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+1
Agreed.
What a shame we get exploited by both sides of the methodological divide (roughly speaking, on one side the method of science versus the method of intuition). Some examples: Science being exploited by corporate interests to prop up an industry that sells people drugs that they don’t need and can be harmful for them. And on the other side, a whole whole host of charlatans and snake oil merchants who would happily sell you some crystal healing or aura healing when they haven’t a clue about it and just want to make some money.
If only science could not be corrupted. If only our intuition could not be so closed minded.
Ideas are powerful, and as this video shows they can blind you. It’s a tall ask to hope that everyone will rationally filter their beliefs and understanding of reality. Emotions can be really toxic and misleading, helping to prop up defensive attitudes to faulty ideas. We’re virtually swimming in a sea of emotional chaos, and it seems that only some of the time we can reach a virtuous and clear emotional state that allows us time and space for deep, well thought out consideration of our beliefs. Most of the time we’re just dealing with the pressures of the world, the pressures of our own dramas, reaping what we’re sowing - it’s often sheer luck that we have a moment where we go ‘aha!’ and throw out a dud idea.
I guess I wish us all best of luck.
Correction: Technology is being exploited. Science, not so much. Technology is the end result of our scientific endeavours… science is simply the tool we used to discover how to get there. The scientific method is simply a means of reducing bias errors by corroborating one’s findings, based on physical evidence, with other people who have performed the same repeatable experiments… as it simply strives to purify our understanding of the world (and the universe) it’s a pretty hard system to “exploit”, which is why it’s so effective in producing such wonderful (and sometimes nasty) technologies.
That’s the problem when you give MDs the ability to prescribe any kind of drug. Psychiatric drugs should only be prescribed by a psychiatrist, and they should be under stricter regulations than they are. Painkillers should only be prescribed by a pharmacist. I will agree that drugs (and other technologies) are often abused, but as science is only a tool to better understand the universe, its principles (mainly, the philosophies behind the scientific method) should really be learned by everyone, even non-scientists, in order to best filter out misinformation from charlatans. With the principles of methodical logic and objective reasoning, and a grasp of rudimentary knowledge research methods, one can easily filter enough information to make a decision for themselves whether or not they require certain medications if the information from their doctors is not convincing enough.
I think the most important thing to take away from this is as follows: Don’t make rash decisions based on an overemotional or overzealous sense of optimism or pessimism… instead, take the time to weigh all your options, and asses risks as thoroughly and objectively as possible. Jumping the gun is the #1 way to leave yourself open to exploitation.
Last, but not least: Being skeptical to the point of blindly ignoring everything as if it's all an attempt at exploitation is just as closed minded as letting everything flow in freely. I state freely that I have a huge issue with postmodernism in this regard, because as a philosophy, it's highly paranoid that there's no possible way of knowing what's universally (at least in a human/earthly sense) true that it instantly disregards everything that proclaims to shed any light on the universe as bullshit, without even investigating the claims further. It disregards the idea that collectively, we have more of a chance of objectivity than singularly..... and decides instead that the only way to proceed is by ignoring everyone else's opinions and trusting one's own senses entirely, even if there's a chance they're faulty... thus ignoring things like hallucinations and such. I'm not sure how this reconciles with neuroscience, but I'm sure the average postmodernist doesn't care what neuroscience has to say.... as that's just yet another "grand narrative" that scientists apparently collectively pull out of their asses at the same time. What this says about physical evidence is beyond me.Either way, point being: Unless you don’t trust that you’re currently staring at a digital display reading text that’s posted on the internet, physical evidence is the way to go, and other people backing up the same physical evidence reduces bias errors… thus science rules. Technology, on the other hand, can be endlessly abused. Personal opinions on the nature of the universe are cheap… they’re a dime a dozen, and relatively meaningless if they don’t corroborate with what we know to be true of the physical universe.
By the same token one could say religion has never been exploited for nefarious purposes, because unless it teaches you to be humble and honest, it’s not religion. And that would be true, I’m not saying what you said is wrong, just that in practice… it kinda is, since we often easily swallow as scientific what isn’t. When someone says a study has shown X, where X is something we’d like to believe, we tend to not spend months doublechecking it, and might repeat it in a random conversation later on. Not as FACT, in all caps, but still as something that influences us, something we influence ourselves with. And just like people felt safe with Religion because it’s by definition good, people feel safe with random snippets which have been handed down to them out of the mist because they’re scientific.
The goodness of true science (and I’m not being sarcastic) is just no good when 99% of all people never come into contact with it. I mean, just thinking back to some antics on these forums and the way people twist stuff that’s in black and white on the intarwebs data highways, really, LOL. Science is only as good as the character of the people doing/receiving it.
Robert Anton Wilson on Jack Parsons - Pt. 1
Robert Anton Wilson on Jack Parsons - Pt. 2
Edit: Robert Anton Wilson on Jack Parsons parts 3 to 4 + more on Jack Parsons http://www.youtube.com/user/Cybervue
Ooooh yay… L Ron Hubbard’s magickal partner. Great find. cough
I laughed, out loud.
My intent was to extend the video you originally posted,
because the first video accounts for two or more general entities who have opposing or somewhat agreeable views,
not singular paradoxical figures who have left their mark in science history.
It would have been interesting to see multiple outside observations on how a singular paradoxial figure gets his or her result without any initial maps to start his or her journey.
Perhaps I should of taken my time to search for a better example other than Jack Parsons.
Its unfortunate that my eagerness to post without additional notes, intended for open interpretation, caused an adverse reaction in your part.
I apologize for that and anything I may have done in the past that might of have pissed you off one way or the other.
the problem with videos like the opening one is that they try to convince irrational people with rational arguments; not that it would be possible to convince them with irrational arguments actually…
O.o
I’m not getting angry… YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M NOT ANGRY 
ahh ok, the cough confused me… i should have taken it as a joke between Hubbard and Parsons.