Reheated (95)
For newcomers, some items from the archives. Again, with a theme of sorts.
You Will Pretend It Has Great Value.
At Montreal’s Concordia University, even light is being “decolonised.”
The assembled scholars boast that they are “not seeking to improve scientific ‘truth’” and that the purpose of their intellectual toil is “not to find new or better explanations of light.” As if such gifts were theirs to give, or a remotely plausible outcome. Instead, they are vexed by the “social power relations” of scientific enquiry, its objectivity and usefulness, and the fact that the quantifiable and demonstrable tends to trump mythology and the adorable ramblings of one’s Very Indigenous Grandpa.
In Space No-One Can Hear You Scream.
“Decolonising” the search for extra-terrestrial life. Or, the managed decline of Scientific American.
The upside, however – i.e., the premise of the whole 2,300-word article – is, to say the least, a tad vague. Apparently, hiring Iroquois or Pawnee people, or Australian Aboriginals, or whoever is deemed sufficiently brown and therefore magical, would result in “the expansion of our pool of what civilisations might look like.” “It just makes sense,” says she.
Readers unschooled in intersectional woo may be puzzled as to why those chosen as suitably indigenous and put-upon would have much to add to the doing of modern astronomy and space exploration. A pivotal role in any success seems unlikely. Readers may also wonder why those who can construct orbital telescopes and land robots on distant planets should defer in matters of science to those who can’t.
On tongue-bathing the primitive.
I’m not sure what’s achieved by gushing over the fact that what we now know as the constellation of Orion was referred to as a canoe by an arrested Stone Age foraging culture. A culture that, despite tens of thousands of years of purported “astronomy,” had bugger all to show for it. While Galileo Galilei was calculating the heights of lunar mountains and discovering the moons of Jupiter, our Aboriginal “astronomers” had little to say on the subject.
And while Angelo Secchi was pioneering astronomical spectroscopy – and proving that the blinding disc in the midday sky must be the same kind of object as those twinkling specks seen at night, only much, much closer – and pondering what follows from that realisation – our Aboriginal “astronomers” were still banging on about sky emus.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
They call themselves ‘progressives’ but they want to take us backwards.
Let’s not scoff at primitive belief systems, and faith in magical reality, when they still seem to exist within some of the modern population…
https://x.com/SilvioTattiscon/status/1808266245147365778
Or, mentally ill man is mentally ill.
Well, stripped of the airy blather, the goal does seem to be to waste as much time and money as possible on things that are of no obvious practical use, and which are likely to be counter-productive. Things that seem designed to distract and add more drag.
I mean, just having to work in an environment in which this kind of claptrap is increasingly intrusive, and being expected to take it seriously, as if it were morally instructive, despite it being fatuous, is likely to be a little demoralising. Another aggravation.
Though I suppose by hindering the advancement of our own society, via costly and farcical bureaucratic convolutions, and endless mannered affectations, they might make things slightly more equal, and thus more congenial to their weird pretensions.
D.E.I. – Didn’t Earn It.
Very much related to academic buffonery and magical thinking (and I use “thinking” very loosely) We find ourselves at the University of North Carolina.
Sounds good.
Sounds better.
Oh No! What is this DPIL fascism?
Dolly Parton, daughter of an illiterate sharecropper, giving away free books to poor kids.
They never got round to inventing the wheel but they’ll teach us about space travel.
It’s all rather invidious, not least because the grifters exploit the normal politeness of others in order to advance their own agenda and personal status. I wouldn’t usually go out of my way to contrast Galileo and Secchi with Aboriginal “astronomers” of the same periods, for instance. It’s all a bit fish-in-a-barrel. But the value-flattening claptrap is sufficiently stupefying and objectionable to make that necessary.
They oblige those who demur to be… indelicate.
As I said in the original thread:
Horseshit of the highest order.
Speaking of academia:
And before you ask, yes, it’s real.
Dr Fountain is, inevitably, a “he/they.”
Symbolism, baby.
Recreational obstruction.
He’s having issues with his “cute sexy pyjama set.”
And before you ask, yes, it’s real.
OK, I had to look up “smocking” and came across this wherein it appears this guy’s student Sarah is Sam (or vice versa).
As we have had a shortfall of art recently, this appears to be more of his (or her) work.
Is Orion visible in the Southern Hemisphere?
Every word they utter is false, including ‘and’ and ‘but’. Falsehood is the heart of progressivism.
An argument for unqualified immunity.
Poultry shears would solve that problem.
Hence the deficit of sympathy for those with six-figure student loans.
Apparently yes.
children’s books:
No small child can have a “non-normative gender identity” because they have not reached puberty. FFS
They want a world where white identities are erased, just sayin.
Science: the twits think that white society just puts people in jobs and that anyone can do the job. Clearly false. And dangerous to just put just anyone anywhere. Sure, hire a thief in a bank or a drug addict to fly a plane.
As to the complaint that it is unfair that white people read to their kids, libraries have books. Free. Children’s books.
And where all children are groomed.
That, and Ms. Parton isn’t giving her books just to yte kids…
A foundational principle of CRT is that everything white people do is wrong, and is done from bad motives.
I used to think that as well. When I was 8.
Ahh that would be lovely Philadelphia. The birthplace of America. The City of Brotherly Love. And infested with the largest population of ignorant, illiterate, low-IQ oxygen thieves on the East Coast or possibly in the entire country. That little snapshot in that video is not an aberration. It’s standard “culture” throughout the entire city, except of course the wealthy downtown area where uber-woke Soros tool DA Larry Krasner lives behind a wall of protection.
Do NOT ever waste your time in Philadelphia. It’s an iredeemable shit-hole.
Didn’t somebody call it Killadelphia?
Gotta admit, this is the first time I’ve heard of “oppressive childism”
Um, “collaborative mothers”? Are those the ones who indulge their tantrum-throwing 4 year olds in the candy aisle of the grocery store?
Told my kids early (and often) “You don’t get a vote. This family is not a ‘democracy'”
Science: there are rare cases where sexism or whatever may influence science. For example, female birdsong has been ignored. If males sing to claim a territory, why are the females singing (when they do)? Ok. Granted. It cuts the other way of course. Aggression in chimps was ignored for decades because it was disturbing to our psyches. In fact, a chimp group may exterminate a neighboring weaker group entirely.
But photon are not birds. Of all the careers in the world, science is the most egalitarian. A journal does not even require that you have a degree, you can submit with your first initials to hide you masc or fem name, journals are used to authors from all over the world, and they may even send out your paper to reviewers with the name blinded.
However, if you are a racist woke fuck who assumes that (certain) POC can’t do math, then obviously science must be overthrown to achieve egality.
In today’s clown factories you can never have enough isms.
How do you know photons don’t have feelings?
Somewhat related: here in Canada, the Ontario Science Centre roof needs an expensive repair. The premier has demurred on fixing it and has announced his intention to close the attraction because it’s a money pit.
This has produced the typical howls from the local IJFLScience crowd. I tossed a golden apple labelled KALLISTI into the argument by posting pics of an exhibit there which unironically tried to argue that various aboriginal geocentric models of the solar system were not in fact fatally flawed, via extremely convoluted sophistry about POV and reference frames.
The last time I was there, twelve years ago, many of the “interactive” exhibits didn’t work or were in dire need of maintenance. Much of the space was unused.
If the goal is to theorize how alien societies might function, alien languages might work, etc., then I can see some value in incorporating diverse terran cultures, languages, etc. But I’m not seeing how believing that, say, there are a bunch of moons stashed out in the ocean that get delivered to the sky like gumballs out of a gumball machine is going to add anything to astronomy.
It’s not a promising use of finite time and resources. But then, these are self-styled critical thinkers whose extended, mutual love-in – some 2,300 words – doesn’t include much evidence of any such activity. The whole thing is meandering and gaseous. Such that the supposed problem to be solved by “decolonisation” isn’t actually established. Apparently, we must take it on trust. Because, hey, grifters wouldn’t lie.
They denounce notions of civilisation and intelligence as problematic, colonial, wicked, etc. A cause of “real, physical harm.” Unlike their opposites, one assumes. And then we get the fretting about the “colonial” mistreatment of hypothetical microbes. Oh, and the implication that our telescopes should be moved to less “problematic” locations, where they will be less effective.
Thereby advancing science in leaps and bounds.
Oh, and a happy Fourth of July to readers in the colonies.
Awkward Exes: Britain & America 1776 – The Breakup
Thanks but we’re kinda right back where we started. In some ways, worse. We’re certainly stupider and seem to have no bloody idea what our Founders were up to. And that’s just the ‘Republicans’.
They don’t want logical thinking. They want True Believers.
Historically, the left’s attempts to explain inter-group differences in achievement as the result of systems of oppression all failed. This led to the left’s embrace of postmodernism, in which actual evidence is irrelevant.
It can be funny, in a sick way, to watch leftists start with the assumption of “systemic racism” and use it to prove the existence of “systemic racism”. Even funnier to watch them lose their tempers when called out on this.
[ Checks tomorrow’s Ephemera, clicks schedule. ]
[ Considers bunging battered basa fillets in air fryer. ]
Darleen,
My (childhood) family was not a democracy. It was a Marxist dictatorship. Chairman, vice-chair, proles.
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Worked great. Just doesn’t scale-up at all.
British concerns.
Hmmmm… American concerns, too. Reagan’s “trust but verify” should be one’s top concern when dealing with contractors of any stripe. We’ve had (basically) some good experiences with people we vetted … but still the only way to make sure they don’t cut corners is to wander through on a random basis and ask questions.
My own recent encounter with tradesmen is still doubtless burned into your minds.
My own recent encounter with tradesmen is still doubtless burned into your minds.
I remember. Now replace tradesmen with dentist and feel my pain. My dentist is always off key by about an eighth tone and the radio station he’s singing along with is horrendous. Still, he does good work. He just completed two implants. They’re great.
Thanks, mate: https://x.com/HistoryBoomer/status/1808726807392202928
You can go off people, you know.
Not just in a microwave 😧 , but of a color proving it came from a satanic laboratory.
It looks like Heinz oxtail soup.
And everyone knows microwaves are only for warming plates.
Some props back to the British today.
We don’t have these concerns in the Appalachians. They just never show up. Better to just do the job yourself because you’re probably going to end up doing it yourself anyway.
I’ll see your off key and raise you a Trans Siberian Railroad. Was having minor skin surgery on my back (4 square cm at a time, at some point I’m just going to disappear), the surgeon turns on that wonderful relaxing (not) cacophony and starts bumba-dum-dumming to it. It was his favorite classical music, you see.
Or Orchestra. Or Steamroller. Whatever.
Trans Siberian Steamroller, because I don’t care for either of those groups.
I’ll see your off key and raise you a Trans Siberian Railroad. Was having minor skin surgery on my back…
When wheeled into the operating room for minor surgery, there was a TV above the table and it was playing Paw Patrol. I half expected Doogie Howser to be my surgeon.
Labour in a landslide?
Blimey, mates. Even a flatworm knows how to turn away from the pain.
What’s the explanation for this?
My wife…sigh…my wife…rather than drive across town to use my dentist, tried a few others on our side of town. One, who also tried to sell her on a lot of unnecessary stuff, did her cleaning/checkup with the Iraq war playing on the tv in the examination room. I remember my childhood dentist having a fish aquarium in the waiting room…but I digress…
Ultimately she ended up driving across town to my dentist. Nobody listens to me until…