neonvincent

My comment from The Cold Wet Mackerel of Reality.

"I know very few people who will object when, a few hours from now, 2014 gets dragged off to the glue factory."

The people who will be happy to see 2014 go include scientists and science journalists. It was a year when the failures of science were as publicized as its successes, what with more than the usual false positives, errors, and downright frauds. USA Today went so far as to call 2014 a year in science best forgotten. Even the boosterish Wired admitted it was a roller-coaster year for science. A magazine called The Scientist listed ten very public retractions and ten outright scandals in science. They even documented how less faith in science was resulting in reduced levels of support for research from government. Mother Jones added to the litany of decreased belief in scientific expertise, using a term to describe anti-science sentiment that would prevent my comment from being approved. All in all, you picked a good year to be critical of science as part of your projections about how the decline of faith in the secular religion of progress would result in the abandonment of science as the current civilization's dominant cultural project.

As for "cheerleading of a distinctly Pravda-esque variety" and expecting "to see a good deal more of this sort of twaddle in the weeks immediately ahead," I have a term for that, Clapping for the Progress Fairy. Lots of people aren't ready to give her a pink slip yet, not unless they want to seduce her.

Greer: Pinku-sensei, interesting -- I hadn't been following those stories, due to the press of other things happening in a hurry. Thanks for the heads up! As for your comments re the Progress Fairy, I'm reminded of the use of "clapping" in obsolete slang with the meaning of "giving the clap to"...

My comment from Déjà Vu All Over Again.

When I analyzed the current situation in PBS NewsHour on lower oil prices, I used a different analogy, that of the 1998 fall in oil prices that resulted from a global recession at the same time the U.S. experienced the heated final two years of an economic expansion fueled in part by low oil prices. That was followed by an increase in oil prices of more than 50% in less than twelve months, which led to the recession of 2001. I expect that's what's going to happen here. Prices will stay low for the next year or two until the current tight oil wells run dry, then rise as supply drops and U.S. demand increases. By late 2016 or early 2017, we'll be back in recession. The analogy may not extend too far, as the 2001 recession ended when the American people heard "go shopping or the terrorists win," even if President Bush didn't actually say such a thing. I have my doubts that either the American people will have enough unused credit or the U.S. government will be able to provide enough of a stimulus to make history repeat that closely!

As for the financial panic spreading, it took two years for the popping of the housing bubble in 2005 and 2006 to turn into a recession in 2008, and that was accompanied by both a 50+% increase in the price of oil as well as the U.S. spending more than 4% of its GDP on oil. Of course, the price of oil had been rising throughout much of the housing bubble, and I strongly suspect the rising cost of commuting and heating helped prick the bubble in 2005 and 2006. As Barry Commoner pointed out, everything is connected to everything else.

Greer: Pinku-sensei, well, we'll see. In 1998 the US economy wasn't anything like so much of a house of cards as it's subsequently become.

My comment from Dark Age America: The Sharp Edge of the Shell.

When you linked to the Discover Magazine blog post expressing bewilderment about Bill Nye's standoffish attitude to GMOs, I was expecting his stance to be contrasted with Neil DeGrasse Tyson's. I was not disappointed. It looks as if the blog author and the Redditor had a choice between two popular science heroes, Nye and Tyson, and picked Tyson, the one most friendly to technology. That choice exemplifies the confusion between science and technology that I fight against constantly and one that I point out to my classes in the very first lecture, in which I point out that technology, medicine, and engineering are not actually science, but the application of scientifically derived information to human needs and wants. The old Dewey Decimal System recognized this and separated science in the 500s and the rest in the 600s. Pity that distinction is being lost these days.

As for Monsanto, the corporation has earned such an odious reputation that there is now a March Against Monsanto, an annual event protesting GMOs in general and Monsanto's behavior in particular. The coverage of last year's protests earned contrasting views from CNN and Russia Today. CNN tried to be as even-handed as possible and included the claim that there are, as yet, no studies showing ill health effects on humans from GMOs. That's true as far as it goes, but I'm not sure it goes as far as the supporters think it does. Russia Today, on the other hand, was much more supportive of the protesters and critical of Monsanto. Then again, RT is as much a propaganda organ as it is a news organization, and it likes to urge on dissidents in the U.S. With friends like them, the protesters don't really need enemies.

Greer: Pinku-sensei, it's exactly the conflating of science, technology, medicine, and engineering as a single religious icon of Progress that's the underlying issue here, of course.

Thomas Prentice said...RE: "Pinku-Sensei: "RT [Russia Today} is as much a propaganda organ as it is a news organization, and it likes to urge on dissidents in the U.S. With friends like them, the protesters don't really need enemies..."

Russia Today is less a propaganda vehicle than the new york times, cnn, npr, pbs, nbc, the works. As an authentic journalist I find Russia Today to have more implicit surface credibility THAN the new york times...

RT is, in my judgement, "too conservative" in its journalism -- far more reluctant than the new york times as an example, in making assertions and connecting obvious dots. Of course, the new york times connects dots where there are no dots to begin with...

Having said that, you will NEVER see RT going after Putin or the corrupt Russian oligarch/eastern orthodox/patrician/bureaucratic/military industrial complex EVER. But, then, that is not their mission.

Going aftyer Putin is probably best left to the new york times, cnn, time magazine, pbs, you know the works -- the entire US empire ministries of propaganda which goose step and sieg heil automatically without even being told. Most obedient servants rthey are....

My comment from Dark Age America: The Fragmentation of Technology.

"I’m fond of slide rules, love rail travel, cherish an as yet unfulfilled ambition to get deep into letterpress printing, and have an Extra class amateur radio license..." These look a lot like the the list you posted in January, one that I summarized as 'A Steampunk calculator' and six other sustainable technologies from The Archdruid. I'm glad to see that you're consistent, and not in the manner that is the hobgoblin of little minds. As for what the near future holds, it might look like the "reverse innovation" of technologies intended for the developing world, where the resource constraints awaiting North America already exist, are imported here. I told you about the latter in a comment to "The Steampunk Future Revisited" back in March. I recall you got a good chuckle out of the expression back then, comparing it to the "glorious victories" during Germany's retreat along the Eastern Front.

On the other hand, there are technologies that you have said are headed for the scrap heap and soon. One of them is crewed spaceflight. I bring that up because NASA is testing what it's touting as it's next giant leap, the Orion spacecraft tomorrow. They think it's a new dawn. It may just be a sunset.

Greer: Pinku-sensei, why, yes, it's a very similar list; no doubt I'd be into canal boats or tall ships if I lived someplace where they were currently viable! As for the Orion spacecraft, it'll be interesting to see how long that's going to be able to get funding. I have my own guess, but we'll see.