Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/26/trumps-first-week-has-inspir.html
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Obligatory:
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No technocracy though, okay, pleeeeeeze?
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Don’t worry, not all scientists are techno-utopian solutionists. Most of the ones here are grounded but ornery realists who’d settle for a government that doesn’t deny climate change and the theory of evolution.
[ETA - I assume you’re using “technocracy” in the sense of government by technologists rather than government by technocrats]
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It would make my millennium if NDT ran for public office and won.
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Well, he’s got the trolling via twitter bit sorted, so he’s on the way.
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“The group is only fielding Democratic candidates because of the Republican party’s official policy of climate change denial.”
That seems wrong to me. The republican party certainly need scientists, and at a local level not everyone will have climate change denial as some sort of litmus test for candidates. Just getting representation in one party won’t be enough.
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And they must use words that people understand, unlike lawyers, until folks are educated to the point where they can understand the mulitsyllabic terms that are used in all of those professions.
Let’s bring people in, not keep them out. I’m of the mind that legalese was invented so people could learn it and then charge for interpreting it into basic simple terms that most people can fully comprehend… (I was a legal secretary for a while, so yeah, I know.) I was lucky to be raised in an environment where science was welcomed and discussed, so I get a lot of those big words, but not all of 'em. And not everyone’s been that lucky.
And The last POTUS we had before who never graduated from college was Harry S Truman. And he wanted nothing but the “best brains” in the country working for him. What a difference 68 years makes, eh?
https://www.nsf.gov/about/history/nsf50/truman1948_address.jsp
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Yes, the repub party certainly needs scientists. But do they WANT them?
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I, for one, am ready to kneel before our robot overlords.
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Too late, really. It’s just hidden. The EPA, FDA, CDC, and DOE are all technocracies chugging along and very much in control of a lot of your daily life. The thing is it’s mostly considered benign, and to some extent it is. The Mandarins in those agencies are really responding to executive power and are therefore theoretically beholden to the will of the people, but the reality of informed consent of the governed hinges heavily on the ability of the voter or policy-maker to comprehend the issues. Largely they’re forced to rely on expertise rather than audit it. The system really runs on trust.
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I meant everything - the whole shebang of government. Like in those classic pulp sci-fi stories. Only actually happening.
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Yeah, I’d be more worried about this from Silicon Valley types.
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Hence, Neil’s widespread popularity.
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Blame Newt Gingrich:
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It’s been my experience with scientists and engineers that they want to get the things discovered and made. They have minimal interest in the constant need for a politician to suck up to people that don’t really care about discoveries and inventions, and play the necessary popularity games. That’s why people like Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Elon Musk are so notable; they stand out from their compatriots in being able to explain to people without a technical background why their work is important.
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what about scientologists? What has Trump inspired in Tom Cruise?!?
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