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As a kid I had problems with Foundation (Asimov) premise that loss of scientific knowledge can be the trigger not just the result of civilizational collapse - n
by elbci 9mo ago
As a kid I had problems with Foundation (Asimov) premise that loss of scientific knowledge can be the trigger not just the result of civilizational collapse - not anymore.
- smeeagain2 9mo ago[flagged]
- jcjn 9mo ago[flagged]
- smeeagain2 9mo ago[dead]
- atomic_reed 9mo ago[dead]
- jcjn 9mo agoYeah your “karma” (lol) is bad. Just make a new account. Forget the ridiculous point system.
- smeeagain2 9mo ago[dead]
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- adrianN 9mo agoMore pernicious than loss of knowledge imo is loss of trust into the scientific process. „Research“ on social media is seen as superior to expert consensus by a frightening number of people.
- 2b3a51 9mo agoRandom thought: language seems to have evolved as part of social interactions to facilitate group dynamics in some way. So people will privilege linguistic 'transactions' with other people over some kind of formal development of an argument from evidence. (Been reading some of Wojcieck Zurek's semi-pop articles on decohrerence, and he alway puts a paragraph about the evolution of language in and points out that our intuitions won't work well in the quantum domain).
- vladms 9mo agoPeople that trust something without understanding at least the principles can cause quite some issues. One of the issues that I think affects these people is that the scientific process can not guarantee that something is "correct" or "incorrect". Something that at a point was known to be correct can be later disproved by a later experiment or more specific conditions. Some people want/need simple certainties, and as soon as they stumble upon something different, they will shift their trust to something "simple and clear". And they can do that again and again, as long as they don't need to accept some things are complex or unknown. I do not know any school system (not that I am an expert or searched for it, just an impression) that emphasizes this dynamic nature of understanding, or that tries to make people accept the unknown.
- lynx97 9mo agoYou can thank journalists for that. "Expert" opinions have been overused to control public opinion during COVID times, and several of the expert opinions have turned out to be wrong. People remember that, and distrust is the logical result.
- endymion-light 9mo agoYep -a single look at an "expert" in computing from any recent articles shows the problem first hand. There's a massive issue with a focus on credentialism first, which is leading to a distrust of experts in general.
- adrianN 9mo agoIMO this is older than Covid and goes back at least to „nine out of ten doctors recommend camel cigarettes“
- letmetweakit 9mo agoHehe, I've also read the whole Foundation series, and also feel like the empire's collapse is unfolding right in front of our eyes.