Hodgepodge

So this week I encountered more willful ignorance.  Willful science ignorance.  The first instance was a Facebook conversation that I encountered, I know Facebook the one thing is guaranteed to set people off.  I have very few FB friends, about 60, but they are varied and truthfully I am looking to delete a few people who I added because they asked and I was being polite.  But they are varied.  I have a Libertarian acquaintance who I have talked about once before or twice.  They posted last week that a scientist resigned from his position back in 2010 because he thought that the entire scientific community had bought into a bunch of malarkey about Climate Change and that all the money was being invested in that point of view and it was wrong!  

I did some basic, very very basic Internet research, that none of the friends of Libertarian did, because the story matched their point of view.  I looked up the scientist on the Internet.  A simple google search.  I got his Wikipedia entry.  Hal Lewis.  Resigned his membership in the science community.  Was he a very famous and prominent Climate Scientist?  Was he fighting the good fight for years and had unquestionable proof? No, No and No!  He had been retired since 1991.  He had no proof, only suspicions.  He may have been prominent in his field, back in the 80s, which was NOT climate science, but nuclear reactor science.  No proof, no basis, no leg to stand on, but he supports the view that climate change deniers support and that makes him and his ideas truth!

No response; I did not expect any.

The other instance of ignorance came from a coworker.  Nice guy.  In the same way that Hitler was a nice guy to his friends.  This guy is skirting the public's ideas about Neo-Nazis.  He thinks Swastikas are cool and that Jews are responsible for most of the worlds problems.  Other coworkers are oblivious or complicit.  I think he feels comfortable because I don't react externally to his views, thank you ASD.   Anyway, this week it was climate change is stupid and other stuff I will get into.  His father is a lawyer and he is a history major at University, which he has dropped out of.  He has only the compulsory sciences that he had to take in high school and has forgotten that, as it is useless.  He knows what he knows and it is the truth, because he knows it is the truth.  He admits that his science knowledge is poor, but he gets all he needs to know from his girlfriend, who is in Neural Science, ie human brain biology.  

He knows that climates are affected by cycles and it will all work out in the end.  He also thinks that the Polar Bear should die if it can't adapt.  Also that Polar Bears are adapting by diving deep under that water to hunt.  He knows that the Media takes pictures of emaciated Polar Bears and blames climate change on the state of the bear when to him it is clear they have taken a picture of a sick and dying bear to pass off the 'story' of climate change.  

We pick what we believe and we trust what we pick to believe.  This is what we call a bias.  We all have them and even the non-partisan sources are essentially politically aligned.  Political alignment need not be explicit, but it is there.  For example, politics:  a left leaning person gives you the facts and lets you make your decision based upon those facts.  Typically they will omit some facts that don't support their views, but then fell guilty that they are not giving the full story and put them back in.  The idea is that you will make the correct choice if you have all the facts.  Liberal media sources do the same, they give you the facts and they don't omit details for their benefit.  Right leaning people, give you their opinion.  They are right, so listen up.  Seems simplistic, but that is the way it is.  Fascist governments thrive on an undereducated populace, and a communist, in the truest sense of the word on an educated populace.  The Communist governments in the pasture not true communist political situations, they were in the beginning but got co-opted by strong dictators, essentially right wing individuals.  True communist governments fail because they constantly educate each other and fail to govern.  Social democracies are a better form.  I digress.  My point is that some people prefer not to think and let other people do their thinking for them.  They listen to news sources that tell them the way to think and they never stray to other places.  People trust the people that have similar world views and they don't change; they are not open to change.  They will not hear of it.  Unless they trust you.  I suppose if someone who they trust changes their mind, that might help change others minds, but I suspect that people would just start no trusting them.  

Some people thought Rob Ford was doing a great job, and they supported him until the end.  Their support would not flag even though he was shown on video doing questionable things, he was accused of doing a lot of questionable things, but his supporter still support him.  If Rob Ford is incarcerated for anything, they will still support him.  That is the nature of Right-wing politicals. 

What I have noticed, sadly, about the direction of Canadian politics over the past 30 years is that it has changed.  It has slid down the political scale from the center to the right.  Canada has changed from the Canada that people still think of when they think of Canada, that it is nice and polite, to a different Canada, a meaner Canada.  

People outside this country have noticed.  Canadians still believe that they are the World's Peacekeepers and that we deserve a seat on the Security Council, but we don't.  Not now, maybe not again.  Not until we Canadians become World team players again.  Ask not what the World can give us, but what WE can give back to the World.  We need to pull our heads out of our asses.