4 ms·

Am I the only one worried about the path the world is on? Fascism (or all-out nazism in Europe) on the rise, anti-intellectual and anti-press movements stirring

Am I the only one worried about the path the world is on? Fascism (or all-out nazism in Europe) on the rise, anti-intellectual and anti-press movements stirring, world leaders shunning science. It feels like we’re well on our way into a new dark age.

microcolonel 8y ago
Even if that's the case, which is not my impression, what does that have to do with this regulatory proposal?
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  >>... world leaders shunning science > what does that have to do with this regulatory proposal? Article's subtitle is: The agency’s proposed new rule would allow it to ignore the best available science
  - refurb 8y ago
    The best science available apparently needs to keep their raw data secret?
    - throwawayjava 8y ago
      Consider the following scenario. A chemical X is spilled in river. A sequence of very small towns with similar populations dot the river both up-stream down-stream. This is a dream setting for good science -- a true natural experiment with lots of genetic and environmental similarity between the groups in each small town, but radically different levels of exposure to X. Fast forward 10 years and researchers find that concentrations of X above some threshold N drastically increase the prevalence of birth defects. However, due to the size of the populations, researchers may not be able to publish their data and analysis publicly without de facto publishing almost complete de-anonymizable data. The scenario is not so hypothetical. The circumstances and particulars change, but this situation describes a lot of medical and environmental research. Should the EPA take the researcher's word? Maybe not. But there's a lot of workable middle ground in-between "blind trust" and "anyone with access to a library computer and a stats textbook can figure out participant 494 -- who math tells us can only possibly be Johnny D. of Smallsville, VA -- has testicular cancer". And the situation is even more difficult than this because de-anonymization is an active area of research with some surprisingly powerful results published in recent years; i.e., it is highly non-trivial to determine if a dataset is de-anonymizable. And the answer always depends on what data about a person's identity is publicly available, which especially in the age of annual massive data leaks change from year to year. So even if researchers don't think it's possible to de-anonymize study participants using today's mathematical tools and today's public datasets, they'll often choose to keep the dataset private just in case.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    Is science good (or "the best!") if the available data are not sufficient to verify the analysis? This is not a "world leader" doing anything that could be described as "shunning science".
    - vkou 8y ago
      I don't know. Is Newton's work worthless, because we no longer have access to the full set of raw data that he based it off? There are thousands of old studies for which the data is unavailable, incomplete, was lost, etc. Are you going to pay for all of them to be reproduced? Are you ready to give up penicillin? Surgeons washing their hands between operations? The links between tobacco and cancer? Every single medical advancement (Because patient confidentiality precludes the release of raw data that goes into medical studies)? I'm all for reproducibility, but this has enormous consequences.
jklinger410 8y ago
>Am I the only one worried about the path the world is on? No. >It feels like we’re well on our way into a new dark age. Bill Gates would probably disagree with you on that (http://bit.ly/2mg08wL http://bit.ly/2mg08wL)
- callalex 8y ago
  In the future please avoid using link shorteners (especially bit.ly). The links expire and tend to leave older forum threads full of frustrating link graveyards. In this case, the link points to https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Max-Roser-three-facts-everyone-should-know https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Max-Roser-three-facts...
adventured 8y ago
The world was approxiately 100 trillion times more bleak in the 1930s and 1940s. We weren't on our way to a new dark age then either. This is an extraordinary golden age by comparison. There are no world powers currently trying to kill each other, the biggest disputes are mostly between richer nations and about trade, and those disputes are trivial compared to the past. War is rare, famine is rare, food is relatively plentiful, as is global aid, vaccines, etc. Progress across nearly all fields of science and technology continues, rapidly so.
- 24gttghh 8y ago
  Every category you purport to be causes for celebration are presently reversing themselves the world over due to ignorant, nationalist, neo-fascist governments like the one systematically dismantling the EPA discussed in the article.
- fastbeef 8y ago
  Thank you, your words are very encouraging!
mhneu 8y ago
It's worrying. The groundwork was laid in the US starting in the 1970s. With the founding of Cato, Searle, Olin fnds. Murdoch bought the NY Post in 1976. Fairness doctrine was repealed in 1987 allowing Rush Limbaugh to go bigtime. Fox started in 1997.
- refurb 8y ago
  Apparently conservative equals fascism to you. That’s unfortunate.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    Just the authoritarian “conservative” movement that seeks to concentrate power. I am actually a conservative on many issues, including UBI, work rules, tariffs, caution when making new law and regulations, and appropriate pricing of risk. However the real conservative movement has been redirected as a way to link wealthy donors’ interests with identity politics, for votes. Part and parcel of that is a huge propaganda machine which spouts lies. That propaganda is corrupting the West and I am afraid for its effect on democracy and average people.

microcolonel 8y ago

Even if that's the case, which is not my impression, what does that have to do with this regulatory proposal?

throwawayjava 8y ago
>>... world leaders shunning science > what does that have to do with this regulatory proposal? Article's subtitle is: The agency’s proposed new rule would allow it to ignore the best available science
- refurb 8y ago
  The best science available apparently needs to keep their raw data secret?
  - throwawayjava 8y ago
    Consider the following scenario. A chemical X is spilled in river. A sequence of very small towns with similar populations dot the river both up-stream down-stream. This is a dream setting for good science -- a true natural experiment with lots of genetic and environmental similarity between the groups in each small town, but radically different levels of exposure to X. Fast forward 10 years and researchers find that concentrations of X above some threshold N drastically increase the prevalence of birth defects. However, due to the size of the populations, researchers may not be able to publish their data and analysis publicly without de facto publishing almost complete de-anonymizable data. The scenario is not so hypothetical. The circumstances and particulars change, but this situation describes a lot of medical and environmental research. Should the EPA take the researcher's word? Maybe not. But there's a lot of workable middle ground in-between "blind trust" and "anyone with access to a library computer and a stats textbook can figure out participant 494 -- who math tells us can only possibly be Johnny D. of Smallsville, VA -- has testicular cancer". And the situation is even more difficult than this because de-anonymization is an active area of research with some surprisingly powerful results published in recent years; i.e., it is highly non-trivial to determine if a dataset is de-anonymizable. And the answer always depends on what data about a person's identity is publicly available, which especially in the age of annual massive data leaks change from year to year. So even if researchers don't think it's possible to de-anonymize study participants using today's mathematical tools and today's public datasets, they'll often choose to keep the dataset private just in case.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  Is science good (or "the best!") if the available data are not sufficient to verify the analysis? This is not a "world leader" doing anything that could be described as "shunning science".
  - vkou 8y ago
    I don't know. Is Newton's work worthless, because we no longer have access to the full set of raw data that he based it off? There are thousands of old studies for which the data is unavailable, incomplete, was lost, etc. Are you going to pay for all of them to be reproduced? Are you ready to give up penicillin? Surgeons washing their hands between operations? The links between tobacco and cancer? Every single medical advancement (Because patient confidentiality precludes the release of raw data that goes into medical studies)? I'm all for reproducibility, but this has enormous consequences.

jklinger410 8y ago

>Am I the only one worried about the path the world is on? No. >It feels like we’re well on our way into a new dark age. Bill Gates would probably disagree with you on that (http://bit.ly/2mg08wL http://bit.ly/2mg08wL)

callalex 8y ago
In the future please avoid using link shorteners (especially bit.ly). The links expire and tend to leave older forum threads full of frustrating link graveyards. In this case, the link points to https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Max-Roser-three-facts-everyone-should-know https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Max-Roser-three-facts...

adventured 8y ago

The world was approxiately 100 trillion times more bleak in the 1930s and 1940s. We weren't on our way to a new dark age then either. This is an extraordinary golden age by comparison. There are no world powers currently trying to kill each other, the biggest disputes are mostly between richer nations and about trade, and those disputes are trivial compared to the past. War is rare, famine is rare, food is relatively plentiful, as is global aid, vaccines, etc. Progress across nearly all fields of science and technology continues, rapidly so.

24gttghh 8y ago
Every category you purport to be causes for celebration are presently reversing themselves the world over due to ignorant, nationalist, neo-fascist governments like the one systematically dismantling the EPA discussed in the article.
fastbeef 8y ago
Thank you, your words are very encouraging!

mhneu 8y ago

It's worrying. The groundwork was laid in the US starting in the 1970s. With the founding of Cato, Searle, Olin fnds. Murdoch bought the NY Post in 1976. Fairness doctrine was repealed in 1987 allowing Rush Limbaugh to go bigtime. Fox started in 1997.

refurb 8y ago
Apparently conservative equals fascism to you. That’s unfortunate.
- mhneu 8y ago
  Just the authoritarian “conservative” movement that seeks to concentrate power. I am actually a conservative on many issues, including UBI, work rules, tariffs, caution when making new law and regulations, and appropriate pricing of risk. However the real conservative movement has been redirected as a way to link wealthy donors’ interests with identity politics, for votes. Part and parcel of that is a huge propaganda machine which spouts lies. That propaganda is corrupting the West and I am afraid for its effect on democracy and average people.