Philosopher and skeptic Nikil Mukerji explains what happens when idea pathogens infect the brains of otherwise rational thinkers, most notably when the German skeptics organization GWUP went woke
My father is one of the founders of a skeptic group ("R.E.A.S.O.N.": Rationalists, Empiricists, And Skeptics Of Nebraska). It's astonishing to see how readily he and "REASON" slipped into Wokeness. They really were and are quite defenseless against these ideas.
While I believe wokeism has its flaws and deserves critique, labeling it as a "mind virus" is an unproductive and self-congratulatory approach. This kind of language implies that those who disagree are irrational or mentally unwell, while positioning oneself as enlightened and immune to such thinking. This framing promotes tribalism rather than fostering meaningful dialogue. We should strive to elevate our discussions beyond such cheap rhetorical tricks.
I have come to the conclusion that the illness analogy is completely apt. Examine the behaviour of the prog/left activists and it is clear they are at least suffering paranoia. They perceive genocide and oppression in the most tolerant societies that ever existed. At a demonstration I personally witnessed gender activists risk being trampled by police horses to spew violent threats at feminists merely talking about things they (the leftists) disagree with. Are you familiar with the concept of "vindictive protectiveness"?
Another very apt illness analogy is the fact these beliefs clearly carry harm to the holder - witness a generation of young people destroy their health to chase the gender dragon.
I understand the frustration with the extreme behavior of some activists, but I see wokeness as more of a manifestation of tribalism, which is a common human pattern of behavior, rather than a mental illness. Tribalism pushes people into rigid 'us vs. them' thinking, which often leads to the intolerance and hostility we observe. However, equating these behaviors with mental illness undermines the complexity of human social dynamics. Tribalism isn't an illness—it's a deeply ingrained part of how humans form groups and defend their beliefs, even when those beliefs become extreme. Conflating it with mental illness dismisses the broader societal forces at play and prevents us from addressing the real roots of these behaviors and conflicts.
Tribalism may be a component of the behaviour - part of a siege mentality. But there is one very noteworthy feature that is different to mere passionate defense of your own self-interest... Most wokeness is focused on advancing causes OF OTHERS. Like the way anti-racism is most aggressive from well-off white people. Hence "vindictive protectiveness".
I actually quite like the expression 'vindictive protectiveness,' as it highlights a specific feature of woke tribalism: the fact that it's a 'moralizing' form of tribalism. In my view, this is a pathological form of moral judgment. Normally, moral judgment is about classifying certain types of actions as morally wrong or questionable. In specific cases, this also involves attaching victim and perpetrator roles to those actions, with us collectively responding either negatively (towards the perpetrator) or sympathetically (towards the victim). In woke discourses, however, these victim and perpetrator roles are decoupled from the actions that underpin them and transferred onto social groups. When this happens, moral judgment (which humans instinctively gravitate toward) is automatically exploited for coalition-building and group conflicts. This, in my opinion, is a pathology. However, wokeness isn’t unique in this regard. We see similar patterns in Marxism (applied to economically defined classes) or in fascism (applied to races or ethnic groups). Systematically speaking, wokeness belongs to this category of ideologies (though, of course, there are differences between them). And history shows that we shouldn't take this lightly. Vindictive protectiveness is a concrete manifestation of this pathological structure.
Very well stated. I feel the same. The goal should be critiquing bad ideas and changing hearts and minds, using empathy, logic, relatability, and reason. It’s discouraging to see fellow skeptics and independent thinkers like Shermer employing such an obnoxious and unhelpful device.
I mean, would anyone refer to "wokeness" as if it were a term with any analytical utility whatsoever if they weren't playing for the cheap seats, fleecing the rubes, etc. Ditto "cancel culture", which I've seen applied to everything from legit bullying and harassment, calling out bullying and harassment, doxing as a precursor to stochastic terrorism, doxing to expose people engaging in defamation and harassment, exposing people's affiliation with neofascist and white supremacist groups etc. People unfamiliar with online culture seem to have extreme difficulty parsing the differences, which means lumping them all together isn't a helpful activity.
Dismissing "wokeness" and "cancel culture" as terms with no analytical value is overly reductive. While they can be misused, they hold valid meanings in certain contexts. Additionally, your comment conflates multiple distinct issues without addressing my original point: the problem with demonizing others by framing them as irrational or mentally compromised. This approach derails meaningful discussion.
"Eyes closed, and push through. This seems to be the prevailing feeling for members of the GWUP, the German Skeptics Association, as they approach the upcoming general meeting in Augsburg. However, this gathering marks only the peak of a series of discomforts tied to the association’s ongoing internal debate over its direction. Together, these tensions create an atmosphere in which members feel uneasy about expressing their views on the conflict; any public statements increasingly risk reactions that could lead to personal repercussions. Yet, this very climate seems to compel members to voice their positions not only internally but also publicly. Certain statements and interpretations simply call to be contested, depending on one’s perspective. So, these remarks here are shared with a fair amount of unease. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when trying to add a word of caution to the decision on the association’s direction."
While I appreciate pointing out any example of a threat to scepticism and it's values regardless of political ideology, I have never seen a greater threat to these ideals than in the far-right in the United States. Right here in the United States we may very likely elect a president who could institute legal book bans, make protesting certain ideals illegal, promote anti-science in our scientific organizations, stop funding for science and climate research, and have professors and other intellectuals removed from their posts or maybe even imprisoned for speaking against whatever he professes to believe in. So again, while I appreciate a global perspective on combating anti-sceptical values no matter how small or where they are because even the tiniest brush fire can grow and burn down an entire neighborhood, this article is like pointing out a tiny brush fire in the far corner of someone else's back yard without acknowledging that the entire house you live in is already engulfed in flames.
Not to mention there is documented infiltration of both the police and the military by right wing extremists. No, I'm not saying they've taken over, but both groups have certain immunities that such people can exploit once they're in. The military has been far more resistant to such infiltration as the top brass are generally acknowledged to be committed to preserving the Constitution and the rule of law, at least domestically. Police regularly lobby for removing restrictions on their actions and consequences for misconduct. Sometimes I think the military overstates exactly how much they do to preserve liberty, but that doesn't mean they don't take it seriously.
Point being, there has been no evidence whatsoever of such infiltration by the left. "Antifa" isn't even a group; it's a watchword for solidarity among the more anarchist leaning individuals who have reached a tentative consensus that the mechanism of government is not productive to dismantle currently, and that they should focus on combating white supremacy and religious intolerance, especially open, public demonstrations and committing of hate crimes.
Using the antibiotics, antiviral, analogies can be helpful to understanding how wokeness or any idealistic group or thought might take over some organization ( even skeptical orgs). However this methodology of explanation remains an analogy ( ie no claim of cause and effect).
The best defense is as always, knowing oneself and our personal weaknesses and strengths.
How to take back or restore an org overtaken by wokeness ( without killing it) is still an open question with me.
Agree with everything you say... but its too late.
The woke gleichschaltung has been successful, and in many other fields - like the ACLU and other supposed freedom oriented milieux. The only solution is to build new fora, just like Substack and UATX. Truth should follow the processes of evolution and grow where it can find better ground. Thusly those mind-viruses should also kill their hosts. Truth should also follow the rules of economics, just as good money drives out bad the public will eventually seek out the more valuable.
I don't agree. Depicting a belief (an idea), a trait, or a behavior as a "disease" or an "infection" allows us to avoid assigning moral blame to the individual - as, for example, when we think of alcoholism as a disease rather than a vice or a character flaw. The analogy draws a clear distinction between a belief and the believer and focuses critique strictly on the idea. Empathy is irrelevant in such a context: surely we are not expected to "empathize" with a bad idea!
This is a great article but contains within its own unseen idea pathogen, namely that New Earth Creationism can in anyway be conflated with Intelligent Design. ID is raising rigourous science based questions about the ways in which neo Darwinism is unable to explain multimple aspects of human evolution and is, to my mind, cutting edge.
I perceive that a Trojan Horse event has occurred on the topic of sexual orientation. Calif. voted twice that marriage was only between a male and female. The attorney general would not defend that democratic vote in court. What followed was a strong current of media support via opinion writers that culminated in legalizing same ses marriages. Now here's the Trojan Horse: Then "letters" began to be added to "L & G" until we had, "LGBTQ+". I saw zero public discussion on this process largely due to fear of appearing "unwoke" to same-sex marriage. There is great debate about the meaning of "Q" and what in the world does "+" mean, if not "the gates are open"?
So you're fine with the majority deciding who the "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" apply to.
Those privileges and immunities do not include depriving others of life, liberty or property without due process, and there is no due process when it comes to the states enacting laws to that effect.
Societies have always made choices on what behaviors are acceptable and. what are not. There is no absolute truth here in sexual orientation. What I feel was lacking was an appropriate dialogue on trans, queer and "+". Good outcomes occur when good discussions on that topic actually take place, rather than slipping in related topics without due consideration. I believe considerable peer pressure was in play here.
'' Being smart and educated makes one better at rationalizing beliefs one holds for non-smart reasons.'' is one of the best statements I have seen on this issue. I will quote it often. Thank you, Michael Shermer.
But this writer holds several ideas with which I disagree after looking at the arguments of both sides and examining my own motives. While I do agree with him on the ''woke'' issue, I consider SOME forms of alternative medicine to have value, while others do not. I would accept vaccination in cases of long-standing well-known diseases like yellow fever or tetnus, but never in the case of covid. I think AIDS is caused by prenatal ingestion of environmental toxins that damage the developing immune system, not by a virus. And I consider all forms of nuclear energy production to among the very worst attacks on the biosphere and anything that includes radioactivity should never be tolerated. That is not an ''ideology''; it is a conclusion reachyed after much study.
I do agree that most of the ''woke'' issues are a form of pathology, but I have long ago reached some conclusions about them. Those conclusions are subject to change if any new evidence comes up, but until then they will stand. One of them is that homosexuality, transexuality, and trisexuality are a result of prenatal brain damage to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls sexual response, caused by maternal ingestion of certain chemicals released into the air, food, and water by industrial processes, especially the manufacture of plastics.
But the particular details of what I think or what anyone else thinks are of lesser importance compared to the over-riding issue of social pressures being exerted to get anyone to conform. It is conformity, not the individual issue, that is the real problem that must be fought.
And I have noticed in my interactions with several people in Germany that the Germans seem much more into conformity on a wide range of issues than Americans or other Europeans. This really should be investigated. I suggest it as a topic for the German skeptics group.
Concerning your mistrust of the Covid vaccines, does not the RESULT of millions of injections that have saved so many lives provide scientific evidence to trust it? Should not initial MISTRUST subside if contrary evidence appears to support TRUST?
How do you know how many lives have been saved by the vaccines? How can you know if anyone would have died if they didn't die? Psychic powers? Divine revelation? There is no evidence to prove something that didn't happen would have.
By inference. As in clinical trials when they give a vaccine to a one control group and a placebo to another, we can infer from nationwide results that the vaccine works when deaths are declining.
Yes. Or by comparing the mortality rates of different States with the proportion of the population that was vaccinated in each State to determine whether there is a correlation.
And if you look at the statistics from Sweden, or Chiapas, both of which had low vaccination rates, you see that the number of deaths was about thye same as in nearby places that obeyed the dictatorship's orders. Some villages in Chiapas even voted to not alow vaccination in their village at all, but had no covid deeaths at all.
The fact remains that Sweden still had a higher percentage of fully vaccinated individuals than the US, and if you compare individual states within the US, there were many that had significantly lower vaccination rates (by more than 10 percentage points) than the US average. And it was those states - e.g. Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. - that also had the highest mortality rates.
Unless you have conducted scientific research to support your conclusions, they have no credibility and are just a matter of your personal opinion, which is not a valid basis for any sort of public policy.
I believe the moon is made of green cheese but that doesn’t make it so. The real question is what makes you qualified to make statements about nuclear energy. If you have a humanities degree it’s actually a nonsense degree. Knowledge of math and physics is essential to understanding how things work. The US produces a lot more bullshit artists than engineers.
The "debate" over nuclear power, and nuclear safety in general, is not about scientific facts. It is about feelings and values.
Some people feel nuclear power is dangerous. They feel it deep in their insides. They do not want to live on the same planet with it. Nothing can change that deep feeling, no matter what the scientific evidence says.
Other people feel no danger from nuclear power. They consider the alleged dangers of it a fantasy. They think the people who are afraid of it are just ignorant of scientific facts. No amount of evidence can ever convince them nuclear power is dangerous. They simply do not feel any danger from it.
These two character types cannot communicate. They live in different worlds. They both are convinced the other side is ignorant, unable to see the Truth, with a capital "T", and that they have the Facts, with a capital "F", on their side.
Trying to debate either side on a basis of scientific evidence is a lost cause. They are not interested in evidence. They are both trying to express deep feelings. And nuclear power is only the vehicle they are using to express their feelings about how the world works and what kind of a world they want to live in.
So the only way to talk about nuclear power is to ignore the scientific facts and talk about what kind of a world do you want to live in? What kind of a world is the best one to live in? What kind of a world do you think this world is? And what kind of a world would it be if you could make it over the way you want it to be?
And that line of questioning brings out the vast gulf between the thinking and more importantly, the FEELING, of the mechanistic-minded people who feel safe with nuclear power because they have no real contact with their deepest biological roots, and the relatively healthy individuals who cannot and will not tolerate nuclear power because they know instictively that it is Evil, with a capital "E".
Because that is the real issue here: The people who are against anything nuclear KNOW in their bones that this stuff is Death, with a capital "D", and no amount of scientific evidence will ever make any difference to them. That feeling is a deep biological instinct.
And the people who favor nuclear power cannot understand that. They cannot FEEL that instinctive dread of anything nuclear. They lack the sense organ to feel that instinctive dread.
So it pointless to try to win over anyone to either side. All that can be done is to give the anti-nuclear people as much ammunition as possible to use in the poilitical arena. And in that arena, things are not decided by appeal to science and scientific facts. Things are decided by appeal to emotions.
And since the majority of people are anti-nuclear in their character make-up and feel that instinctive dread of anything nuclear, that is a very good thing.
The real tragedy of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is not that a few people have already died and that many more will die in the future. No. The real tragedy of Chernobyl, like the equally tragic Three Mile Island accident in the United States, is that not enough men, women and children became sick and died immediately after the nuclear disaster.
If ten or twenty thousand people in the Soviet Union (or in the United States) had succumbed immediately to the respective disasters in the two countries, the atrocities would have created a global public disgust at this murderous threat. Then perhaps the specter of nuclear annihilation that haunts the world would finally have been laid to rest. But this will not happen.
The horror and tears of the pitifully few victims of this satanic power cannot extinguish the invisible fire that power-blinded lunatics who call themselves "scientists" or "leaders of the world" have unleashed on our earth. These ardent nuclear zealots see no connection between the nuclear test explosions and the global weather chaos. They see no connection between the silent radioactive slaughter of thousands of newborn infants (and damaged children) and the reactor emissions that release their poison into an already polluted environment. They are deaf and dumb to the onslaught of "low-dose" radiation constantly bombarding humanity from nuclear waste depots, nuclear tests and nuclear reactors. They fail to see any causal connection between such "harmless" emissions and the alarming decline in human fertility over the last two decades. They still do not have the sensory organs to perceive the slightest connection between the epidemic rise of degenerative diseases (cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, sclerodermatitis, AIDS, etc.) and the planet-wide rise of nuclear poisons that are slowly destroying the organism's autoimmune system.
But as it stands, there is no evidence that nuclear power is responsible for any more deaths or health complications than burning huge amounts of fossil fuels. Coal is radioactive, too, and has proven less amenable to containing its deleterious effects after use than uranium. I'm not saying there aren't valid concerns about safe disposal and risk of exposure, just that there's little evidence that it's UNIQUELY bad.
In the 1970s, Ernest Sternglass, Professor Of Radiation Health Physics at the University of Pittsburg, found clear statistical evidence that children born during the years of the bomb testing program, between it's start in 1950 and it's finish in 1963, when they got into school, were much more prone to abscences from colds and flue than children born either in the years before the bomb tests began or after they ended. They also had lower I.Q. scores that the older or younger cohorts.
Maps of nuclear installations show strong evidence of "clusters" of many diseases in populations living near such installations. This is especially true of cancer and leukemia, both of which are known to decrease immune response. Since cancer and leukemia can take decades to develop to the point where a diagnosis is made, it is quite likely that in the earlier stages, even years before the cancer has progressed to a point where that diagnosis is evident, the compromising of the immune system has already taken place. In this case, many of the people dying from some "virus" or other are in a pre-cancerous state and while they cannot yet be diagnosed with cancer, it is that weakening of the immune system that makes them fall victim to whatever random virus they encounter.
Iraqui doctors are reporting thousands of cases more than before the American invasion of stillbirths, miscarriages, birth defects, childhood cancer and leukimia due to the American war criminals using artilery shells make from recycled nuclear reactor fuuel rod which pulverize into microscopic dust upon impact. The American war criminal regime has used more than 150,000 of these shells in a deliberate attempt to permanently poison Iraq so all future generations living there, long after the very name of America has been forgotten, will have to spend most of their energy caring for the sick and will never again be able to fight against American rule.
Radioactive materials do not ''radiate''; they agitate the surrounding ether into a more excited state and this is detected by instruments and mistaken for radiation comming from the material itself.
In high concentrations these materials damage the ether and prevent it from following it's normal pulsation. This is the most important cause of droughts, floods, tornadoes, and other weather events that the human scientists wrongly blame on greenhouse gases.
This agitation of the surrounding ether is the underlying cause of almost all health problems, none of which would be possible in a properly functioning atmospheric ether field.
The human scientists do not understand this because human science is mostly nothiing but rationalizations to avoid seeing how nature really works.
There! Now do you see how far apart our world-views are? There is no possibility of our ever communicating. We live in different universes.
My father is one of the founders of a skeptic group ("R.E.A.S.O.N.": Rationalists, Empiricists, And Skeptics Of Nebraska). It's astonishing to see how readily he and "REASON" slipped into Wokeness. They really were and are quite defenseless against these ideas.
Dan Williams recently criticized the fashion of analyzing ideas as "mind viruses" pretty successfully IMO: https://www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/there-is-no-woke-mind-virus
I find the concept unhelpful and extremely off-putting. Thank you for the link, Holm.
While I believe wokeism has its flaws and deserves critique, labeling it as a "mind virus" is an unproductive and self-congratulatory approach. This kind of language implies that those who disagree are irrational or mentally unwell, while positioning oneself as enlightened and immune to such thinking. This framing promotes tribalism rather than fostering meaningful dialogue. We should strive to elevate our discussions beyond such cheap rhetorical tricks.
I have come to the conclusion that the illness analogy is completely apt. Examine the behaviour of the prog/left activists and it is clear they are at least suffering paranoia. They perceive genocide and oppression in the most tolerant societies that ever existed. At a demonstration I personally witnessed gender activists risk being trampled by police horses to spew violent threats at feminists merely talking about things they (the leftists) disagree with. Are you familiar with the concept of "vindictive protectiveness"?
Another very apt illness analogy is the fact these beliefs clearly carry harm to the holder - witness a generation of young people destroy their health to chase the gender dragon.
I understand the frustration with the extreme behavior of some activists, but I see wokeness as more of a manifestation of tribalism, which is a common human pattern of behavior, rather than a mental illness. Tribalism pushes people into rigid 'us vs. them' thinking, which often leads to the intolerance and hostility we observe. However, equating these behaviors with mental illness undermines the complexity of human social dynamics. Tribalism isn't an illness—it's a deeply ingrained part of how humans form groups and defend their beliefs, even when those beliefs become extreme. Conflating it with mental illness dismisses the broader societal forces at play and prevents us from addressing the real roots of these behaviors and conflicts.
Tribalism may be a component of the behaviour - part of a siege mentality. But there is one very noteworthy feature that is different to mere passionate defense of your own self-interest... Most wokeness is focused on advancing causes OF OTHERS. Like the way anti-racism is most aggressive from well-off white people. Hence "vindictive protectiveness".
I actually quite like the expression 'vindictive protectiveness,' as it highlights a specific feature of woke tribalism: the fact that it's a 'moralizing' form of tribalism. In my view, this is a pathological form of moral judgment. Normally, moral judgment is about classifying certain types of actions as morally wrong or questionable. In specific cases, this also involves attaching victim and perpetrator roles to those actions, with us collectively responding either negatively (towards the perpetrator) or sympathetically (towards the victim). In woke discourses, however, these victim and perpetrator roles are decoupled from the actions that underpin them and transferred onto social groups. When this happens, moral judgment (which humans instinctively gravitate toward) is automatically exploited for coalition-building and group conflicts. This, in my opinion, is a pathology. However, wokeness isn’t unique in this regard. We see similar patterns in Marxism (applied to economically defined classes) or in fascism (applied to races or ethnic groups). Systematically speaking, wokeness belongs to this category of ideologies (though, of course, there are differences between them). And history shows that we shouldn't take this lightly. Vindictive protectiveness is a concrete manifestation of this pathological structure.
Very well stated. I feel the same. The goal should be critiquing bad ideas and changing hearts and minds, using empathy, logic, relatability, and reason. It’s discouraging to see fellow skeptics and independent thinkers like Shermer employing such an obnoxious and unhelpful device.
I mean, would anyone refer to "wokeness" as if it were a term with any analytical utility whatsoever if they weren't playing for the cheap seats, fleecing the rubes, etc. Ditto "cancel culture", which I've seen applied to everything from legit bullying and harassment, calling out bullying and harassment, doxing as a precursor to stochastic terrorism, doxing to expose people engaging in defamation and harassment, exposing people's affiliation with neofascist and white supremacist groups etc. People unfamiliar with online culture seem to have extreme difficulty parsing the differences, which means lumping them all together isn't a helpful activity.
Dismissing "wokeness" and "cancel culture" as terms with no analytical value is overly reductive. While they can be misused, they hold valid meanings in certain contexts. Additionally, your comment conflates multiple distinct issues without addressing my original point: the problem with demonizing others by framing them as irrational or mentally compromised. This approach derails meaningful discussion.
Missing word? “As regular readers of my books and essays dating back to the 1990s [know], I …”
please read and translate this article into english.
https://mit-cks.net/memo-das-skeptische-spektakel/
Translation of the introduction text
"Eyes closed, and push through. This seems to be the prevailing feeling for members of the GWUP, the German Skeptics Association, as they approach the upcoming general meeting in Augsburg. However, this gathering marks only the peak of a series of discomforts tied to the association’s ongoing internal debate over its direction. Together, these tensions create an atmosphere in which members feel uneasy about expressing their views on the conflict; any public statements increasingly risk reactions that could lead to personal repercussions. Yet, this very climate seems to compel members to voice their positions not only internally but also publicly. Certain statements and interpretations simply call to be contested, depending on one’s perspective. So, these remarks here are shared with a fair amount of unease. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when trying to add a word of caution to the decision on the association’s direction."
While I appreciate pointing out any example of a threat to scepticism and it's values regardless of political ideology, I have never seen a greater threat to these ideals than in the far-right in the United States. Right here in the United States we may very likely elect a president who could institute legal book bans, make protesting certain ideals illegal, promote anti-science in our scientific organizations, stop funding for science and climate research, and have professors and other intellectuals removed from their posts or maybe even imprisoned for speaking against whatever he professes to believe in. So again, while I appreciate a global perspective on combating anti-sceptical values no matter how small or where they are because even the tiniest brush fire can grow and burn down an entire neighborhood, this article is like pointing out a tiny brush fire in the far corner of someone else's back yard without acknowledging that the entire house you live in is already engulfed in flames.
Not to mention there is documented infiltration of both the police and the military by right wing extremists. No, I'm not saying they've taken over, but both groups have certain immunities that such people can exploit once they're in. The military has been far more resistant to such infiltration as the top brass are generally acknowledged to be committed to preserving the Constitution and the rule of law, at least domestically. Police regularly lobby for removing restrictions on their actions and consequences for misconduct. Sometimes I think the military overstates exactly how much they do to preserve liberty, but that doesn't mean they don't take it seriously.
Point being, there has been no evidence whatsoever of such infiltration by the left. "Antifa" isn't even a group; it's a watchword for solidarity among the more anarchist leaning individuals who have reached a tentative consensus that the mechanism of government is not productive to dismantle currently, and that they should focus on combating white supremacy and religious intolerance, especially open, public demonstrations and committing of hate crimes.
Using the antibiotics, antiviral, analogies can be helpful to understanding how wokeness or any idealistic group or thought might take over some organization ( even skeptical orgs). However this methodology of explanation remains an analogy ( ie no claim of cause and effect).
The best defense is as always, knowing oneself and our personal weaknesses and strengths.
How to take back or restore an org overtaken by wokeness ( without killing it) is still an open question with me.
Agree with everything you say... but its too late.
The woke gleichschaltung has been successful, and in many other fields - like the ACLU and other supposed freedom oriented milieux. The only solution is to build new fora, just like Substack and UATX. Truth should follow the processes of evolution and grow where it can find better ground. Thusly those mind-viruses should also kill their hosts. Truth should also follow the rules of economics, just as good money drives out bad the public will eventually seek out the more valuable.
I don't agree. Depicting a belief (an idea), a trait, or a behavior as a "disease" or an "infection" allows us to avoid assigning moral blame to the individual - as, for example, when we think of alcoholism as a disease rather than a vice or a character flaw. The analogy draws a clear distinction between a belief and the believer and focuses critique strictly on the idea. Empathy is irrelevant in such a context: surely we are not expected to "empathize" with a bad idea!
Glad to see another article in support of the concept of mind viruses. https://ataraxiaorbust.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-the-concept-of-mind
This is a great article but contains within its own unseen idea pathogen, namely that New Earth Creationism can in anyway be conflated with Intelligent Design. ID is raising rigourous science based questions about the ways in which neo Darwinism is unable to explain multimple aspects of human evolution and is, to my mind, cutting edge.
Thanks for demonstrating just how pernicious this rightward tilt is proving to be for the integrity of the publication.
Sorry to use you as an example, but Shermer must cease this endless pandering to the right under the guise of centrism.
I perceive that a Trojan Horse event has occurred on the topic of sexual orientation. Calif. voted twice that marriage was only between a male and female. The attorney general would not defend that democratic vote in court. What followed was a strong current of media support via opinion writers that culminated in legalizing same ses marriages. Now here's the Trojan Horse: Then "letters" began to be added to "L & G" until we had, "LGBTQ+". I saw zero public discussion on this process largely due to fear of appearing "unwoke" to same-sex marriage. There is great debate about the meaning of "Q" and what in the world does "+" mean, if not "the gates are open"?
So you're fine with the majority deciding who the "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" apply to.
Those privileges and immunities do not include depriving others of life, liberty or property without due process, and there is no due process when it comes to the states enacting laws to that effect.
Societies have always made choices on what behaviors are acceptable and. what are not. There is no absolute truth here in sexual orientation. What I feel was lacking was an appropriate dialogue on trans, queer and "+". Good outcomes occur when good discussions on that topic actually take place, rather than slipping in related topics without due consideration. I believe considerable peer pressure was in play here.
'' Being smart and educated makes one better at rationalizing beliefs one holds for non-smart reasons.'' is one of the best statements I have seen on this issue. I will quote it often. Thank you, Michael Shermer.
But this writer holds several ideas with which I disagree after looking at the arguments of both sides and examining my own motives. While I do agree with him on the ''woke'' issue, I consider SOME forms of alternative medicine to have value, while others do not. I would accept vaccination in cases of long-standing well-known diseases like yellow fever or tetnus, but never in the case of covid. I think AIDS is caused by prenatal ingestion of environmental toxins that damage the developing immune system, not by a virus. And I consider all forms of nuclear energy production to among the very worst attacks on the biosphere and anything that includes radioactivity should never be tolerated. That is not an ''ideology''; it is a conclusion reachyed after much study.
I do agree that most of the ''woke'' issues are a form of pathology, but I have long ago reached some conclusions about them. Those conclusions are subject to change if any new evidence comes up, but until then they will stand. One of them is that homosexuality, transexuality, and trisexuality are a result of prenatal brain damage to the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls sexual response, caused by maternal ingestion of certain chemicals released into the air, food, and water by industrial processes, especially the manufacture of plastics.
But the particular details of what I think or what anyone else thinks are of lesser importance compared to the over-riding issue of social pressures being exerted to get anyone to conform. It is conformity, not the individual issue, that is the real problem that must be fought.
And I have noticed in my interactions with several people in Germany that the Germans seem much more into conformity on a wide range of issues than Americans or other Europeans. This really should be investigated. I suggest it as a topic for the German skeptics group.
Concerning your mistrust of the Covid vaccines, does not the RESULT of millions of injections that have saved so many lives provide scientific evidence to trust it? Should not initial MISTRUST subside if contrary evidence appears to support TRUST?
How do you know how many lives have been saved by the vaccines? How can you know if anyone would have died if they didn't die? Psychic powers? Divine revelation? There is no evidence to prove something that didn't happen would have.
By inference. As in clinical trials when they give a vaccine to a one control group and a placebo to another, we can infer from nationwide results that the vaccine works when deaths are declining.
Yes. Or by comparing the mortality rates of different States with the proportion of the population that was vaccinated in each State to determine whether there is a correlation.
And if you look at the statistics from Sweden, or Chiapas, both of which had low vaccination rates, you see that the number of deaths was about thye same as in nearby places that obeyed the dictatorship's orders. Some villages in Chiapas even voted to not alow vaccination in their village at all, but had no covid deeaths at all.
The fact remains that Sweden still had a higher percentage of fully vaccinated individuals than the US, and if you compare individual states within the US, there were many that had significantly lower vaccination rates (by more than 10 percentage points) than the US average. And it was those states - e.g. Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. - that also had the highest mortality rates.
Unless you have conducted scientific research to support your conclusions, they have no credibility and are just a matter of your personal opinion, which is not a valid basis for any sort of public policy.
I believe the moon is made of green cheese but that doesn’t make it so. The real question is what makes you qualified to make statements about nuclear energy. If you have a humanities degree it’s actually a nonsense degree. Knowledge of math and physics is essential to understanding how things work. The US produces a lot more bullshit artists than engineers.
The "debate" over nuclear power, and nuclear safety in general, is not about scientific facts. It is about feelings and values.
Some people feel nuclear power is dangerous. They feel it deep in their insides. They do not want to live on the same planet with it. Nothing can change that deep feeling, no matter what the scientific evidence says.
Other people feel no danger from nuclear power. They consider the alleged dangers of it a fantasy. They think the people who are afraid of it are just ignorant of scientific facts. No amount of evidence can ever convince them nuclear power is dangerous. They simply do not feel any danger from it.
These two character types cannot communicate. They live in different worlds. They both are convinced the other side is ignorant, unable to see the Truth, with a capital "T", and that they have the Facts, with a capital "F", on their side.
Trying to debate either side on a basis of scientific evidence is a lost cause. They are not interested in evidence. They are both trying to express deep feelings. And nuclear power is only the vehicle they are using to express their feelings about how the world works and what kind of a world they want to live in.
So the only way to talk about nuclear power is to ignore the scientific facts and talk about what kind of a world do you want to live in? What kind of a world is the best one to live in? What kind of a world do you think this world is? And what kind of a world would it be if you could make it over the way you want it to be?
And that line of questioning brings out the vast gulf between the thinking and more importantly, the FEELING, of the mechanistic-minded people who feel safe with nuclear power because they have no real contact with their deepest biological roots, and the relatively healthy individuals who cannot and will not tolerate nuclear power because they know instictively that it is Evil, with a capital "E".
Because that is the real issue here: The people who are against anything nuclear KNOW in their bones that this stuff is Death, with a capital "D", and no amount of scientific evidence will ever make any difference to them. That feeling is a deep biological instinct.
And the people who favor nuclear power cannot understand that. They cannot FEEL that instinctive dread of anything nuclear. They lack the sense organ to feel that instinctive dread.
So it pointless to try to win over anyone to either side. All that can be done is to give the anti-nuclear people as much ammunition as possible to use in the poilitical arena. And in that arena, things are not decided by appeal to science and scientific facts. Things are decided by appeal to emotions.
And since the majority of people are anti-nuclear in their character make-up and feel that instinctive dread of anything nuclear, that is a very good thing.
The real tragedy of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is not that a few people have already died and that many more will die in the future. No. The real tragedy of Chernobyl, like the equally tragic Three Mile Island accident in the United States, is that not enough men, women and children became sick and died immediately after the nuclear disaster.
If ten or twenty thousand people in the Soviet Union (or in the United States) had succumbed immediately to the respective disasters in the two countries, the atrocities would have created a global public disgust at this murderous threat. Then perhaps the specter of nuclear annihilation that haunts the world would finally have been laid to rest. But this will not happen.
The horror and tears of the pitifully few victims of this satanic power cannot extinguish the invisible fire that power-blinded lunatics who call themselves "scientists" or "leaders of the world" have unleashed on our earth. These ardent nuclear zealots see no connection between the nuclear test explosions and the global weather chaos. They see no connection between the silent radioactive slaughter of thousands of newborn infants (and damaged children) and the reactor emissions that release their poison into an already polluted environment. They are deaf and dumb to the onslaught of "low-dose" radiation constantly bombarding humanity from nuclear waste depots, nuclear tests and nuclear reactors. They fail to see any causal connection between such "harmless" emissions and the alarming decline in human fertility over the last two decades. They still do not have the sensory organs to perceive the slightest connection between the epidemic rise of degenerative diseases (cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, sclerodermatitis, AIDS, etc.) and the planet-wide rise of nuclear poisons that are slowly destroying the organism's autoimmune system.
But as it stands, there is no evidence that nuclear power is responsible for any more deaths or health complications than burning huge amounts of fossil fuels. Coal is radioactive, too, and has proven less amenable to containing its deleterious effects after use than uranium. I'm not saying there aren't valid concerns about safe disposal and risk of exposure, just that there's little evidence that it's UNIQUELY bad.
In the 1970s, Ernest Sternglass, Professor Of Radiation Health Physics at the University of Pittsburg, found clear statistical evidence that children born during the years of the bomb testing program, between it's start in 1950 and it's finish in 1963, when they got into school, were much more prone to abscences from colds and flue than children born either in the years before the bomb tests began or after they ended. They also had lower I.Q. scores that the older or younger cohorts.
Maps of nuclear installations show strong evidence of "clusters" of many diseases in populations living near such installations. This is especially true of cancer and leukemia, both of which are known to decrease immune response. Since cancer and leukemia can take decades to develop to the point where a diagnosis is made, it is quite likely that in the earlier stages, even years before the cancer has progressed to a point where that diagnosis is evident, the compromising of the immune system has already taken place. In this case, many of the people dying from some "virus" or other are in a pre-cancerous state and while they cannot yet be diagnosed with cancer, it is that weakening of the immune system that makes them fall victim to whatever random virus they encounter.
Iraqui doctors are reporting thousands of cases more than before the American invasion of stillbirths, miscarriages, birth defects, childhood cancer and leukimia due to the American war criminals using artilery shells make from recycled nuclear reactor fuuel rod which pulverize into microscopic dust upon impact. The American war criminal regime has used more than 150,000 of these shells in a deliberate attempt to permanently poison Iraq so all future generations living there, long after the very name of America has been forgotten, will have to spend most of their energy caring for the sick and will never again be able to fight against American rule.
Radioactive materials do not ''radiate''; they agitate the surrounding ether into a more excited state and this is detected by instruments and mistaken for radiation comming from the material itself.
In high concentrations these materials damage the ether and prevent it from following it's normal pulsation. This is the most important cause of droughts, floods, tornadoes, and other weather events that the human scientists wrongly blame on greenhouse gases.
This agitation of the surrounding ether is the underlying cause of almost all health problems, none of which would be possible in a properly functioning atmospheric ether field.
The human scientists do not understand this because human science is mostly nothiing but rationalizations to avoid seeing how nature really works.
There! Now do you see how far apart our world-views are? There is no possibility of our ever communicating. We live in different universes.
Great Story. BTW:the previous link isn’t working. Here’s the correct one: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-german-dilemma-continues-skepticism-in-the-face-of-ideological-conflict/
Also, here are two more pieces from the same author: https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/johannes-c-zeller/
Interesting - but relies too heavily on disease analogy.
Analogy can be a useful tool, but too often ignores fundamental structural differences in the respective systems.