The questioning of big issues has been driven into the domain of cranks and crackpots : https://sites.google.com/site/lonniecourtneyclay/home/tc5526ataoldotcom
Psst! Hey buddy, want to go insane? LOLOL LOLOL Let's talk about the deterioration of *society* over the past 50 years due to television then computers. Actually, it has been declining ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution, having reached its height in Victorian times. Some would even say that the mental capabilities have been declining ever since the middle ages when the printing press was invented. Let's look forward in a quick whirl from before the printing press up to now. 1) Everybody had to *remember* important things, if they knew them. It took a *long* time to write things down, and besides - who would read it? People talked talked talked, about anything and everything. There were oral histories. News was passed from town to town by minstrels, gaining embellishments along the way. Not much was known in the way of technology, but we used the heck out of what we knew. Loyalty to family, relatives, home town, district, nation, mankind, God was practiced, not necessarily in that order. People were, as a general rule relatively selfless in the sense that to be known as "greedy" was a pejorative. 2) The printing press was invented, people started to learn how to read, being taught by their relatives. Centers of "learning" started to pop up outside of the religious enclaves. To be a person of letters became the hallmark of achievement. To be illiterate was to be known as stupid, regardless of how well a person could remember. Craftsmanship bloomed, along with trades and mechanical arts. 3) The industrial age began, with commerce being ruled by oligarchical elites who owned corporations and private enterprise. Power shifted from those who had held it by monarchial tradition to those who could find the "main chance" and exploit it. Guilds died out, being replaced by unions, and eventually mass production was the dominant means of production. People leaned how to do their jobs by reading manuals of instruction and the master-apprentice relationships withered. Not that learning to do a job was particularly difficult, with everything becoming rote and specialized. 4) Radio, movies, and television were invented, displacing with entertainments those hours of time outside the workplace where people once gathered together in public places or read books, newspapers etc. Computers were invented to begin the grand project of automating jobs out of existence. Personal computers were invented, permitting usage of computer power by the technologically incompetent through standard packages of software. The insidious infection of minds by computer gaming began, competing with literature, music, and movies for attention. 5) The internet was invented and blossomed, permitting people to really get rolling online with web sites, UseNet and Google groups, then Blogs. Nobody had to learn how to use a computer anymore, we had gadgets and GUI interfaces, so numbskulls could use computers as effectively as savvy folks. Having blossomed as an art before the invention of personal computers, computer programming skills withered away, being replaced by web design. Nobody needed logic to think about solving problems, because they just needed to point and click and text each other on computers or cellphones. 6) Guess what? The art of cursive writing is almost extinct, manual writing with pencil or pen on paper is dying. Now you have ipads, ipods, iphones, GPS, PCs, peak oil, and the oil price is driving the economy worldwide into the pits. Green is "good", smokestacks are "bad", nuclear power is anathema, solar is economically unviable, wind power is blossoming, tidal power hasn't been tapped, hydroelectric power is tapped out. Everything is electronic. Nobody knows anything without looking it up in a manual anymore. Nobody knows how to remember things except a select few self chosen or those mentored by them. Nobody knows how to learn except those who studied specially or who had conscientious parents. 7) See boy wizard Harry Potter waving his hands. Guess what happens if (for example) eight EMP devices are set off in low earth orbit to take out all electronics and crash civilization on Earth? Renaissance man arises. Wizards rule! What's *your* contingency plan? Lonnie Courtney Clay (The Wizard Of Arlington) p.s. I'm not making threats, just predicting. On Monday, June 27, 2011 12:20:29 PM UTC-7, archytas wrote: > > Around the world economics is in disarray. Most of the west is being > told it must face austerity and cut and sell its public sector to the > NuPolitburo of the filthy rich. China zooms ahead - except it has > built 64 million apartments no one lives in - including 12 ghost > cities. Deng has shades of Mao and is inflating GDP with a housing > bubble. > > It's obvious the world needs to change. Human beings don't think much > and much of what we think up to feel superior to animals turns out to > be rot. We even find syntax in bird song. We now know that human > decision-making is not rational and there are good reasons to believe > over-focus on the rational does not produce Mr Spock but psychopaths. > > I looked at the exams our 15-16 year olds do at school recently - in > the UK these are called GCSEs. Even the higher level is drivel and I > find it hard to fell right about incarcerating our young for this > crude testing over 11 years. The hack-drivel of university is no > better. I sometimes witness intelligent people being taught by idiots > with the answer book. > > We lack an epistemology of 'things this big'. What we once called > bildung is now just a dreadful burden in what seems a freezing moral > climate as bad as Soviet Paradise (and there still is Sino Paradise) > or that of other vile imperialism. I don't mean to raise the Gulags > and various genocides of long history other than in wondering if the > same underlying crap with its more cuddly modern face is driving the > same old society of despair. > > Lonnie talked of the game of exchanging 'names' in discussion on Kant > - I happen to think this wrong when trying to get at what might matter > for realist or other epistemology, but he undoubtedly has a point. > Intellectuals are bought off or bought up very easily in our economic > systems. Many of the conferences I attended were just places for us > to talk and let our hair down instead of teaching the rot expected of > us. They became Lonnie's Game with food and exotic locations. > > How can 'cuts' be an answer to anything when there is so much that > needs doing? I understand the muck about the private sector cavalry > rushing in - but this is drivel on any empirical basis. Centralising > authority tends to raise Soviet Paradise, Mao's 'great leap forward' > and the like, but I believe there is 'another Politburo' that is > stopping progress towards a more decent society. > > How do I explain this to people who struggle conceptually much beyond > accepting the word 'moon' when I point at it? Most argument burns out > in the exasperation of having to say that, say, "realism" isn't the > easy target they think it is. After that comes collapse into > standard varieties of character assassination like being accused of > being a commie because you can distinguish between Harpo and Groucho. > > My question is 'where is the epistemology of big issues'? I'd > appreciate any answers - my own suspicion is that the data is obscured > as surely as some turd telling you Ratners' gold is ethically mined is > lying. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/epistemology/-/eaZ5XQOkPnIJ. To post to this group, send email to epistemology@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to epistemology+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.
