“You’re just not willing to accept the truth!” shouted the rightie.
So we were talking about solutions to the housing crisis that afflicts many big cities, and the possibility of the government itself stepping in to build the affordable housing that the private market apparently is unwilling to build. And he whipped out this gem:
“The more the state “plans” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” – F.A. Hayek
Nice quote, dude. Doesn’t deal with the reality that is the free-market utopia of Singapore, though. Over 80% of the population of Singapore lives in government-built housing. And Singapore is hardly a place where it’s difficult for the individual to plan, or difficult to live at all. It’s a very livable city-state given the density imposed by its geography (it only has a certain number of square miles and a lot of people to put onto them).
What this brings to mind is the fundamental difference between those of us in the reality-based community and those who are not: Our differing attitudes towards truth. For me, truth is something that is approached by careful examination of reality, making sure that my observations can be replicated by others and that there are no contrary examples to the hypothesis I arrive at about what is true. And even there, I am quite willing to rearrange what I think is true if new information comes in. For example, I once thought that lawsuit costs accounted for much of the high cost of medicine in the United States. Then multiple pieces of data came to my attention: 1) States with strict tort limits that make it very difficult to sue don’t overall have cheaper health care costs than states without those tort limits (for example, California’s tort limits are so strict that finding a lawyer willing to sue on contingency is basically impossible, making healthcare lawsuits basically impossible for anybody who isn’t rich here in California, yet California’s healthcare costs are amongst the highest in the nation), and 2) overall medical malpractice insurance premium costs account for 0.2% of healthcare costs nationwide. I.e., we spend more on tongue depressors than on medical lawsuits. So, given those facts, I changed my view of what was true and decided medical malpractice lawsuits were *not* a major cause of higher health care costs. Because careful observation of reality led me to understand that the truth was not what I thought it was.
Now back to the dude spouting Hayek: You’ll see a lot of that from the un-reality based community. Because they have a completely different conception of the word “truth”. For them, truth is something handed down from authority figures like Hayek. Or by a pastor. Or by God. Or by Ronald Reagan. Whatever. They’re always spouting quotes from those people as if it means something. The thing is, it doesn’t, not really. Ideological hacks have said things for centuries that weren’t actually true when you carefully examined reality to ascertain whether a statement agreed with reality or not. Things aren’t true because someone says they’re true. They’re true because when you make actual observations of reality, your observations agree with the statement, and your observations can be replicated by other people.
But that sort of truth — a truth that is conditional, that depends on the best available observations of reality — seems wishy-washy and somehow “wrong” to these believers in truths handed down by authority figures. So they quote Hayek instead, and shout “you’re just not willing to accept the truth!” if you reject their Argument By Authority Figure argument.
Which is why we have an epistemological problem here in the United States, where a significant portion of the population believes things as “truth” that, if you make systematic observations of reality, just aren’t true. Which is no way to run a country. Just ask the Soviet Union, where the Communist Party to its dying days defended Communism as “truth” even when it was clear to everybody observing the facts of the Soviet economy and Soviet society that Communism just wasn’t working.
As the Soviet Union went, so goes the United States.
– Badtux the Epistemology Penguin
“But, but, but, JESUS!”
The complete unwillingness of a large segment of society to accept the changes since the “good old days” of the 50’s is the primary impediment to moving forward. I have to lay the blame at the feet of the American Evangelical movement, and their stubborn insistence on a number of fronts. Note, I did not say the “White” American Evangelical Movement, because historically Black churches have often been quite guilty of his magical thinking too, in certain areas. The secularization that has occurred in Europe is missing in America and Africa, and in Africa we see similar magical thinking preventing movement forward, as in America. Evangelical Religion has much to answer for, as Religion in general does throughout history.
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Once the crazy infects a society, only the eradication of that society can cure it? Maybe not all the time, but sure looks like it here. We will need genuine, unambiguous catastrophes and the end of our political structure before people see that evil is evil, good is good, and smart is smart.
Sucks for the people that can already see that.
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I was trying to make a point in a F/B conversation with a tightie rightie, when they put out a quote from ‘Dinesh D’souza’? OK, why not quote Dr Phil, or a Kardashian, I mean the people they listen to have no truth to their message and no true respectability, they only reinforce their strange views.
Critical thinking was not taught universally in this country and we are seeing the results.
The right wingers want to take us way back in time, like the 1850’s and I for one want No part of that. I appreciate my education and the science that has come about in my lifetime.
I suppose they can play Ostrich if they want, but the righties have a bad habit of insisting the rest of us, play by their rules, for us.
Idiots
w3ski
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Nangleator:
The problem is “our society” has infected so much of the world.
Ach. Seven billion people = climate crash, so the wider eradication is probably inevitable anyway.
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The post nailed it. Authoritarians have such need to believe in living forever in heben in the arms of Jebus that they believe fantastic delusions, aided by the bizarro but profitable alt-reality scary Fox News world my 91 year old Southern Baptist deacon Daddy believes in.
The 1950s would be perfect for a puss-grabbing ass-pinching ogling psuedo-rich syphilitic ‘playboy’ like Donald trump. No such thing as sexual harassment back then, “you’ll smile and take it if you want to work here, bitch”.
This seems academic with trump’s tiny fingers on the big red button and so yearning for a ‘Great Big Beautiful Nucular Götterdämmerung’ as he desperately hunkers in his (golf) bunker, voting us all off the island and “you’re firing” our cosy little Western Civilization. But what ratings! Donald trump wins again.
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