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Science. The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was
by fsloth 7y ago
Science.
The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground.
Materially, China could have come up with scientific progress for a thousand years, but they didn't, because they lacked the culture for open debate and expression of ideas.
No freedom of press, no cars.
That's the historical perspective.
Now, let's look into the future.
Do we want to stop the progress of science? If then, sure, there is no strong technocratic argument for freedom.
- unmole 7y ago> The only culture that ever begot science was the tradition of greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything, and that everyone was on the same playing ground. I'm sorry but this statement is extremely Eurocentric. Are you seriously suggesting that ancient India and China didn't have a tradition of science?
- fsloth 7y agoI'm saying that China did not have a culture that promoted science. Not all of europe did either. Science rose mostly in the protestant north that had learned that differing arguments are not a threat to the status quo. I'm not saying Chinese were more stupid, or that North-Europeans are smarter than South-Europeans. I'm saying the culture of open discussion, critical thinking and being challenged for ones claims (i.e. testability) are the cornerstones that are necessary to be in place, and that curtailing freedom of speech curtails the progress of science, as much as focusing on eminence instead of evidence does. Technological progress and scientific progress are two different things! China was technologically the most advanced country hands down for a very long time before natural sciences rose. Yet they did not produce a Newton or a Galileo, or, at least the cultural environment was such that their work was forgotten.
- hungryhobo 7y agoI wouldn't necessarily relate scientific progress with democracy. Philosophers like Pluto and Aristotle were famously against the idea of democracy. Honestly I can't imagine scientific laws get passed by virtue of having most votes. I also you confuse openness in political debate with openness in STEM, yes China prohibits the former, but definitely not the latter
- scarejunba 7y agoFascinating. One can imagine that applying this seemingly curiously and typically Greek principle of hypothesize-experiment-falsify to the thesis of free conversation and science combined with the existence of sharashki would yield interesting results. But some ardent disciple somewhere may preach otherwise, fearing the use of his favourite tool lest he tarnish it through use. Present company naturally excluded.
- pjc50 7y agoChina had technologies that were unavailable to the West for centuries; gunpowder, printing, silk etc. What China did lack was liberalism, especially the economic freedom to develop technologies into products, and especially the freedom to be "disruptive". Imperial China absolutely hated disruption; for about a thousand years they successfully murdered anyone challenging the status quo. Meanwhile a surprising amount of culture was preserved from the classical era in the Middle East while Europe was experiencing the "dark ages"; have you not noticed the Arabic numerals we use or the "al" in algebra? > greek philosophy and democracy that you could discuss everything This didn't turn out so well for Socrates.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into ideological or nationalistic flamewar. This comment was a noticeable step in the wrong direction, I think because of the combination of grand generic claims with the glib, inflammatory internet style ("No freedom of press, no cars"). This makes for much lower-quality discussion (cf "This didn't turn out so well for Socrates" below), so can you please not post like that here? We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20221537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20221537.