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This is a great read. The anti rationalist movement was a huge turning point. I worry some of it is happening in the US right now. And once you go down that pat

This is a great read. The anti rationalist movement was a huge turning point. I worry some of it is happening in the US right now. And once you go down that path, there is no turning back. There is no polemicist like Christopher Hitchens in the US right now in popular culture and that worries me too.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> anti rationalist movement was a huge turning point. I worry some of it is happening in the US right now. And once you go down that path, there is no turning back There is a lot of turning back. China turned back from the Cultural Revolution, for example. Hell, Europe was anti-intellectual until the Calvinist/Lutheran pushback.
aprilthird2021 3y ago
Postmodernism was an anti-rationalist movement which ascended highly in the US and did affect the sciences even (it itself was influenced by the seemingly impossible new quantum scientific breakthroughs going on). Rationalism and anti-rationalism don't change the laws of science, the learning / teaching of it, or it's value in output. They are just fads which ebb and flow as humans and their environments do
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  Hope you are right but I remember for example in the 2000s global warming wasn't a right or left wing ideology. It was what scientists were saying and everyone believed them. Now scientists are trusted far less.
  - aprilthird2021 3y ago
    I don't think people are more likely to believe that scientists are lying about global warming or conspiracies like this. Those are vocal super minorities. But I think people are less willing to give up their shot at making it in an increasingly unequal world for the sake of global warming. In some ways it's kind of anti-rational for scientists to direly warn of global warming while fixing it requires people to sacrifice more in a world where it's so hard to get ahead. Though we call these social waves anti-rational and rational they are really just preferences and fads that come and go. Smoking was "cool" for many years despite tons of science showing how bad it was for so many decades. Drinking alcohol still is. This doesn't mean people who drink are anti-rational, yeah?

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> anti rationalist movement was a huge turning point. I worry some of it is happening in the US right now. And once you go down that path, there is no turning back There is a lot of turning back. China turned back from the Cultural Revolution, for example. Hell, Europe was anti-intellectual until the Calvinist/Lutheran pushback.

aprilthird2021 3y ago

Postmodernism was an anti-rationalist movement which ascended highly in the US and did affect the sciences even (it itself was influenced by the seemingly impossible new quantum scientific breakthroughs going on). Rationalism and anti-rationalism don't change the laws of science, the learning / teaching of it, or it's value in output. They are just fads which ebb and flow as humans and their environments do

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
Hope you are right but I remember for example in the 2000s global warming wasn't a right or left wing ideology. It was what scientists were saying and everyone believed them. Now scientists are trusted far less.
- aprilthird2021 3y ago
  I don't think people are more likely to believe that scientists are lying about global warming or conspiracies like this. Those are vocal super minorities. But I think people are less willing to give up their shot at making it in an increasingly unequal world for the sake of global warming. In some ways it's kind of anti-rational for scientists to direly warn of global warming while fixing it requires people to sacrifice more in a world where it's so hard to get ahead. Though we call these social waves anti-rational and rational they are really just preferences and fads that come and go. Smoking was "cool" for many years despite tons of science showing how bad it was for so many decades. Drinking alcohol still is. This doesn't mean people who drink are anti-rational, yeah?