Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

And to be clear, I *like* #emojis (or #emoticons, as we called them in my day, grumble mutter snore). I think they're a clever and useful way to convey tone that doesn't always come through in text any other way. But the specific ways some of them get used are ... unintentionally revealing.

🤡 is right up there with 🤣 as a way to announce to the world that you have nothing worthwhile to say, on any subject, ever.

This meme has crossed my feed in a number of places lately. I'm sharing it for debate, not for approval or agreement. If you share from my post, please leave my commentary intact. This has been a public service announcement.

#Scientism is very nearly a straw man. I'm willing to concede that there are *some* people who treat #science like a religion, but their numbers are tiny and they have zero influence on the conduct of research AFAICT. Anti-science #zealots who come up with memes like this, OTOH, are numerous and disturbingly influential.

It's also amusing how the meme assumes #epistemology is a gold standard against which other intellectual pursuits must be measured. The author assigns to #philosophy the same unquestionable authority he accuses others of assigning to science.

So I'll stake my claim: scientific #methodology—in the literal sense of the study of methods—has done more to illuminate "how we know what we know" in the last couple of centuries than formal epistemology has done in millennia. If this be scientism, make the most of it.

You know, I'm getting really tired of reflexive anti-Americanism†.

There is a lot to criticize about #US culture. Yes. And politics and history and whatever defines us as a nation. We have done and continue to do some really appalling things. Those things should be caught and dissected and disposed of in the biohazard incinerator ... once we understand their biology in intimate detail and make sure we know how to fight them should they infest us again. Because they *will*, and others like them, as long as a country called the #United #States of #America exists.

The same is true of every other country on Earth. If you think it isn't, at best you're dangerously naive. At worst ... well, you're as bad as those Americans who are responsible for the very worst of our reputation. Every country needs criticism. Every power structure relies on violence, implicit or explicit, to maintain itself. Every culture has its strengths and weaknesses. Every people, like every person, needs to be self-aware. To be *better*, or at the very least to avoid being worse.

Because of our unique reach—economic, military, cultural—the rest of the world has good reason to worry more about us than most other countries. (Although some give us a run for our money, which is a *startlingly* American phrase now that I think about it.) Practically everyone on the planet has a stake in what happens here. I have no problem, at all, with criticism from outside, as long as it's well-founded. The same applies to internal criticism, for that matter.

I have a big problem with the idea that Americans *by virtue of being Americans* are automatically ignorant or greedy or violent or ... hell, fill in the stereotype of your choice here. There's a very long list to choose from. It's just as ridiculous as the idea that we're inherently better than everyone else, chosen by history or divine favor to lead the world into a golden age of freedom and prosperity, and anyone who doesn't see that needs to be, uh, *liberated* into understanding.

And because that latter idea is so prevalent, a lot of the former ideas come up as reflex. I get that. I'm just asking you to remember that there are a third of a billion of us, and not only are we #notall *that* kind of American, a whole lot of us actively fight against it. Many of us try to fight in ways that will actually make a difference, too ... rather than the kind of "oh yeah, we're irredeemably awful" nihilism that turns into humblebragging really fast.

Please don't use a club when a scalpel is called for. That's all.

===

†Everyone understands what I mean when I say "America" and "American" and its derivations, yes? Good. I am profoundly uninterested in having, again, what may be the stupidest argument on the internet ... and that's a very high bar.

This should stop people whining about the #Olympics.

Poetic license now that I think about it carefully: it was actually *eleven* years. But three of those years were part-time, so it kind of works if you turn your head sideways and squint. Anyway, I like the flavor of the classics.

On a Los Angeles Times post, somebody commented, "Californians may not miss Elon Musk, but the economy will."

I was curious enough to look this up: last year #Tesla had $24.9 billion in #revenue, and #SpaceX $8.7 billion, while #California's #GDP was $3.9 trillion. So very roughly, Tesla + SpaceX revenue was almost 1% of California GDP, although I doubt all or even most of that money actually stayed in California.

That's not insignificant, but it's not vital either. Given California's overall economic power, I think the state will absorb Musk's departure just fine, especially since there's no way to move a major industrial operation all at once. And most of Tesla's manufacturing is already outside the state.

The main economic impact of moving everything to #Texas may be to (slightly) ameliorate the famously high housing prices in the Bay Area and LA metro. Also, it will raise the average intelligence of both states. That's a win-win!

From comments on a post elsenet: "If I'd wanted to stay in business programming, I wouldn't have hung on the World-Tree a.k.a. grad school for nine years, a sacrifice of myself to myself. And my eye-socket itches."

I can hear this gravestone, and I bet now you can too.

My texts and private messages have blown up. It might be a while before I get through the backlog. And the rock cried out, no hiding place.

I wish #Biden hadn't stepped down. I believe, and will continue to believe, that he could have won—**if** #Democrats had rallied around him after the debate fiasco, instead of being so eager to throw him off the sleigh in the desperate hope of distracting the wolves. But we don't do that, do we? Fucking ever. The circular firing squad is always ready. Democrats fall in love, and then they fall out of it, while #Republicans fall in line.

Well. This is where we are now. As the prophecy foretold. The prophet was Octavia Butler, BTW. Seriously, go read *Parable of the Talents* again and tell me you don't see it.

The nominee has to has to has to be Vice President #Harris. She's our best chance of national survival. I will not be taking questions at this time.

If I were a Party official, I'd seriously try to plant someone in the audience to yell "Give 'em hell, Harris!" at an opportune moment during her next speech. So, of course, she could come back with "I don't give them hell. I tell the truth and they think it's hell!" But probably no one will do that. Lack of showmanship is almost as much a Democratic flaw as lack of party discipline.

Yeah, I'm scared. If you're not, you're not paying attention.

Take some time. Absorb the impact. Process the fear and anger and grief. Do what you have to do, for as long as you need.

Please come back when you can. We have roughly three and a half months to figure out how to save our country. Anyone who seriously decides to get out, and can make it happen—I don't blame you. Most of us don't have that option.

Good afternoon, and good luck.

Yes, I'm quite sure many of the 1/6 participants discussed their plans to make war on the United States on #Xitter.

I find this a horribly believable future, except I'm pretty sure some flavor of Protestants would win the battle.

@Lana I find this a horribly believable future, except I'm pretty sure some flavor of Protestants would win the battle.

@UweHalfHand Yeah. And we could have had that world. There was nothing stopping us. Except, apparently, ourselves.

@AndySocial With all the screaming about Biden's mental state, the media's failure to report on Trump's increasingly bizarre rants rises (or sinks) nearly to the level of criminal negligence.

🎼The Eagle has landed, tell your children when
Time won't drive us down to dust again!

For years I sang along to those words and felt them as they were intended: I believed that of all humanity's ephemeral accomplishments, at least one would last. In one sense it's still true. We did this thing, made a mark on another world that will almost surely outlast any monument on our own. Reached beyond our home to touch something outside the warm, nurturing blanket of atmosphere. Took our first tottering steps as a spacefaring species. Not once, but several times, to show it was no fluke.

"We" is not metaphorical, by the way. I was a baby on July 20, 1969, but my father was hard at work making it happen, one of hundreds of thousands. I grew up in a house full of space memorabilia. It is, in every sense, in my blood.

And then, the long retreat. From far beyond the blanket to barely past its outer edge. Not a collapse but a slow steady grinding down, an ill-maintained machine juddering toward its inevitable halt. The world in those brightly colored pamphlets and posters slipping from our grasp. Promises that always took too long or cost too much. Science and exploration transmuted, by a kind of reverse alchemy, to rich madmen's ego games.

It's been a long time since I believed that hopeful future was inevitable, and now I seriously wonder if it's even possible. Scientifically possible, technically possible, economically possible—oh yes, it's still all of those. Politically possible, there's the rub. Socially possible. Possible by imagination and courage and will. Maybe not. Maybe 1969-1972 was a unique high point, one of those shining moments that will never come again. We all have those in our lives, and we learn to live with them.

The footprints are still there. Still I can look up at the sky and hope I'll live long enough to see someone return.

Fascinating bit of #scientific #history: using #radio #astronomy to measure #continental #drift. These days they just do it with #GPS, of course.

https://ipnpr.jpl.nasa.gov/progress_report2/42-56/56I.PDF