We recently interviewed James Howard Kunstler on our radio show, and he despaired that the morons in the United States were making sensible action – like, such as self-preservationing ourselves – impossible. Perhaps that seems harsh, but I have managed to tap into a vein of idiocy myself. These fools are attempting to explain to me – sometimes in a very condescending manner – that there is no such thing as “truth”; everything is subjective.
Here are some quotes from the morans; warning, the stupid may hurt.
Mark Harrison, Executive Producer of The National, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news program: “…it is not the CBC’s obligation to determine what is “truth”…” [Truth in fucking quotation marks? Like there is no such thing?]
Commenter Mike Vroom: “…you speak of truth as an absolute and that is pure fallacy. There is no such thing as truth for everyone. What you perceive to be true may be (and often is) seen as false to another person depending on their frame of reference.”
Commenter Gary Parker: “…who difines [sic] what the truth is Brian? The goal of responsible media, and it’s [sic] a goal that has been pointed out to you very clearly, is to present all sides of the argument, respect different opinions and then let the public decide what it deem [sic] to be true.”
Commenter Daniel Levine: “truths are not universal, facts are….not only is it not the CBCs obligation to determine what “truth” is, I would go as far as to say it is their obligation NOT to determine what truth is. rather, tell us the facts and the objective opinions of all viewpoints and let me come to my own truth.”
No such thing as truth. Do these people actually believe the things that come out of their mouths? How do they get through the day? Presumably not by using anything discovered by science or created by technology. I suppose they would not complain if someone questioned this:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….”
That’s just some subjective truth, there. Mr. Levine manages to contradict himself in one short phrase: “truths are not universal, facts are…”
So, facts are universal, i.e., true, but there is no such thing as universal truth. I haven’t been to China, but perhaps gravity works differently there. I’m sure Mr. Levine would fight for my right to assert such, and Mr. Harrison would think it a valid point-of-view for the news.
As disturbing as is the intellectual void these comments reveal, the most troubling to me is that the Executive Producer of a news program, or perhaps I should say “news,” thinks all truth is subjective. How does someone get into this position while believing there is no such thing as truth and it is not the obligation of the news to report it? Perhaps he previously worked in the banking industry.
The fact is, some things are true and some are not. We know things are true because they are based on facts. For example, science has determined that smoking does, in fact, greatly increase one’s risk of cancer, although there are paid shills who still dispute this. Some of those same shills also dispute another scientific finding, that global warming is causing dangerous climate change.
And I suspect this last is what drew out the stupid in these people; they don’t like the facts about climate change, and the only way to get rid of inconvenient reality is to deny that reality exists. Unfortunately for them and for all of us, reality does not go away because you pretend it is not there. No, reality just is, and we either recognise and live within it, or cease to be part of it.
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This post was mentioned on Reddit by NoMoreNicksLeft: Sounds like an argument over semantics. How does this relate to /r/collapse?…
The only intellectual void revealed here is unfortunately between the ears of the author…
If you think truth is absolute and that there is no question about what is true then you are missing the point. Heck the fact that we can even argue about the meaning of “truth” points to the fact that it is not the same from every perspective.
Just look at the wikipedia article on truth and you will see there are several accepted theories out there about how to define truth. If you have the key to total understanding on this issue you should write up a paper and collect your nobel prize now.
Mike – Against my better judgement, I approved your comment. Do you really think there is no such thing as truth, Mike? Do you reject: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” If someone is holding you up at gunpoint, should we try to see it from the robber’s point-of-view before deciding whether to help you?
But let’s get back to science. Do you reject the link between smoking cigarettes and cancer that scientists have found? How about your car – it was designed by an engineer who you better hope held certain things to be true, like the tensile strength of steel. Or do you only disagree with inconvenient truths?
You seem to equate truth to science, and to a certain extent you would be correct in that science tries to uncover how things really function. But even in science we have learned that its not so easy. Read up on Schrödinger, Heisenberg a bit… or pick up a copy of Feynman’s excellent “QED”
However “the truth” is not something that a news organization should be trying to make judgments on (science doesn’t judge in its search for truths). When news makes judgments on what side of a story to show to the exclusion of all others you get things like fox news who put forth the truth as they see it even though most rational people can see they are horribly biased.
At least the CBC tries to do the honest thing and shows all sides even if they may not agree with them. Are you seriously arguing against journalistic fairness? That seems to be what the author of the story wants to do.
I’m not arguing (and never have) that I agree with the original story on the CBC that caused all this… I am arguing that they should continue to show all sides as fairly as possible and not be the arbiters of “truth”. Even when (especially when) we don’t like what the other side is saying.
Mike – Science is a means of determining facts (truths) about how the world works. I am talking of the physical sciences, where actual measurements can be taken, not the theoretical sciences.
Science frequently discovers things that we then consider true. The Earth revolves around the sun, for example. This is a fact. It is true. If the CBC does a story about our solar system, they do not call up flat-earthers for their view.
Another example is vaccines; science says there is no link between autism and vaccines, but many worried parents firmly believe there is. The CBC sticks with the science-backed position. They would not allow Rex Murphy to preach not “Don’t vaccinate your children,” because that would be irresponsible and dangerous.
I am asking that they do the same with climate change. The science is quite clear, and giving a denier a platform is dangerous and irresponsible.
The idea that there are multiple sides to anything is not necessarily correct for science. If your doctor and hundreds of specialists tell you that you have cancer…that’s an unfortunate truth. You really don’t need some quack telling you cancer is a scam by the doctors to make money, and you don’t need their treatments.
[...] thing as objective truth. Several of the commenters wholeheartedly supported this view, which I mocked the lot of them for. It is amazing democracy has survived this long. Let’s try again. I hold the belief that [...]
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