Imagine that you work for a company that does any kind of specialty work, anything at all — urban planning, furniture making, aerospace design — and for some reason the company’s owner dies and his aunt inherits the entire company (it’s a small company). She’s a kindly aunt but knows nothing about urban planning, furniture making, or aerospace design, but she’s a “common sense” person who is sure that smarty-pants people don’t understand efficiency, and she’s determined to set the company straight and make more money. She finished high school, perhaps, but never college, but is sure she knows better than you; she’s chatted with people in coffee shops about the sorry states of traffic lanes, dining table chairs, and the small seats on passenger jets. Never mind those safety regulations, nobody wants to pay for those, and her friends will repeal the safety rules. Never mind the new designs each year, what was wrong with the basic ones from when she grew up? Why, she can cut $2 trillion and fire most of the staff, and everything will be fine! And if you talk back, or try to point out facts that kindly aunt doesn’t want to hear, you’ll be the first to get the axe. This is where we are.
Today’s items:
- RFK Jr threatens one of civilization’s greatest achievements: modern public health;
- RFK Jr is not qualified because he’s an activist, not a scientist;
- If you don’t understand why science is inherently inefficient, you don’t understand science, or appreciate its discoveries;
- Free Inquiry’s Ronald A. Lindsay on “The Suicide of the Nation”;
- Short items about how Trump is picking cabinet appointments on whim; how the pick of RFK Jr is somehow payback for Covid; how a prominent Christian Nationalist would simply shoot anyone trying to cross the border; how evangelicals are pushing to rescind LGBTQ protections; and how Bannon’s promise to burn institutions to the ground sounds like a foreign invasion bent on destroying the US;
NY Times, Opinion by Zeynep Tufekci, 16 Nov 2024: How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Could Destroy One of Civilization’s Best Achievements
