Be Skeptical

This post will be a bit political. If you would prefer a bit of weirdly subtle  humiliation kink, try out my Friend Tanky's newly-posted story STRICT JULIE HUMILIATED BY HUSBAND.

I haven't posted anything political since Jan 4 as I thought tensions had become way too high, and I thought it would not be constructive at all to do so. However, I feel that tensions have calmed down quite a bit so I thought I would dip my toes back into those waters, because, really, what else do you want from your spanking blogger other than political commentary, amiright?

I we look back on the four years of Trump, one thing that definitely came out is the extent to which most of us have realized we are being lied to.

I suppose it was always there. The people were lied to about all sorts of things during Vietnam (e.g., the Pentagon Papers). J. Edgar Hoover, one of the founding figures of the FBI, a figure of whom the FBI headquarters is named after, maintained blackmail files on influential US persons and wielded immense power as a result. McCarthy trumped up charges. Churchill refused multiple peace overtures from Germany and kept that hidden. Pearl Harbor could have been avoided. We were lied to about "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in Iraq. We were lied to about the NSA routinely monitoring the communications of US citizens. We were lied to about Iran-Contra. We were lied to about Fast and Furious Mexican gun-running. We were lied to about nutrition, opiates, Volkswagen diesel engines, and so on, and so on, and so on. In the Trump era, the lies accelerated greatly (both by him and about him).

If we haven't figured it out yet, we are just being obtuse at this point. We care about what the mainstream media and social media tell us to care about. We accept whatever narrative we are fed (if it happens to be true, it's purely accidental). Political and business/financial forces manipulate the media for their own purposes. How about let's not be puppets?

President Eisenhower warned us in his famous 1961 farewell speech. That speech was two years in the making and was heavily worked and reworked by Eisenhower himself. It is well worth a listen today in its entirety.

You can find the full transcript here: TRANSCRIPT

Ike, first and foremost, calls for balance in all things (5:40):

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs – balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage – balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between action of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

Arguably, the vast programs now being pushed by the government, what is it, about $10T being spent by the US government now for all manner of things under the guise of COVID-19 response and Infrastructure, are what Ike may deem a lack of balance?

Ike admits that given the geo-political climate there was now a need for a vast, professional, standing military unlike anything seen in the past, however he warns against the dangers (8:00):

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Was he seeing what was developing in Vietnam and not liking it? What would he have said about the Iraq war, and the endless wars now in the Middle East? What would he have said about the Patriot Act and its ongoing spying on the American people  "for their own good". What would he have said to the presence of barbed wire and 30,000 troops occupying the US capital?

He also warns about a second potential calamity. While indicating that scientific research has needed to become much more ambitious and costly, he warns of the dangers (9:47):

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system-ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

I see echoes of drug companies, covid response, and climate change at least in part driven by these forces, not for the betterment of mankind, but for profit. We have government that has abdicated its responsibilities and is almost universally "on the take" to these special interest groups, aided and abetted by we in the public only too eager to be fed pablum from the media and take it for truth.

We must be critical. We must be skeptical. I quote the words of the famous scientist, Richard Feynman.

He presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, 1966 in New York City, (click for full transcript):

As a matter of fact, I can also define science another way: Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

When someone says, "Science teaches such and such," he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, "Science has shown such and such," you might ask, "How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?"

It should not be "science has shown" but "this experiment, this effect, has shown." And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments – but be patient and listen to all the evidence – to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at.

In a field which is so complicated [as education] that true science is not yet able to get anywhere, we have to rely on a kind of old-fashioned wisdom, a kind of definite straightforwardness. I am trying to inspire the teacher at the bottom to have some hope and some self-confidence in common sense and natural intelligence. The experts who are leading you may be wrong.

I have probably ruined the system, and the students that are coming into Caltech no longer will be any good. I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television – words, books, and so on – are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.

Amen to that.

If you hear an anecdote on the news being used to make a broader point: be skeptical!

If you hear a single statistic being used to justify a thing: be skeptical!

If you don't see a thing being compared to another thing: be skeptical!

If you don't see both benefits and costs being presented: be skeptical!

Be aware that us being lied to is no longer the exception, it is now business as usual.

Be skeptical.