RE: Why This Lifelong Environmentalist is 97% Sure That "Climate Change" Is A Scam
this is certainly the most interesting new knowledge I've come across for a while.
This is the sort of thing I live for!
...at the end of the day the idea that we should be living lightly because it's ethically or spiritually sound, or just simply easier (more efficient) rather than because the experts say so.
This is so much of my focus. It's better for each one of us, individually, to live in healthier, less toxic ways. It's better right now, it's better next year, it's better in a decade or two. Even if our actions in no way affected the rest of the world, eating healthy, avoiding radiation and toxins, and drinking clean water are going to make your life better, both short- and long-term.
Come to think of it deferring to distant experts, especially those making claims about 'big systems' is quite possibly the thing which keeps us locked into sub-optimal ways of living.
Yes! The main problem humanity has been dealing with for the entirety of history is "authority." People giving up responsibility for their actions, because an authority figure told them to, or forced them to, generally at the barrel of a gun held by someone else who has bought into that "authority." Whether it's religion, the feudal system, The State, or the new religion of scientism, nothing good comes of people not thinking for themselves.
As to the big bang, I stand firmly in the belief that I don't know, and neither does any human alive. I personally see the physical world as the effect side, purely a manifestation of the causal (consciousness) side of things. But I don't know for sure there either.
I'm sure you've come across Kuhn's Paradigm Critique of science - in which he argues scientists operate in a kind of mob mentality - within a paradigm, ignoring any evidence that doesn't fit it, until enough mounts up to smash through the illusion, and then onto the next.
Basically a critique of the claim that science is objective, and gradually cumulative - that particular documentary really reminded me of that.
As to the Big Bang, I think we all need to admit we're in the dark on that.
Pun not entirely intended.
Oh ya. I refer to the current phenomenon as the the Religion of Scientism, because it works exactly the same. Folks like Neil DeGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye are cardinals, and the average person just assumes that because someone is a "scientist" (or a "science guy"), that they must be closer to truth, so we should just listen to them.
Science is the search for truth, a logical means of questioning the things we think/believe/are curious about. Science doesn't really leave room for the kind of faith that we see around SO many topics, and certainly science is never settled.
Just the fact that humans are utterly incapable of observing reality, due to our limited sensory input and HUGE psychological filters, means that the best we can do is keep trying to get closer to what actually is. While acknowledging that we're basically deaf & blind, and what we know this year will mostly be disproven within a generation or two.
Fair point about not being able to observe reality, it always amazes me how arrogant we are in assuming we can know and understand the universe through our senses, which really are quite narrow - all one has to do is to think what certain animals can see, hear and smell that we humans can't - and that's just scratching the surface of our limitations!