Of politics and pit-men
Joe wrote:
"Philosophers should seek to dissolve confusion, functioning much like logical-draino on all sorts of intellectual-blockages. They should not be complicit in enlarging these clogs. The distortion of elementary ideas, concerning the nature of the reality, is best suited to politicians and their stooges in the media."
The guards and administrators of this Auschwitz-of-the-mind cult try to convince themselves that - with their minds alone - they can alter the physical conditions of the world; however, all that's been achieved is that a weird sort of control over how the world can be spoken of has been laid-down and enforced. Those having brains enough to contest the rubbish-notion - that on a Myspace group, reality can be trumped (e.g. by equivocating bio-terms, sexual selection leaves insect species untouched and that 400 years of physics are potty as constants are inconstants) have left or become pariahs.
A similar, though less extreme thinking-cramp pervades politics. The ideas that many politicians express do not fit how the world is arranged. Here's a charming example. In the words of the horrible Prime Minister of Great Britain Gordon Brown:
"[] the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people"
Given the level of cannabis consumption in the UK (higher than the US) - should it cause lethal episodes - evidence for this claim would appear. It would manifest itself in the form of (among other things) corpses piling-up, morgues busting at their seams and fresh graves proliferating. All with an intact sight would witness these outcomes with their own eyes. No doubt about the supposed lethality of pot could be (rationally) denied. If the consumption of pot caused death, then many of the former pot-people would only be found - stiff in their graves.
Politicians make obscene claims about things happening in the world, and these claims are (usually) adopted as true by the media and by a majority of the nation's citizenry - despite these things not happening. Their counter-realism runs: Even though something does not happen, it happens. A claim about the world is true - despite (or because) of the claim being false. No correspondence, no link, no correlation between the politicians' words and events, operating in the world, is (generally) required to gin-up support for their wretched policies.
Politicians cannot be held - soley - to blame for their adherence to counter-realism. It's in their power-interests to convince their inferiors (those whom they rule) that the workings of the world are down-right spastic. However, it's - fatally - against the interests of their lessers to sign-onto the world-view; it maximizes the probability that the lessers will remain inferior. Should you wish to point the finger of blame at someone for this thinking-cramp in politics, look into the mirror then point to yourself. If politicians are not corrected when they insist that the intrigues - which pollute their minds - nullify the objective conditions known to exist outside of them, they'll insist that their ideas overcome reality.
The Brown's, the Norton's, the Khuno's, the Jerry's, the Nate's and the JoshingThySelf's dangerously occult world-view can easily be put to test. We might dig a pit, tossing the above merry-makers into it - along with a small fission bomb - set to detonate 3 minutes after sealing them up. If their understanding of the world is correct, the above mental-giants should be able to prevent the bomb's blowing-up by thinking so hard about it that its uranium atoms will not split, e.g. by redefining what the word "fission" means perhaps. If there are no physical constants, filling the universe - as has been insisted in this Myspace group, then our pit-men need not fear. The bomb would not explode - as constants must operate in the universe for it to explode - notably "c" and "h".
If, on the other hand, should the pit-men fail to prevent the blast, I don't see what could be spoken of as even a trifling loss...
