Ah, now we are talking!
“ The approach you promote is one in which discourse loses all significance, since it no longer rests on anything. The only thing that is left is power — after you’ve destroyed the notion of truth, “debates” are won not by figuring out what is true and what isn’t, but by whoever is most powerful.”
That is the most relevant thing you have said. It is exactly the kind of honesty that I’m looking for in human interactions and debates. We could argue for days, but in the end, the most important and relevant point is that one: that you fear that unless we can ground debates in fact, that “might makes right”.
That is your subjective human talking here, and that is what is most true about this whole conversation. I do not believe that if we get rid of facts that “might makes right”, on the contrary. I believe that nowadays, “might” instrumentalizes facts to serve it’s agenda and uses science as an argument of authority to shut down all opposition and debate.
Now to address some of your points. I fully agree with your statement about capitalism and democracy. Indeed, the decision as to whether these are the “best” systems or not cannot be objectively or factually proven. But my point is that this applies to most if not all human decisions.
Why did Newton decide to observe the apple fall and draw certain conclusions instead of counting the leaves on the apple tree? Both are facts! The human judgement about what facts are “useful” and which to disregard is already a bias which is grounded in subjectivity. There is always a subjective, human reason why a human waves around certain facts and not others, most notably fear of death (as in climate change).
As regards these very concrete issues such as vaccines or climate change, I will simply state that throughout history, the only thing that is truly constant is change. At no point in time did humans ever reach an objective immutable, eternal truth about reality. Scientific models have come and gone. You can go look up how the “scientists” of the day reacted to Einstein’s paper when it was first published, or the publication of the theory of tectonic plates moving around on oceans of lava, or even the reaction of scientists to the first man controlled flight… There were physicists that published papers proving it was impossible with plenty of formulas and saying it was a hoax. Assuming that now, because we are so “advanced”, we have reached a state where the Universe will stop surprising us is a good reflection of the arrogance of our civilization. And of course, retroactively, all people now say that “of course, Einstein’s theories are just common sense”. It’s so easy to follow blindly whatever “mainstream” beliefs (including scientific models) are, you feel less lonely, you feel supported, you feel a sense of belonging (all fundamental human needs), but that does not make these models “true”. They may be the “truth” of the day, but they will most certainly be supplanted by new discoveries in a decade or two.
Regarding climate change, for instance, since you mention it, I believe that the model does not take sufficiently into account the effect of natural observed cycles of both the Earth and the Sun (for instance the phenomenon of magnetic pole shifts or solar activity cycles). However, I still believe that all of the measures promoted by the climate change camp should be implemented. Not because I think their model is accurate, but because there are a billion other better reasons to shift away from fossil fuels: the proven impact on human health (especially in big cities), the pollution of plastics, the short term limits to fossil fuels given the demand (peak oil/gas), the ecological disaster of drilling for oil (both offshore and in land)… For some reason, scientists thought that by opting for an “end of the world” narrative and scare tactics, that it would get the point across more strongly, but look at the backlash! Climate change is a good argument supporting my point: by pretending to argue from a “shut up, it’s science” perspective, instead of honestly presenting your human concerns and letting people figure it out for themselves, you get a “knee jerk” opposition voting in Presidents like Trump.
I’m not too concerned about all of this, however. This article is old. I have since moved on to more metaphysical considerations (see my other articles)… :-)
