Time to ban dihydroxymonoxide
This just goes to show how gullible people are when they’ve had the environmental agenda forcefed to them by the left.
A woman with a petition went among the crowds attending a state fair, asking people to sign her petition demanding the banning of dihydroxymonoxide. She said it was in our lakes and streams, and now it was in our sweat and urine and tears.
She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide — a fancy chemical name for water. [...] Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities. In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.
Tags: Global Warming, Stupidity, Thomas Sowell
March 10th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
I would love it if there were video of this! I feel so sorry for people who are duped into believing this hoax.
March 10th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
What a hypocritical column and link! Some great insights — that people can be intellectually lazy and do what they think they’re supposed to do, and that this is cultivated early on in school — followed by intellectual laziness, by Sowell and by Andrew, in thinking this phenomenon knows right from left.
Does anyone doubt that I could go to a tea party decrying some evil “communist-fascist” politician, and amass hundreds of signatures against these incoherent conjunction of mutually exclusive views?
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you only read the first three paragraphs, Andrew.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Oh you caught me Contrarian. This damn communist education system never taught me how to read.
March 10th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Explain why communism and fascism are mutually exclusive views. That is a false paradigm put forward. The extreme end of conservative thought is not fascism. Fascism and communism are, for all intents and purposes, the same. I would point out that the most oft noted fascist regime called themselves national socialists.
Also, the education system does set people up to fall for idiocy based on emotions – otherwise known as liberalism.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
The end goal of communism, or at least, the real, Marxist kind, is no government at all. Entirely mutually exclusive with fascism. Sorry. There are a bazillion things wrong with communism but just claiming it’s fascist is stupid, you just open yourself up to people pointing out you’re wrong because… you’re wrong. Also don’t say stuff like “false paradigm put forward” because you seem to not even know what that means.
Sorry to be harsh but just…ugh. I wish only Andrew wrote for this blog.
March 10th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
Walker, there is a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw
March 10th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
From Political Science 101 people are taught that communism and fascism are polar opposites. That is a false model, otherwise known as a paradigm Al. A more accurate political spectrum would show anarchy at one end and totalitarian government at the other. At the totalitarian end one would find both communism and fascism, as they have been practiced.
Always nice to hear from a fan!
March 11th, 2010 at 2:41 am
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March 11th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Ari,
“From Political Science 101 people are taught that communism and fascism are polar opposites. That is a false model, otherwise known as a paradigm Al. A more accurate political spectrum would show anarchy at one end and totalitarian government at the other. At the totalitarian end one would find both communism and fascism, as they have been practiced.”
You should write a paper, Ari. Submit that to the Journal of Political Studies. It’s a tremendous insight that somehow was missed by generations of careful scholars. You could end up with an endowed Chair in Political Theory at Harvard.
Still:
(1) There’s an important difference between a model and a ‘paradigm.’ If you follow the Kuhnian line–and I think that’s what you have in mind–models are created within paradigms, which delimit the conceptual space within which models can be created. Newtonian physics was a paradigm which made possible certain models of space and time (and the movements of objects within it). General relativity is a different paradigm because there is no translation schema for the terms of Newtonian physics: it provides an entirely different account of the basic concepts (‘space’, ‘time’, ‘simultaneity’, etc.) and proceeds to build alternative models of physical phenomena that are incompatible with the Newtonian ‘paradigm’. They are incompatible because the foundational concepts are defined dirrently.
(2) What you are proposing is that the central classifactory criteria for political ideology ought to be a one-dimensional continuum concerned largely with the amount of government within a society, but neglects entirely the form this government takes, the type of political economy implemented and the shape of civil society. It is a very simplistic view.
(3) Communism and Fascism are viewed are rightly different by political theorists because they greatly differ along the three axes above. There is something to be said about a concern with the amount of government or collective intervention, but this concern is utterly meaningless without an account of the form this intervention (or lack thereof) takes.
(4) I believe Contrarian’s point was that lack of conceptual sophistication transcends party lines. He is certainly right in this. To call a centrist political figure like Obama a ‘socialist’ is to admit one has no understanding of the relevant concepts (but perhaps is an able user of rhetoric and sophistry, since it is engrained that socialism is ‘bad’). Likewise, to call former President Bush a ‘fascist’ only reveals prejudice and ignorance (or, again, willingness to engage in inflammatory rhetoric for personal gain).
(5) I sincerely hope you are not an actual political science student.
March 15th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
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March 16th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Nick, I would politely advise you to be sure of yourself before asserting yourself in such a condescending tone. The problem with being an arrogant prick is that you look particularly foolish when you are wrong. Here is a definition of the word paradigm: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paradigm. I recommend that you read it. I can only hope in the utmost sincerity that you open a dictionary in the future.
March 19th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Ari,
I read the definition.
1 : example, pattern; especially : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype
2 : an example of a conjugation or declension showing a word in all its inflectional forms
3 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind.
You intended the third use in the broad sense Merriam-Webster proposes: “philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind.”
I had in mind the narrow sense, the framework in which “theories, laws and generalizations” are formulated.
(The first and second senses don’t apply, for obvious reasons).
Well, I suppose I have to say something like this:
(1) Well: I’m sorry.
(2) Despite that, I disagree with Merriam-Webster. I don’t think the broad sense ought to be in usage, because it dilutes ‘paradigm’ (a very useful technical term) down to a mere synonym for already-existing ideas (model/framework/etc.).
Hopefully you will join my in my linguistic crusade to keep language useful and in practice distinguish model from paradigm. (i.e., models are comparable, paradigms are incommensurable; these are distinct, mutually exclusive properties, so they can’t mean the same thing).
(3) In my defense, I note that not all dictionaries support Merriam’s ‘broad’ usage. Wikipedia has an interesting write-up on the changing meanings of “paradigm.”
(4) I do apologize for my tone, but only because I neglected to hold myself up to a higher standard. I let the tone of this blog color my emotional reaction. I find it difficult to maintain my own composure amongst the high-octane vitriol prevalent here (e.g. “And, social sciences teaches girls that years of feminism existed to give them the right to get knocked up and now, dress like a hooker.” This is really, really outrageously wrong, insulting, arrogant and stupid, so hopefully I can be forgiven).
(5) So while you can correctly point to a ‘broad’ usage of paradigm (which I personally abhor, but what can you do? It clearly exists, so I’m wrong–ahh, how liberating to say that, “I am wrong, I was wrong!”), this does not address issues 2, 3, and 4: namely, that the alternative proposal isn’t very good; that political science itself uses more sophisticated distinctions than the ones you impute to it; and that Contrarian’s point, as far as I am concerned, still stands.
Hopefully we can move forward here.
Cheers.
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