Comments on Mundane-SF: Soap bubble heads

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The subatomic physicists have had to invent the st...

2007-08-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

The subatomic physicists have had to invent the strong force, the weak force, the Higgs force, spin, quark, strangeness, and charm; so should we be surprised if the same nonsense of new laws unobservable on a human scale need to be postulated at large scales beyond the level of the solar system?

So I take it that you're a big fan of Bruno Latour.

1) Reading comprehansion. Learn it.2) I do, howeve...

2007-08-11T14:50:00.000-07:00

1) Reading comprehansion. Learn it.

2) I do, however, hold it against all astrophysicists for the fact that they never explained the flimsiness of their evidence for the existence of dark/invisible matter -- for which no likely substance whatsoever exists.

What exactly makes you so knowledgable about physics in the first place? Do you even have any references from other than anything coming from disgruntled string theorists?

He's basically saying that the dire and immediate ...

2007-08-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

He's basically saying that the dire and immediate challenges which the scientists say our species are presented with don't matter because the new economy/so-far-nonexistant technology will sort it out.

Thats not the impression I got from anything you quoted. Much the opposite, in fact. He speculates that the vast majority of species fail to make the transition to a stable long-term technological species and go extinct.

That hardly implies that new technologies will magically solve are our problems.

What he is saying, so far as I understand him, is:

that for a technological society to survive long enough to reach the type 1 level (and maintain themselves there without self-destructing) they will have to abandon "all the sectarian, fundamentalist, racial nonsense of the forest".

And that seems mere common sense to me.

Perhaps there was more to the interview that said or implied something like what you are accusing him of but its far from clear (or even implicit) in anything you quoted.

Anonymous One: There is no academic rivalry becaus...

2007-08-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

Anonymous One: There is no academic rivalry because I am not an academic. I'm only pointing out that the world-view which I infer from his statements seems to me to be extraordinarily parochial, for reasons I have outlined. Can you give me an alternative view?

I've not said anything about the biological sciences which are, at least, subject to experimentation.

Anonymous Two: If idea X, which is bullshit, is stated by person Y who happens to be of type Z, then person A who also says X is talking bullshit, while person B of type Z is irrelevant.

Once again, I don't see what this is to do with biology. I do, however, hold it against all astrophysicists for the fact that they never explained the flimsiness of their evidence for the existence of dark/invisible matter -- for which no likely substance whatsoever exists.

I'll add that anything counting as bullshit from m...

2007-08-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

I'll add that anything counting as bullshit from merely one Astrophysicist doesn't count. People like Roughgarden, after all, do not represent the mindset of all biologists.

All well and good, but academic rivalry aside, wha...

2007-08-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

All well and good, but academic rivalry aside, what does this has to do with all of astrophysics being utter crap? Would you dismiss the biological sciences just as easily if not all of it conformed to your own particular world view?

Name corrected. I have no idea how that mistake c...

2007-08-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Name corrected. I have no idea how that mistake crept in. Shocking.

AW: I'd like to engage with your comment, but there's nothing at all to work with. The substance of my posting is the transcript. So, you don't see anything weird about his connection between the billions of years of future history and today's US government's global war on terror?

DE: He's basically saying that the dire and immediate challenges which the scientists say our species are presented with don't matter because the new economy/so-far-nonexistant technology will sort it out. What would you say if a faith healer convinced your grandmother to stop taking her medication because he had cured her?

His ideas are speculative in the extreme but your ...

2007-07-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

His ideas are speculative in the extreme but your response:

These are dangerous ideas. Of the kind that believing you can fly off a cliff with a pair of cardboard wings is a dangerous idea.

doesnt seem warranted to me.

Can you tell us specifically what disastrous consequences you see inherent in his speculations?

If you're going to insult the man's career and rej...

2007-07-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

If you're going to insult the man's career and reject his ideas without even engaging with them, the least you can do is spell his name correctly: it's Kaku, with a 'K."