And self evidently, most of the time that silence is nothing like acquiescence or learning: it is first brooding, then forgetting. Einstein posited that human stupidity is infinite. It is not: human VANITY is, and vanity, when wounded, does not adapt through thinking new thoughts, but in anger at the unwanted intruder in a once-happy home. I know this. I continue to debate to make my own arguments stronger, and to learn new things. I am often forced into learning things I did not know. This is a good outcome. I also come across new thoughts, which is VERY useful even when the discussion itself had no persuasive value at all.
That is the prologue. I would simply, here, like to ask once again that in regard to a debate started on this thread that David Brin, the author, either respond to me with arguments based upon actual facts, and proper use of reason, or pay me the $100 he wagered me that I could not address what, truth be told, were some childishly inane and even propagandistic themes, that scarcely rose to the level of argument.
But SUCH IS THE STATE OF DEBATE IN THIS COUNTRY, and in large measure around the world. Educated, VERY educated people with 150 plus IQ’s say demonstrably STUPID things, over and over, and over. How are the less educated, less intelligent supposed to sort through the horseshit on NBC and NPR and New York Times? They can’t, and they don’t, which is why it is ESSENTIAL that the people capable of dealing skillfully with abstraction DO SO.
All they do is posit, once and for all, that, say, Medicare is the best way to protect the health of the old, then simply repeat it. The abstractions they propose depend upon assumptions they are eminently unwilling to examine. As I have said often, one stops deserving the label moderate, or liberal, when one no longer CARES about the effects of policies, and focuses all effort simply on the implementation of those policies. Mao’s agricultural policies killed tens of millions, but he DIDN’T CARE.