5 ms·

An excellent book on this topic (only link I could find for the English version; I read it I German): https://www.everand.com/book/671828518/The-Crisis-of-Bourg

An excellent book on this topic (only link I could find for the English version; I read it I German): https://www.everand.com/book/671828518/The-Crisis-of-Bourgeois-Natural-Science https://www.everand.com/book/671828518/The-Crisis-of-Bourgeo... The crisis in the sciences is very much a political one. Within a capitalist system, the sciences are actively hindered from being in the position to solve humanity's big problems, because bourgeois values so often dictate how and what is researched, funded, developed. (Profit oriented) In this book was also the fist time I heard critical analysis of the big bang theory (aside from creationists in my youth), which I actually thought had a wide consensus. It really makes no sense when thinking about it materialistically. All the laws and known processes involving matter are supposed to have come from nothing? Helped me see how the big bang theory is nothing more than naked idealism. No wonder catholic popes got on board with it so quickly. Another interesting thesis presented is that medicine in its form today is not actually a real science - infected by positivism and pragmatism, the way it's practiced is like a constant race to cover up symptoms rather than aiming to understand the human body in its entire complexity to heal issues at the root instead. Anyway, highly recommended read. Covers several scientific fields and how they are being plagued by regressive ideology.

godelski 3y ago
> Within a capitalist system I really hate these lines. Not because capitalism doesn't have loads of problems but rather that it is missing underlying principles and incentives that exist to create these structures and incentives. They are coupled with the economic systems but not strictly dependent on them. These issues aren't fundamentally broken because the privatization nor nationalization of capital resources. Many of these issues exist because of metric hacking which exist due to bureaucratization and politicization. So in that sense it doesn't matter if your society is capitalist, socialist, feudal, monarchistic, anarchistic, or whatever. It has to do with how humans fundamentally organize structures, delegate, and evaluate. It is a crisis of the 21st century because only now have we had such scale and such specialization. But as complexity has been increasing at an exponential rate we are simplifying our metrics and decreasing trust.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  Metrics hacking is the beating heart of every corporation. Private corporations are the core of capitalism. How did you come to the conclusion that is a result “bureaucratization and politicization” instead?
  - godelski 3y ago
    Because bureaucracies and politics also existed under every communist regime. They exist in anarchist communities. They exist in households. But the difference is the degree of separation you are from those in power structures. And before you say that anarchism doesn't have a power structure (and there's many forms of anachism, just as there are many forms of socialism, communism, libertarianism, capitalism, liberalism, etc) if a power structure isn't explicit it is implicit. Which is rather well known in anarchist literature. We saw metric hacking in The Soviet Union, in The US, in China, in The UK, in Germany, France, Cuba, Colonial Korea, Colonial India (hell, we even got a stats term that everyone now knows out of that one), Feudal Europe, and far back into the Greeks, Ancient China, and as far back as we have literature. Which last I checked, most of those things predate capitalism but do not predate bureaucrats nor politics. I hate to break it to you, but not everything is about economics.
    - ricardobeat 3y ago
      Your answer implied that science is not hindered by the incentives that exist within a capitalist society, as the parent suggested. Was science hindered in the same way in the soviet union, in early US history, China, UK, Germany, France, ancient greece and so on? I don't recall having heard about the greeks complaining on how they had to fine-tune their treaties for the review board or journal acceptance.
      - godelski 3y ago
        > Your answer implied that science is not hindered by the incentives that exist within a capitalist society Weird take considering I'm complaining about things that happen in America and I'm not sure of anyone who would claim America isn't capitalist (well... at least not communist, but let's not get in the weeds there). Of course science is hindered by incentives driven by capitalism. But science is also hindered by incentives driven by communism. That's my entire point. > I don't recall having heard about the greeks complaining on how they had to fine-tune their treaties for the review board or journal acceptance. Sure. But I do recall ancient Greeks murdering people who "believed" in irrational numbers. Idk about you, but I'd call this a step up. You're acting like there's a system that has no flaws or that if a flaw doesn't exist in one area we can ignore all other flaws. Which, ironically is metric hacking Weird take...
jay_kyburz 3y ago
If it's a political problem, the problem is with our democracy. If its an economic problem, the problem is with capitalism. They can be considered independently if we choose to. I don't know much about the crisis the OP is talking about, but I do know a bit about how our Australian Government gutted environment sciences because it was telling them things it didn't want to hear. I wonder if the CSIRO needs to be an independent body like the ABC. (Not that the ABC is immune to pressure. )
hackeraccount 3y ago
I'll check out the book but your description that "sciences are actively hindered from being in the position to solve humanity's big problems" sounds accurate to me. I suspect you think that's a problem whereas I tend to think it's not. Solutions to problems involve trade offs. Trade offs come down to questions about values. This is not he purview of Science. That's politics.

godelski 3y ago

> Within a capitalist system I really hate these lines. Not because capitalism doesn't have loads of problems but rather that it is missing underlying principles and incentives that exist to create these structures and incentives. They are coupled with the economic systems but not strictly dependent on them. These issues aren't fundamentally broken because the privatization nor nationalization of capital resources. Many of these issues exist because of metric hacking which exist due to bureaucratization and politicization. So in that sense it doesn't matter if your society is capitalist, socialist, feudal, monarchistic, anarchistic, or whatever. It has to do with how humans fundamentally organize structures, delegate, and evaluate. It is a crisis of the 21st century because only now have we had such scale and such specialization. But as complexity has been increasing at an exponential rate we are simplifying our metrics and decreasing trust.

ricardobeat 3y ago
Metrics hacking is the beating heart of every corporation. Private corporations are the core of capitalism. How did you come to the conclusion that is a result “bureaucratization and politicization” instead?
- godelski 3y ago
  Because bureaucracies and politics also existed under every communist regime. They exist in anarchist communities. They exist in households. But the difference is the degree of separation you are from those in power structures. And before you say that anarchism doesn't have a power structure (and there's many forms of anachism, just as there are many forms of socialism, communism, libertarianism, capitalism, liberalism, etc) if a power structure isn't explicit it is implicit. Which is rather well known in anarchist literature. We saw metric hacking in The Soviet Union, in The US, in China, in The UK, in Germany, France, Cuba, Colonial Korea, Colonial India (hell, we even got a stats term that everyone now knows out of that one), Feudal Europe, and far back into the Greeks, Ancient China, and as far back as we have literature. Which last I checked, most of those things predate capitalism but do not predate bureaucrats nor politics. I hate to break it to you, but not everything is about economics.
  - ricardobeat 3y ago
    Your answer implied that science is not hindered by the incentives that exist within a capitalist society, as the parent suggested. Was science hindered in the same way in the soviet union, in early US history, China, UK, Germany, France, ancient greece and so on? I don't recall having heard about the greeks complaining on how they had to fine-tune their treaties for the review board or journal acceptance.
    - godelski 3y ago
      > Your answer implied that science is not hindered by the incentives that exist within a capitalist society Weird take considering I'm complaining about things that happen in America and I'm not sure of anyone who would claim America isn't capitalist (well... at least not communist, but let's not get in the weeds there). Of course science is hindered by incentives driven by capitalism. But science is also hindered by incentives driven by communism. That's my entire point. > I don't recall having heard about the greeks complaining on how they had to fine-tune their treaties for the review board or journal acceptance. Sure. But I do recall ancient Greeks murdering people who "believed" in irrational numbers. Idk about you, but I'd call this a step up. You're acting like there's a system that has no flaws or that if a flaw doesn't exist in one area we can ignore all other flaws. Which, ironically is metric hacking Weird take...

jay_kyburz 3y ago

If it's a political problem, the problem is with our democracy. If its an economic problem, the problem is with capitalism. They can be considered independently if we choose to. I don't know much about the crisis the OP is talking about, but I do know a bit about how our Australian Government gutted environment sciences because it was telling them things it didn't want to hear. I wonder if the CSIRO needs to be an independent body like the ABC. (Not that the ABC is immune to pressure. )

hackeraccount 3y ago

I'll check out the book but your description that "sciences are actively hindered from being in the position to solve humanity's big problems" sounds accurate to me. I suspect you think that's a problem whereas I tend to think it's not. Solutions to problems involve trade offs. Trade offs come down to questions about values. This is not he purview of Science. That's politics.