were hopelessly flawed, the result of cherry-picked data and conspiratorial thinking. They had no idea that the smart-sounding talking points from their preferred climate blog were, even to a casual climate science observer, plainly wrong. They were completely enamored by the emotionally charged and rhetoric-based arguments of pundits on talk radio and Fox News.

As a scientist myself, it became clear to me that the contrarians were not capable of providing the science to support their “skepticism” on climate change. The evidence simply does not exist to justify continued denial that climate change is caused by humans and will be bad. There is always legitimate debate around the cutting edge of research, something we see regularly. But with climate change, science that has been established, constantly tested, and reaffirmed for decades was routinely called into question.

Over and over, solid peer-reviewed science was insulted as corrupt, while blog posts from fossil-fuel-funded groups were cited as objective fact. Worst of all, they didn’t even get the irony of quoting oil-funded blogs that called university scientists biased.

The end result was a disservice to science and to rational exploration, not to mention the scholarly audience we are proud to have cultivated. When 97 percent of climate scientists agree that man is changing the climate, we would hope the comments would at least acknowledge if not reflect such widespread consensus. Since that was not the case, we needed more than just an ad hoc approach to correct the situation.

The answer was found in the form of proactive moderation. About a year ago, we moderators became increasingly stringent with deniers. When a potentially controversial submission was posted, a warning would be issued stating the rules for comments (most importantly that your comment isn’t a conspiracy theory) and advising that further violations of the rules could result in the commenter being banned from the forum.

As expected, several users reacted strongly to this. As a site, reddit is passionately dedicated to free speech, so we expected considerable blowback. But the widespread outrage we feared never materialized, and the atmosphere greatly improved.

We discovered that the disruptive faction that bombarded climate change posts was actually substantially smaller than it had seemed. Just a small handful of people ran all of the most offensive accounts. What looked like a substantial group of objective skeptics to the outside observer was actually just a few bitter and biased posters with more opinions then evidence.

Negating the ability of this misguided group to post to the forum quickly resulted in a change in the culture within the comments. Where once there were personal insults and bitter accusations, there is now discussion of the relevant aspects of the research. Instead of (almost comically) paranoid and delusional conspiracy theories, we have knowledgeable users explaining complicated concepts to non-scientists who are simply interested in understanding the research. While we won’t claim /r/science is perfect, users seem happy with the changes made.

Like our commenters, professional climate change deniers have an outsized influence in the media and the public. And like our commenters, their rejection of climate science is not based on an accurate understanding of the science but on political preferences and personality. As moderators responsible for what millions of people see, we felt that to allow a handful of commenters to so purposefully mislead our audience was simply immoral.

So if a half-dozen volunteers can keep a page with more than 4 million users from being a microphone for the antiscientific, is it too much to ask for newspapers to police their own editorial pages as proficiently?

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Dr Seuss on why we need a double dissolution in Australia

28/8/2014

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August 22nd, 2014

22/8/2014

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the world's best president

21/8/2014

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Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president.

How damn cool is this guy!
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Here are ten reasons to love him - by Medea Banjamin
President José Mujica of Uruguay, a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there are no “just wars.” Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy. Here are 10 reasons you, too, should love President Mujica.

1. He lives simply and rejects the perks of the presidency. Mujica has refused to live at the Presidential Palace or have a motorcade. He lives in a one-bedroom house on his wife’s farm and drives a 1987 Volkswagen. “There have been years when I would have been happy just to have a mattress,” said Mujica, referring to his time in prison. He donates over 90% of his $12,000/month salary to charity so he makes the same as the average citizen in Uruguay. When called “the poorest president in the world,” Mujica says he is not poor. “A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more. I don’t live in poverty, I live in simplicity. There’s very little that I need to live.”

2. He supported the nation’s groundbreaking legalization of marijuana. “In no part of the world has repression of drug consumption brought results. It’s time to try something different,” Mujica said. So this year, Uruguay became the first country in the world to regulate the legal production, sale, and consumption of marijuana. The law allows individuals to grow a certain amount each year and the government controls the price of marijuana sold at pharmacies. The law requires consumers, sellers, and distributors to be licensed by the government. Uruguay’s experience aims to take the market away from the ruthless drug traffickers and treat drug addiction as a public health issue. Their experiment will have reverberations worldwide.

3. In August 2013, Mujica signed the bill making Uruguay the second nation in Latin America (after Argentina) to legalize gay marriage. He said that legalizing gay marriage is simply recognizing reality. “Not to legalize it would be unnecessary torture for some people,” he said. In recent years, Uruguay has also moved to allow adoption by gay couples and openly gay people to serve in the armed forces.

4. He’s not afraid to confront corporate abuses, as evidenced by the epic struggle his government is waging against the American tobacco giant Philip Morris. A former smoker, Mujica says that tobacco is a killer that needs to be brought under control. But Philip Morris is suing Uruguay for $25 million at the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes because of the country’s tough smoking laws that prohibit smoking in enclosed public spaces and require warning labels, including graphic images of the health effects. Uruguay is the first Latin American country and the fifth nation worldwide to implement a ban on smoking in enclosed public places. Philip Morris, the largest cigarette manufacturer in the United States, has huge global business interests (and a well-paid army of lawyers). Uruguay’s battle against the tobacco Goliath will also have global repercussions.

5. He supported the legalization of abortion in Uruguay (his predecessor had vetoed the bill). The law is very limited, compared to laws in the US and Europe. It allows abortions within the first 12 weeks of the pregnancy and requires women to meet with a panel of doctors and social workers on the risks and possible effects of an abortion. But this law is the most liberal abortion law in socially conservative, Catholic Latin America and is clearly a step in the right direction for women’s reproductive rights.

6. He’s an environmentalist trying to limit needless consumption. At the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, he criticized the model of development pushed by affluent societies. “We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction,” he said. He also recently rejected a joint energy project with Brazil that would have provided his country with cheap coal energy because of his concern for the environment.

7. He has focusing on redistributing his nation’s wealth, claiming that his administration has reduced poverty from 37% to 11%. “Businesses just want to increase their profits; it’s up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce,” he told businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce. “It’s no mystery–the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources.” His government’s redistributive policies include setting prices for essential commodities such as milk and providing free computers and education for every child.

8. He has offered to take detainees cleared for release from Guantanamo. Mujica has called the detention center at Guantanamo Bay a “disgrace” and insisted that Uruguay take responsibility to help close the facility. The proposal is unpopular in Uruguay, but Mujica, who was a political prisoner for 14 years, said he is “doing this for humanity.”

9. He is opposed to war and militarism. “The world spends $2 billion a minute on military spending,” he exclaimed in horror to the students at American University. “I used to think there were just, noble wars, but I don’t think that anymore,” said the former armed guerrilla. “Now I think the only solution is negotiations. The worst negotiation is better than the best war, and the only way to insure peace is to cultivate tolerance.”

10. He has an adorable three-legged dog, Manuela! Manuela lost a foot when Mujica accidentally ran over it with a tractor. Since then, Mujica and Manuela have been almost inseparable.

Mujica’s influence goes far beyond that of the leader of a tiny country of only 3 million people. In a world hungry for alternatives, the innovations that he and his colleagues are championing have put Uruguay on the map as one of the world’s most exciting experiments in creative, progressive governance.

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renewable energy - comparing countries

21/8/2014

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Norway, Sweden, and Portugal seem to be especially doing really well producing renewable energy for consumption. That's because their governments have invested heavily in developing solar, wind and hydro power.
For example, in January 2014, 91% of the monthly needed Portuguese electricity consumption was generated by renewable sources, although the real figure stands at 78%, as 14% was exported .
And in Australia we have a government who has just cut ALL funding to renewable energy development and research, and who, instead, has increased financial incentives for the fossil fuel and mining industry.
The Prime Minister Abbott would rather spend $12.4 billion on useless fighter jets, than invest for clean energy for the future, for our children.
This is disgraceful and so embarrassingly backward-thinking it leaves me (almost) speechless.

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perfect solution

20/8/2014

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