Reflections From a Murky Pond

Neil deGrasse Tyson, a fairly adequate scientist, a pretty solid administrator, and a generally effective and quite respected science communicator, just got owned on Twitter by the social media coordinator for Steak-umm. 😆

Tyson: The good thing about Science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.

Steak-umm: Nope. Science itself isn’t “true”; it’s a constantly refining process used to uncover truths based in material reality, and that process is still full of misteaks. Neil just posts ridiculous sound bites like this for clout and he has no respect for epistemology.

The irony of Neil’s tweet is that by framing science itself as “true”, he’s influencing people to be more skeptical of it in a time of unprecedented misinformation. Science is an ever refining process to find truth, not a dogma. No matter his intent, this message isn’t helpful.

NOTE: I’ve corrected capitalization and punctuation in transcribing this sequence of tweets. I have, however, left “misteaks” in place under the assumption that it was intended.

Sure. It would have been more succinct and probably more fitting for Twitter if Steak-umm’s response had been just, “The real thing about science is that it’s probably wrong, whether or not you believe in it.” But, that wouldn’t have been as much of a burn I guess.

And it’s true. Science as we understand it in any field or context within a field is almost certainly wrong. That’s why what science “says” changes all the time. Perhaps the most fundamental example of this is the Law of Gravity. Sir Isaac Newton originally codified it, but a generation later Pierre de Laplace had to correct the formulae, then, a century-and-a-half later, Albert Einstein, changed our whole understanding of what gravity actually is, and various experts in Quantum Mechanics are again altering our understanding of the fundamental nature of gravity.

Or we could just turn Tyson back onto his own, earlier words:

The scientific method is do whatever it takes– whatever it takes– to not fool yourself into thinking something is true that is not, or into thinking that something is not true that is. That’s the scientific method, whatever it takes. And that pathway– it’s not straight. It’s curved. It has off-ramps that lead nowhere.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson
The Scientific Method Master Class

Honestly, like way, way, way too many people of notoriety and influence, Dr. Tyson really should log off of Twitter. The platform encourages short, inevitably stupid statements like the one he recently made.

And, to dispel certain sorts’ accusations, I actually like Dr. Tyson. Not only have I greatly enjoyed his lecture series, which I have watched so very many times, my admittedly quite few, personal interactions with him were eminently pleasant and sometimes educational.

And, again to dispel certain sorts’ accusations, I and my wives at various times pre-Panicdemic, volunteered at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) which the Hayden Planetarium (Dr. Tyson’s bailiwick) is part of.

Tags: deGrasse-Tyson | Science | Scientism | Social Media | Society | Truth | Twitter

This entry was posted on Monday, August 15th, 2022 at 7:00 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

As one reads all the rants, screeds, and wailing eulogies for Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform, there is one thing to understand and keep firmly in the forefront of one’s mind – the one’s who are screaming over it are showing their true hearts. Their hate defines them; it is the cornerstone of their identities, their philosophies, their goals, and their allegiances. All else about them are facades, masks worn for public consumption in order to get money off of people.

One of the greatest things about Musk buying Twitter and taking it private and out of the control of short-term profit addicted investors is this very tsunami of hatred, vitriol, and hysterical rantings by the various sorts who quite rightfully fear their “safe space” is soon to be but a memory. Musk’s purchase violently stripped their masks off and showed the world just what these sorts are, what stand for, and what they hate.

And, They All Seem To Hate The Same Thing

Throughout it all since Musk bought Twitter, the fear, hate, and loathing have all been at the same thing or group of people – Straight, White Men. That’s who the Left hates and that’s who they want, at a minimum, censored and silenced on the internet. Hence, they are all the same. They are defined by their hatred of straight, white men.

The mere thought that straight, white men will no longer be censored and often expelled from Twitter drives them stark, raving mad. And yes, whether it’s objectively true or not – it is, but not so completely so that it can’t be denied – that’s exactly what the Leftists in their high dudgeon of race, gender, and sexual choice based hatred obviously believe Twitter has been doing. If this wasn’t entirely the case, they wouldn’t be screaming out their hatred of straight, white men to the world so openly.

~*~

So yes, their hate defines them. Their hatred of straight, white men is their identity and we must always remember this whenever we interact with them.

Tags: America | Elon Musk | Gender Politics | Hate | Leftists | Politics | Race War | Social Media | Society | Twitter | War On Whites

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 1st, 2022 at 7:02 am and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Yesterday, April 25, 2022, Multi-billionaire and the richest single individual in the world, Elon Musk outright purchased Twitter for roughly $44 billion. When your net worth is $264.6 billion USD, you get to do that, and the Democrats’ government can’t do much about it and is unlikely to even try. 😉

Twitter As We Know It Is Over… Maybe

So, if Elon Musk does all, most, or even a significant fraction of what he claims his plans are for renewing and rebirthing Twitter – and, since he’s taking it private, there’s nothing stopping him from doing so – the Twitter that we either love or loath is likely over.

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.

— Elon Musk

Read Musk’s statement very carefully. Three words in the 1st sentence of it are very, very important, and firmly grounded in US case law. Those words are, “digital town square.”

As I’ve written before, the SCOTUS has already ruled twice that social media platforms are the modern age’s public or town square and are, as such, bound by the restrictions of the 1st Amendment.

Social media allows users to gain access to information and communicate with one another on any subject that might come to mind. With one broad stroke, North Carolina bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge. Foreclosing access to social media altogether thus prevents users from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.

— Justice Anthony Kennedy
Packingham v. North Carolina, 582 U.S.

So, Twitter is now poised to be transformed into an actual platform for the free exercise of speech… if Mr. Musk actually follows through on his pledge. And truly, the only real thing that could prevent him from doing that is if the market will not bear it and Twitter’s federally limited number of stockholders find this too painful to tolerate. That seems more than little unlikely given people’s addiction to social media in general and Twitter in specific.

Now, it’s true that word of Musk’s now essentially fulfilled intent to buy Twitter spurred certain sorts of users, including some high-profile ones, to “say” #GoodByeTwitter, we’ve all seen, heard, and/or read about that sort of promised exodus before. 😉 So I doubt there will be much in the way of financial fallout from the buyout and proposed changes.

So, the ball is in Elon Musk’s court. Elon Musk’s new platform will largely be whatever he wants it to be. He owns it after all. I’ve some hope for it, but that hope is seasoned by long experience.

Tags: 1st Amendment | Free Speech | Freedom | Social Media | Society | Twitter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 26th, 2022 at 10:10 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Recently I posited what I believed was a fairly easy and quite pleasurable means by which most Whites’ problems could be solved. Alas and alack, I forgot just how pervasive our addictions are. 🙄

Tags: Humor | Sarcasm | Sex | Social Media | Society | Technology

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2022 at 5:00 am and is filed under Humor, Society, Technology. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

This is probably the single most effective, but least used, means of solving the majority of White’s problems. Since the Internet and Social Media have both weaponized words and put weapons of mass destruction in the hands of everyone in the Civilized World, this is really just an extension of the 1960s iconic, antiwar slogan, “Make love, not war.“

NOTE: This Is For Whites’ Problems

This advice is almost entirely Amerocentric and/or Eurocentric, though some minorities in the West, e.g., most Asian groups, could benefit from it as well, as could Asian countries like Japan, though for the purpose of addressing different problems. Other minorities in the West, especially inside America’s borders would see fewer benefits from talking less and fornicating more. The potential exception to that would be Black women, but only with a significant shift in priorities on their part.

But.. as Whites are the majority and dominant group in the West, and as our problems are almost hegemonic in how they spread to and impact the rest of the world, solving our problems would per force benefit everyone. 😉

Tags: #FirstWorldProblems | #WhitePeoplesProblems | Humor | Internet | Politics | Sarcasm | Sex | Social Media | Society | Speech | War | Whites

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 8th, 2022 at 9:35 am and is filed under Humor, Musings, Philosophy, Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.