Why Conspiracy Theories?

[luka]

so I just watched the vid and I gotta say....I find it somewhat hilarious how this got very little to do with "decolonising science" , this has got all to do with social control and dominance. That whole "safe space" is a mental-wank-space and nothing much else. That one guy not agreeing with the obvious consensus is being silenced by accusing him not to comply to the rules of this "progressive space", and not bc of the actual things he said (or was trying, as soon as it was clear he wouldn't go along the "decolonised science" dogma the uproar started).

first of all id like to point out that 'firefinga' is from austria and history has taught us where that tends to lead. secondly i find it alarming how gormlessly normative dissensus has become over the years. both you and tea are well aware of how certain voices tend to dominante discussion and how that dominance is no reflection of what they have to contribute. a quick mind is usually a shallow mind.
constructing spaces that work to let other voices be heard is an excellent and overdue idea. women do get talked over constantly. its a fact. introverts get talked over constantly. or cant bring themselves to even raise their voices to the pitch necessary to be heard. if youd been paying attention youd know these things. the bullies argument is always that life is tough toughen up princess and theyre right in that bullies rule life and make it a game of brutal competition domination and submission. agreeing to play by their rules is stupid and unnecessary. it plays into their hands.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm not falling into that trap at all. You're asking me science or sorcery. You said that. I didn't.

Science, if the question is "What's the best way to build a workable and useful mental model of the universe". That's not to say it's the only way anyone and everyone should be allowed to think about the world. But it's the one that belongs in university discourse.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Mr tea says you must scrap your cultural inheritance and learn science so your nation can grow ecinomically

In Britain not even all that long ago people were routinely put to death for crimes such as heresy and witchcraft. That's my cultural inheritance, and yours. Just because something is "cultural" doesn't mean it has intrinsic value or is necessarily a positive thing.

 

[luka]

think more carefully before posting tea. put up a fight this time. really use your brain and think things through. read what other people say closely. work out where they are coming from. try and get good at this.

 

[luka]

but also id really urge people to get into the conspiracy material. if you love james ellroy youll love this for example
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_money_fountain.htm

Seven years later the bank collapsed following the discovery of Frank Nugan's body slumped in his Mercedes. Clutching a gun in one hand and sporting a hole through the head, Nugan was also holding a bible that contained an embarrassing list of names including William Colby, DCI of the CIA, and Bob Wilson, the House Armed Services Committee's ranking Republican. Others names listed had a variety of backgrounds, ranging from known narcotics traffickers, politicians and businessmen to personalities from sport and the media. Beside each name was listed amounts running into five and six numbers. Following public outrage the US Senate held an investigation into Nugan Hand's operations. Amongst other things it discovered that the bank operated a branch at Chiang Mai, Thailand, heart of Triad country. The branch was dedicated to laundering the Golden Triangle's heroin revenue. Connected to the bank's office by an interconnecting door was the DEA's local office, a premises that was also shared by the CIA6.

At about the same time that Frank Nugan's skull was developing powder-burns, Michele Sindona, a free-wheeling financial whiz kid and consigliere for the Sicilian Mafia had purchased and driven to the wall, New York's Franklin National Bank, with losses totalling $40 million - Ranked the 29th largest bank in the US it became the biggest crash on record at that time. Establishing a fictitious company, Fasco AG in Lichenstein, Sindona was able to obtain a majority interest in the Italian based Banca Privata Finanziera. BPA was an excellent acquisition for Sindona for not only did it have a close relationship to Britain's blue-chip Hambros Bank, but also had a preferential partnership arrangement with Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, owned and presided over by David Kennedy - later to become Finance Minister in the Nixon administration. Continental Illinois was later to spectacularly crash in the mid-eighties, only to be rescued with an estimated $4 billion tax dollars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre

 

[Mr. Tea]

first of all id like to point out that 'firefinga' is from austria and history has taught us where that tends to lead. secondly i find it alarming how gormlessly normative dissensus has become over the years. both you and tea are well aware of how certain voices tend to dominante discussion and how that dominance is no reflection of what they have to contribute. a quick mind is usually a shallow mind.
constructing spaces that work to let other voices be heard is an excellent and overdue idea. women do get talked over constantly. its a fact. introverts get talked over constantly. or cant bring themselves to even raise their voices to the pitch necessary to be heard. if youd been paying attention youd know these things. the bullies argument is always that life is tough toughen up princess and theyre right in that bullies rule life and make it a game of brutal competition domination and submission. agreeing to play by their rules is stupid and unnecessary. it plays into their hands.

I would counter that a discussion of science should probably be dominated by people who know something about science, regardless of their sex or cultural background. I know a ton of black, Asian and mixed-race people who studied physics, many of whom went on to do higher degrees and many of whom still work in science or a related field. I bet many and maybe all of them have encountered racism while studying or working, but this prejudice comes from people, not from science itself. Same goes for all the women scientists I know, or have known, many of whom are strident feminists and never slow to call out sexism when they see it.

I'm pretty sure if I were to ask any of them if they thought the laws of physics and chemistry were somehow inherently sexist or racist just because most of them had been discovered by white dudes, they'd look at me like I'd fucking lost it.

See, this is the problem. These kind of critiques always come from people who have a background in philosophy, history, cultural studies or whatever and are looking at science from the outside. Scientists don't have this problem as they are able to distinguish the theories from the people and cultures that produced those theories.

 

[luka]

missing the point. i was responding to criticisms of the safe space as a concept. mental-wank-space.also

I know a ton of black, Asian and mixed-race people

well just fact checked this by scrolling through your list of facebook friends and lol say no more

 

[droid]

I was the winner in this debate.

Disingenuous, selective quoting, resort to ad hominem, bad faith, personalisation.

You may be right, but you certainly haven't won the debate.

 

[Mr. Tea]

missing the point. i was responding to criticisms of the safe space as a concept. mental-wank-space.also
well just fact checked this by scrolling through your list of facebook friends and lol say no more

Oh give over. I'm talking about people I knew as a student years back. I'm not mates with all of them on facebook and there are some I'm in touch with who aren't on facebook.

Come on, you're being pathetic. If you're trying to tell me there are hardly any non-white scientists, then you're wrong, and making yourself look foolish by talking about something you know nothing about.

 

[Mr. Tea]

missing the point. i was responding to criticisms of the safe space as a concept. mental-wank-space.

Also, that was firefinga's post, not mine.

I see the value of an environment where everyone gets to speak and it's not just based on who can yell the loudest. If it has to be an environment where any dissent from a certain paradigmatic way of thinking is interpreted as 'aggression' and not allowed, well that's problematic, to use the preferred term.

 

[luka]

If you're trying to tell me there are hardly any non-white scientists, then you're wrong, and making yourself look foolish by talking about something you know nothing about.

certainly not trying to say that.

 

[firefinga]

first of all id like to point out that 'firefinga' is from austria and history has taught us where that tends to lead..

Yes, Austria has been the root of evil a lot of times in the past. Fact or conspiracy?

 

[Corpsey]

I like that Brian Cox fella.

 

[luka]

I like that Brian Cox fella.

i hate him. he makes my blood boil. i hate his hair especially.

 

[Corpsey]

But he's so wonderfully upbeat about starrrrs

are there any science presenters on TV that can rival St Attenborough?

Packham is a freak

 

[luka]

exactly.

 

[Corpsey]

I would like, as a counterweight to Cox's starry-eyed starptimism, a H.P. Lovecraft sort of figure who constantly goes on about how vast and unfathomable the universe is and how petty our human concerns are. But he also wears All Saints polo shirts and is filmed gazing at sunsets with his beautiful face a lot.

 

[Mr. Tea]

certainly not trying to say that.

OK, accepted. But surely such people would be able to detect any pernicious cultural bias in the laws of science, if such a thing existed?

 

[Mr. Tea]

i hate him. he makes my blood boil. i hate his hair especially.

Hahaha, it's like some evil genius geneticists worked together to create the person most optimally configured to annoy Luke.

My gran has a total biddy-crush on him. I've met him a few times, he's extremely full of himself but nice enough really.

 

[vimothy]

My Dad used to work in the same department as him. Apparently he drives the rest of the faculty a bit nuts.